We work hard in my program. No! I mean it!! We work our asses off, and in doing so, I advise people to rest with the same intensity as the workout.

Working out is actually catabolic, or in other words, "breaking the muscle or system down". It's when we STOP that the body acclimates to the new level of stress it just underwent.

My friend, Mark Reifkind, who coincidentally doesn't live too far from me, wrote on his social media page a wonderful synopsis of what I've been saying for YEARS!!!

"The fitness world is obsessed with programming. As if there's a magic program out there that will accelerate your "gains" far beyond what your current, boring program ( or, most usually NO actual program) will do

But the KEY to progress is NOT your program design but your ability to RECOVER from whatever loads you are doing

It doesn't matter if you're training for strength, speed, power, endurance, or work capacity. The limiting factor is what you can recover from and let's be honest, most people put less time thinking about that than actually doing it

Active recovery, passive recovery, actual downtime, mental recovery, nutrition, supplementation; it ALL matters, especially when you're trying to max out your progress

And as your training loads go up, so should your recovery work

The real reason most people take steroids ( despite popular opinion ) is to enhance recovery, not to increase strength. Highly motivated athletes have little problem doing ever-increasing amounts of work toward their goals

Recovering from that is another story indeed

So stop obsessing about your program or switching to the current one with the fancy name and take your recovery work more seriously

You can thank me later" ~ Mark Reifkind

Mark is 100% spot on with his post.

Let me make it even easier...The best form of recovery? SLEEP.

Best nutritional game plan while training? Eat actual food.

What type of training is best? Probably the one you aren't doing.

Address your weakness and you'll get stronger

When you are tired, REST.

When you are hungry, EAT.

God doesn't make junk. Listen to what your body is telling you to do.

Today's Training:

Shoulder Reliever: Next ball size up. Day 11

Cycle

Concept II Row: 10 mins

Lat Pulldown: 4x10

DB Row: 4x10

DB Pullover: 4x15

DB Curl: 4x10

Rack Scraping Curl: 4x10

Side Ab Flex over the 45 degree bench: 3x15

Cycle