H E A LT H Y L I V I N G / OTL
The Importance of Rest and Recovery STORY BY MICAH BOSWELL
FINALLY! The gyms have reopened and you’ve been crushing your fitness goals the last few weeks. Suddenly, your body hits a wall. You decide to take a few days off to relieve your sore muscles and, before you know it, you’ve missed three whole weeks. What if I told you there are ways to heal your body before “hitting the wall” and quitting? Many people quit the first few weeks when starting their fitness journey. In my own experience, there were times my body felt DRAINED. Luckily, it doesn’t have to be this way. Thanks to my amazing coaches, I have learned how to properly rest and recover my body and I want to pass that along to you. To know how to rest properly, I want to give a basic understanding on how muscles grow. First of
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all, the body can endure a lot of stress and muscles essentially grow by being broken down during strenuous workouts. The body repairs the brokendown muscles by fusing them back together. This is how your muscles build and tone. Not having the appropriate amount of rest in between workouts leaves us without any recovery and leads to very fatigued muscles. We want to avoid this, because fatigued muscles prevent us from achieving our goals and, will most likely, result in injury. Active rest days help our bodies recover after a series of intense training. This allows muscles the time they need to heal and grow. However, these rest days do not mean sitting on your bum not doing anything. There are several low impact activities you can do to keep moving while giving
