taking a week off | Recovery, Warm-up, and Prehab | Forum

Post edited 2:07 pm – April 22, 2010 by Darrin

I just finished taking a week off – no lifting or running for a week.

It was REALLY hard to do!

I try to take a full week off 3 or 4 times a year.  Sometimes I take the break simultaneously for running and lifting, other times I stagger them.

If you're like me, exercise is a form of addiction so going a full week without is mentally difficult.  Here are some things I did to help:

- I focused on fat loss by eating super clean and eating less; in other words, all the attention I usually split between eating and exercising was now 100% on eating

- I did early morning fasted walks (no running)

- I kept busy with other things in life

- I did longer stretching sessions, mixing static and dynamic stretching plus some foam rolling; this mentally felt like exercise, so was a great stress relief

- I kept repeating to myself that "you'll come back stronger and faster if you take the full week off"

Today was my first day back, and it was GREAT.

What do you do to make it through your "off" weeks?