C.S. Sloan's Integral Strength

  It’s About More Than Just Resting and Recuperating      In my last essay on “Plateau Busters,” I mentioned briefly the importance of proper recovery when your progress has stalled.   But recovery is important all the time.   If you do it “right,” then you won’t have too much stalled progress in the first place.      Part of the issue with recovery methods, at least in the West, is that too much emphasis on training is placed around volume, intensity, and “rest and recuperation.”   The prevailing understanding for most lifters—and I don’t want to generalize, but I believe this to be true—is that recovery will take care of itself if you train hard and then give your body plenty of time to “rest and grow.”   While that has some truth to it, I won’t deny, it’s not the whole picture.   Or, at least, it shouldn’t be.      I wish lifters would think more along the lines of proper programming . ...

       I started writing this essay as much for myself as for anyone else.  The truth is that, despite the fact that I should know better, and in fact do know better, which makes it all the worse, I am entirely guilty of not giving my body (and mind) enough rest and recuperation.  Or, at the very least, not wanting to give my body enough rest.  Most of the time, I have to remind myself to take off for a day, or to do the things required to make sure I’m recovering properly.  Part of that is the fact that I love to train.  I know that there are a lot of people out there who have to force themselves to go to the gym.  I have to force myself to not go to the gym (especially since my gym is only a few feet away from me at all times, in my garage).      Before we go any further in this, let me make one thing perfectly clear: I think, overall, more training is better.  As I’m fond of saying—or writ...