Work Smarter: The Optimal Training Schedule

The most important day of your training week?  A midweek recovery day.  Don’t believe me?  Here’s why it’s a non-negotiable for our clients.

A lot of athletes and adult gym goers have an “if some is good, more is better” mindset.  If they just spend more hours in the gym, they’ll get stronger, faster, fitter.  If you’re working out 2 times (or less) per week, there may be something to this thought process.  But if you’re training 5, 6, 7 days per week, we need to have a mindset adjustment.

When you train, you start to drain your battery.  On recovery days, you charge your battery.  If you work out Monday - Friday, but Thursday or Friday, your battery is completely empty.  If you go to the gym anyway, you’re either getting a crappy training session in because you don’t have the energy to put in a full effort OR you still attempt to give a max effort and start flirting with any injury.  When you take a midweek rest day to recharge your battery, you have the energy to put a full effort into all of your training sessions AND decrease your risk of injury.  Wouldn’t you rather have four top notch workouts than two top notch, one mid-tier, and two lousy ones?  The extra quantity of training does not make up for the lower quality.  

So what does a recovery day look like?  Note that this is a recovery day, not a rest day.  While it may occasionally be a complete rest day (sick, traveling, etc), most of the time we want this to be an active recovery day.  You’re still moving your body, just not at a high intensity.  The focus is on lower intensity and recreational/fun activities.  Examples include:

• Active mobility session
• Low intensity, steady state cardio - walking, cycling, etc.
• Pilates or yoga
• Recreational activity - pick-up basketball, pickleball, golf, rollerblading, etc.
• Active hobby - hiking, skiing, gardening, etc.

If you’re stuck on that Monday - Friday grind and feel that your progress has plateaued, give this work smarter approach a try!  Your body, and your gainz, will thank you for it!