It isn’t un­usu­al to oc­ca­sion­al­ly want to skip a work­out but if you are the kind who gen­er­al­ly lives, breathes and sleeps the gym life, then all of a sud­den be­come dis­in­ter­est­ed, you may be very guilty of overex­ert­ing your­self. So in­stead of go­ing to the gym and pos­si­bly risk­ing in­jury by per­form­ing in­cor­rect range of mo­tion/form, my ad­vice is to take a week off from the gym. You have ab­solute­ly noth­ing to lose and many ben­e­fits.

When you re­sume train­ing, re­duce your vol­ume, be sure to get ad­e­quate and qual­i­ty sleep, let’s say about six to nine hours per night and prop­er nu­tri­tion - in­clud­ing smart sup­ple­men­ta­tion is a must, es­pe­cial­ly in the pre to post work­out win­dow. Ex­er­cise is typ­i­cal­ly great for your men­tal health but if you’re in the habit of over-train­ing, chances are it would have the op­po­site ef­fect. I have ob­served that folks who over-train tend to view ex­er­cise as some­thing it’s NOT - name­ly a chal­lenge, a con­quest or a void-filler. They may even have self es­teem is­sues where body im­age is con­cerned and think the more they do, the bet­ter they look. It is there­fore ex­treme­ly im­por­tant to know the re­al mo­tives be­hind train­ing. I sug­gest that you set goals and stick to them.

Note each work­out car­ries its share of dam­aged mus­cle tis­sues, this is nec­es­sary as the body re­builds and re­pairs it­self for the next rou­tine. Af­ter ex­er­cise, a re­cov­ery pe­ri­od is es­sen­tial to mus­cle and tis­sue re­pair and strength build­ing. This be­comes more crit­i­cal, es­pe­cial­ly af­ter a heavy weight train­ing ses­sion. Mus­cles re­quire any­where be­tween 24 to 48 hours to re­pair and re­build so work­ing too soon af­ter a ses­sion, sim­ply leads to tis­sue break down in­stead of build­ing.

Some peo­ple rock their shoul­ders back in the most in­no­cent way and are proud to say, “I work out sev­en days a week.” Well, you are se­ri­ous­ly do­ing your­self a dis­ser­vice. Re­cov­ery is a very im­por­tant as­pect of your work­out as it pre­pares your body for the grilling which means ad­e­quate rest is ab­solute­ly para­mount.

The av­er­age per­son on­ly needs about three to five days of ex­er­cise per week to feel great and get that fan­tas­ti­cal­ly look­ing physique. No need to drain your­self. One of the worst things you can do is over-train. YES, you can over-train! Some signs the body gives when over-train­ing are: feel­ing ex­treme­ly fa­tigued to the point where you can’t even sleep (in­som­nia), sore mus­cles for ex­tend­ed pe­ri­ods, in­abil­i­ty to ward off ill­ness (re­duced im­mu­ni­ty), feel­ing slug­gish (lethar­gic), lack of mo­ti­va­tion, mood changes and in­creased in­juries. I re­it­er­ate, at least 24-48 hours rest be­tween work­out rou­tines per week is a must.

We are all fal­li­ble be­ings, there­fore, it is im­por­tant to get our be­hav­iour to match our in­ten­tions be­cause that cre­ates a brand new ex­pe­ri­ence which cre­ates brand new thoughts. What say you?