Workout of the Day:
“Lynne”
Five rounds for max reps of:
Body weight bench press
Pull-ups
Rest Schmest
Written by Michele Vieux
I have a couple of CrossFitting friends that just can’t rest. They workout EVERY day, sometimes multiple times per day, and NEVER take a rest day. You might think they are super committed to their training, but I think they are diminishing their returns on their hard work and might be setting themselves up for failure and injury. This is called OVERTRAINING and it is a medically recognized condition. YOUR BODY NEEDS REST. It is necessary to repair worn, tired, and injured muscles; to give time for the central nervous system to unwind; and for the body’s energy sources to be replenished. If you don’t schedule rest days into your routine, your body just might do it for you. Take one or two on your own or be forced into a break of a week or more.
It was just a couple weeks before the CrossFit Games Qualifiers that I injured my knee pretty severely whilst demonstrating an (aggressive) kip for a client. I know it sounds ridiculous to get hurt this way but I could barely walk. I could barely get around my house without pain, and my training was forced to a screeching halt. It was hard for me to deal with since the Quals just were just around the corner, but my body was getting worn and I knew it could only lead to more injury if I didn’t take a break.
I took one week (okay…6 days) completely off of exercise. I had been hitting it pretty hard for the two months leading up to the injury—grueling workouts, heavier loads, and multiple WODs per day—which most likely played a role in its occurrence.
During my week off, I spent time addressing one of the issues that most definitely contributed to my current injury as well as a slew of problems I’ve been dealing with for a couple of years—flexibility. I enlisted Calvin to help me rehab. He showed me a variety of stretches and exercises to help me strengthen the injured area but more importantly, to prevent future injury.
After my six-day hiatus, I began to hit it every-other-day for the next week and kept up with the stretching routine as I eased back into my workouts. By week three, I was back on the regular 3 on 1 off schedule and I felt great. I could barely walk just a couple weeks ago and now I was hitting PRs on my Oly lifts and my met-con was still right where I left it. I felt strong, confident and invincible.
I have been “back on it” with the strict diet and ramping up the workout regimen since Memorial Day. Last weekend I was in Huntington Beach hitting a WOD with the SoCal Six (the other women who qualified from this region) when “pop!”—my hammie that’s been giving me trouble for a few months finally had enough on the downward motion of a SDHP. It was a partner WOD, there was a crowd, and I didn’t want to quit. I asked for a sub for the SDHP (the judges foolishly picked hang power clean) and I finished the third of four rounds. Just as I’m about to start round four, Julie (one of the owners of CFHB) walks over to me with a bag of ice and tells me to sit down. I was planning on finishing the WOD but, I complied.
Then I got the bigger blow—Coachie Poo (Sage) refused to train me at our regularly scheduled session on Monday! Now I am REALLY annoyed and plan my own workout session for the next day. Thank goodness I had a good night sleep that night so I had a chance to come to my senses and listen to my coach (and others looking out for me).
My body is telling me I need another rest. I don’t really have a choice in the matter—the hamstring plays a pretty major role in a lot of movements we do around here (and in our everyday lives). Maybe if I had listened to my screaming hammie a couple months ago and avoided activities that aggravated it I wouldn’t be sitting on the sidelines now.
My point with all of this is that you have to plan your own rests instead of forcing yourself into rest via overtraining and injury. And, “rest days” don’t have to mean you sit around like a lump. Think active recovery—go for a walk with the family, stretch, do yoga, or shoot some hoop.
Tags: Rest and Recovery
great post Wedge! I agree with EVERY word. When I was competing in oly lifting, we would always go really hard for a couple weeks and then when we felt really tired my coach would have us back off for almost a week and we all came back and made prs. The body isnt made to go go go all the time. My dad always says that there is no such thing as overtraining, but there can be under recovery.
Oh and its a good thing you listened or else I would have given you 40 rep squats when you recovered! (even though you most likely wouldve liked it)
Right on point, M. It took me almost a year to shake my stupid attitude of “more is better,” and cut from 11 workouts per week to my current 5. I was fully convinced that resting more would slow my gains and really cut my fitness level. Now that I sleep more and work out less, I’m seeing big strength AND metcon gains, and my back is finally on the mend. You don’t improve by doing the workout, you improve by recovering from the workout.
Great post.
Michele ma belle:
You better take care of yourself! If you’re not healthy for the games, I’ll punch you in the neck.
If you can’t compete, what will I do with my tshirts: “I know Michele Vieux”
“Michele Vieux coached me once” and “I’ve eaten Michele Vieux’s cooking”
I’m going for cool points by pointing out to people that I have been in the same room with you.
Well that’s pretty much of a drag Michelle.
It is super hard to listen to the little aches and pains (it’s not really PAIN right, just a little TIGHT, and besides it goes away after a warm up so how bad is it? not bad at all I’ll just do the WOD).
AND for addicts it is really, really, really, hard to take time off.
Luckily for me, I have two little terrorists that keep me from overtraining and keep me active on my rest days. (I walked around and around and around Legoland yesterday)
I hope your hammy gets happy soon.
wut wize words M! i wuz thinkin the same thing yesterday and ended up takin a day off from the WOD. see i don’t always not follow my own advice. glad you’re stayin active despite the hammie; go get them upper body gymnastics skillz!
L-O-V-E the post. That’s why yer MMMMM Good. Currently on XFit WOD rest day number 8. I keep having lower back soreness and it’s always been directly related to my tight hamstrings. So Lame. All the technical training out the do’ when tight hammies prevent you from picking up the bar correctly. Calveeen is the shit and told me this a year ago
I am going to crawl into one of those pilates reformer things for the next few weeks at Bruno’s pilates place and work on hamstring flexibility so I can stop being such a pain in the ass.
Great post mgood!!
M,
Great post and I think we can all appreciate what you are going through. I must say that in the two and a half months leading up to the Northeast Qualifier I finally adopted the 3 on 1 off protocol and I must say it was very beneficial. But the mental side was difficult at first. I was and still am a WOD junkie who loves to look for unique workouts and I actually can’t really stand the ‘girl’ workouts even though I do them to measure my progress. It is still difficult to see a great workout posted on your off day and not want to go and hit it. Well I guess that is why they invented the Erg for me.
WOD
150 reps (Bench 14/15/12/11/10 CTB 16/17/20/19/16) poor showing today.
Extremely poor showing POS. Anything less than 175 is unexcusable. Not! Nice work homey.
Nice post M!!
[...] some of the symptoms of overtraining but are you really training that hard? Michele’s post on overtraining suggests that working out without rest leads to the condition. I agree with [...]
[...] some of the symptoms of overtraining but are you really training that hard? Michele’s post on overtraining suggests that working out without rest leads to the condition. I agree with [...]