Rest Days

 I have a big issue with fitness rest days. I know I need to take them in order to be able to push myself to perform my best but I feel guilty taking them. 

I need rest days because after a week of giving it my all every day my body is just tired. My muscles ache and sometimes I have other injuries that crop up. I am on my way to patellar dislocation so sometimes my knee just needs a rest. Doing the asymmetrical training in mbfa really woke up the arthritis in my back. I had to stop mbfa and that type of training but my back still isn’t right so rest days are integral to getting back to normal and living life pain free. 

So why would I not take rest days?  First of all I am nervous that if I stop working out, even for just one day, it would be so easy to not go back to it.  Then, I know I’m supposed to do 30 minutes of exercise every day which sometimes doesn’t happen on a rest day. Finally there is the Apple Watch. 

I love my Apple Watch but sometimes...  I just want to write my watch an email. Dear Apple Watch, I really want to close my rings every day and I appreciate your reminder that I’m usually farther along but today is a rest day. My body needs it. My body also needs you to count ALL of my minutes when I’m walking even if my pace is slow because my knee or back hurts because I’m actually moving when I could be sitting on the couch.  If you did that then my exercise ring WOULD be further along. I don’t want to have to lie and say that I’m strength training or doing yoga to get you to count all of my minutes. I want us to have an honest relationship but when I walk over a mile in a half hour and you give me 4 exercise minutes it makes me not want to walk at all and just sit on my rear end instead.  I love you and how you constantly push me to get better but your programmers need to allow for rest days because I for one need them. 

Ok, I really shouldn’t be bullied by my watch because that is ludicrous but every Saturday it’s the same thing...check your rings. Ugh. So I’m getting better about just ignoring it and taking the rest day.  What does a rest day look like for me?  I just don’t do my regular workout. I still walk and stretch but that’s about it.  It’s good for my body, especially now when I’m trying to recover from the asymmetrical training that was so NOT good for my body. 

The current program I’m doing, 9 Week Control Freak has 2 rest days per week. I’m really trying to wrap my head around that. Just 5 days of workouts a week???  I don’t know if I can handle that. I’m 2 weeks in and I’ve done a cardio workout on the 2nd rest day. I should probably take it and just do yoga on that rest day but 2 days of the Apple Watch guilting me into closing my rings?  I don’t know if I’m ready for that kind of pressure!