Tale of the Scale: Work and Rest

Rest.

Working out is equally about work and rest.

The work part seems fairly clear: head to the gym, sweat, push, balance, step, squeeze, hold, breathe. Work.

For the work part to be really successful, however, the body needs time to heal. That's called rest. I'm having a challenge with rest.

I get that rest = do not head to the gym. But there is so much to do in life that can challenge the concept of rest.

For example last Thursday. I had had a chest/legs workout Guido on Wednesday that was definitely challenging. (He was shocked when he grabbed the 12# weights for our bench press exercises and I admitted that I'd worked my way up to 20# all the time. I came to regret that admission.. but that's not this tale...), so Thursday was technically a rest day.

The weather outside was dry, sunny, pleasant. There was yard work to get done, specifically rotating out my compost bins. Now imagine a 50 gallon plastic barrel-shaped item filled with moist rotted leaved and fully rotted food. Or check out this blogpost that describes parts of the process.

I had rolled the Tumbler over to the perennial flower bed, tipped it over, and held on as wet rotted goodness inside started to pour out. I was bracing with my legs and using my arms to keep the composter from falling down the sloping part of the garden bed.

I felt every muscle I'd worked the day before and a few that I hadn't worked.

And I wondered how this fit into the idea of a rest day.

I continued to contemplate this dilemma.. how do get the work done that I need to do AND get my body the rest it needs between workouts... as I shoveled slightly rotted food and shredded paper from our "temporary holding bin" composter into the Tumbler. Again, feeling all those muscles being asked to work on a rest day.

I don't have an answer to this yet; but, I noticed I fell asleep about an hour or so earlier on both Wednesday and Thursday evening. Maybe my body has found the answer all on its own.

Rest.

I also blog at: A Stitch In Time throughout the week and BlogHer on Mondays and Saturdays.