The Most Important Part of Your Workout

So you’ve created a great weekly workout schedule for yourself – Mondays, upper body; Tuesdays, cardio; Wednesdays, lower body. You’re so on top of your game, in fact, that you have every single day in your schedule booked up with something! Since we’re busy, we all try to fit in a workout wherever we can – early in the morning, or late at night. Here’s what I see happening way too often:

• Waking up really early without going to sleep any earlier to fit in a workout

• Heading to the gym extremely late at night for that workout, which leads to staying up later

• Going to the gym for the 5th day in a row even though you’re sore and tired

Sacrificing rest in order to get in a workout is counterproductive – both actions will cancel each other out and leave you at net zero. What’s the point, when you’re not gaining anything?

How to adjust to feel your absolute best:

• Try to schedule in 1-2 active rest/recovery days. That means days that you’re not pushing yourself to do something in the gym, but you’re still staying active by walking around during the day

• If you’re feeling incredibly tired in the morning or in the evening and have a choice to back out of a workout, listen to your body. Pushing yourself may lead to burnout and even getting sick

• Treat your body beautifully with proper hydration, good food, and some TLC with Epsom salt baths, massages, foam rolling, and stretching

• Most importantly, make sure you’re getting not just enough sleep (quantity), but beautifully restful sleep (quality). I could write a whole other blog post about sleep alone.

Above all, don’t forget to love yourself.