Then rest

Our approach to training ends with two words that most people read as an afterthought. Then rest.

They are not an afterthought. Training is the stress; the change happens afterwards, while you sleep, while you sit still, while you do nothing that looks like effort. Muscle is built on the day off. A body that is trained hard every day and never allowed to catch up does not get fitter, it gets tired and then it gets hurt, and it takes a long time to notice because the tiredness arrives dressed as laziness.

So the day off is part of the training, and it is as compulsory as the sessions. Walk, cook, sit in the sun with a coffee, take the children somewhere that involves no timing device.

The guilt is the difficult bit. A lot of us feel that a day without a workout is a day wasted, and that feeling is usually strongest in exactly the people who most need the rest. Rest is the half of training you cannot see.