Rest and Training is a Notoriously Difficult Balance to Find!

It's something that I am still searching for more and trying to understand better.

But today I want to share my thoughts on this as it's quite fresh in my mind at the moment.

For the past weeks, I've been shadowing a yoga teacher training here in Bali.

It's been great for being a student again, picking up little additional bits of info and understanding on subjects like anatomy, philosophy, alignment and teaching.

I am also seeing the intensity and impact the training has on the students' bodies.

Obviously, this is not something new, having done trainings myself and taught on many too.

But it got me thinking recently that there is just not enough rest time within the hectic schedules of yoga teacher trainings for the body to fully recover.

So it got me thinking, how much rest is enough, and what is optimal?

A little google searching will tell you 24 hours if you've done a light amount of exercise or muscle work should be enough.

But a heavier session will probably need around 48-72 hours for optimal recovery and muscle growth. Or even longer if you do something super intense.

For me personally my acro sessions I would class as medium to heavy intensity. Especially training standing tires my muscles out a lot.

This would suggest that after a decent acro session I should rest the relevant muscle groups for 2-3 days.

Interestingly this feels pretty close to what I have naturally tended towards.

I have a teaching schedule and have sometimes got to move and do more, but I try to spread out the heavy intensity sessions every 2 or 3 days.

The other important point to make in case you aren't already aware is that...

Your muscles don't actually get stronger when you train.

Your muscles get stronger when you rest.

Training may give you a pump and a surge of blood to the muscles, but it actually breaks down and tears the muscle fibers, which then grow back stronger and bigger when you rest and recover.

In my experience when I have a good proper rest and recovery for a few days and then do an acro session, I often feel really strong and able to be more solid and stable as a base.

The other interesting thing is that it helps my body to integrate and understand movements.

For example, recently Laura and I were training podcheska (inlocates) very consistently 2-3 times a week.

Then recently we didn't train the skill or pathways for maybe 7-10 days.

When we came back to it my form and consistency were way better and more solid.

The rest allowed my body to learn the movements better (at least that's how it feels to me anyway).

So I wanted to share these thoughts and experiences with you, in case you are training very regularly and high intensity.

Then my advice would be to give as much focus and commitment to rest as you do to the training.

Because it's pretty much equally important, and you might be surprised that you'll actually improve more by resting more. ;)