The "Day Off"

I will be the first to admit, it's hard for me to take a day off when I know I'm supposed to be in the gym lifting. When I dislocated my shoulder and had to go to the ER for them to pop it back in, I decided to take "a few days" off after my PT told me to take a "few weeks" off. As soon as the pain stopped, I wanted to be back in there working, running, lifting.

That said, I'm not a morning person. I work out in the mornings because I'm too tired by the end of the workday to do any real work. Plus, Ryan goes in the morning...and it's way more fun to flirt with him there then go by myself. So when I wake up and the first thought that goes through my head is "Ugggh just 10 more minutes"-- that's pretty natural. Once I get up and dressed that feeling goes away and all I'm left with is the excitement of the non-crowded gym.

Me in the mornings.

Yesterday morning was a little different though. Yesterday I woke up and on top of the "Ugggh just 10 more minutes" was a "Damn, my body feels like lead. I don't know if I can move it." and a "There's no way I can lift, or run, or walk for that matter, or get out of bed at all." My stomach hurt, my body hurt, everything hurt. Now, I'm all for a lot of muscle pain, DOMS and other varieties. But this was different. Not the good kind of "you trained well, here is pain" hurt.

So here's the part where the old me (the ignore-my-body-me) would have said "Suck it up. It's just tiredness. Stop being a baby and get up." The part that argued with her this time said "No, stay in bed. Recover. Go harder tomorrow. You'll lose quality training today, so just switch your days around. Train tomorrow".

Thankfully I listened to my body. I could barely function yesterday, for some unknown reason. I slept, took a half day at work and went to bed at 9 pm last night. Then today I woke up, all my energy had returned, along with a fresh new drive to hit it hard in the gym. I ran fast, and lifted hard this morning. And I pretty much did my first unassisted pull-up. It wasn't to the standard that I wanted, but it was pretty close. So I'm not officially counting it yet, but I'm hoping in the next few weeks I'll be writing a super happy "I did it!!!" post.

I'm not advocating taking a day off every time you feel tired. I am advocating learning the levels of exhaustion of your body, knowing when it's advantageous to train and when it's detrimental, and listening to the voice inside that is trying to take care of you, not the one calling you a baby.