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Haven’t been lifting…I feel so weak and small.
(A little motivation for when you have to take time off)
I have been off from the gym for nearly two weeks. I have been thinking about how when someone I know tells me they haven’t been able to hit the gym in a week, even a few days, and suddenly they look smaller and feel weaker. Believe it or not, half of that is only in your head, the rest is actually quite real.
As for feeling weaker, the body needs time off from time to time. We start to slack a bit with diet, or maybe we are over trained. Taking that time off does us some good. Say we take off from the gym when it’s not needed. Research supports that the body can actually lose some strength when taking off from exercise after just 2 days. It’s not what you think though. You’re not suffering from muscular atrophy, it’s a side effect of the CNS and cardiovascular system not being stimulated. Simply staying active when you’re not at the gym can be enough to keep the CNS and cardiovascular system stimulated to prevent energy and strength loss. In other words, too much rest can be a bad thing too.
Motivation plays a large role too. Going to the gym and telling yourself you're going to get a good workout because you had rest. Killing your motivation with thoughts of lost strength is def going to pay a toll.
As for getting smaller, this is really quite simple in most cases. After a longer than usual lay off from the gym, the body has a tendency to retain some water. When you exercise, you dehydrate your muscles and they appear to be harder and not to mention, the pump you get helps too. This is the psychological part. Many of us are used to seeing our muscles pumped and dehydrated many times a week, whether it be from cardio or weight lifting, both will have similar effects on how we look in the mirror. When we go for so long without seeing this, we begin we begin to feel that we are getting smaller. This little idea hit me when I hit the gym today, after my time off, only doing cardio and abs and when I saw my arms, they were hard once again, like I hadn’t lost any lifting time.
(A little motivation for when you have to take time off)
I have been off from the gym for nearly two weeks. I have been thinking about how when someone I know tells me they haven’t been able to hit the gym in a week, even a few days, and suddenly they look smaller and feel weaker. Believe it or not, half of that is only in your head, the rest is actually quite real.
As for feeling weaker, the body needs time off from time to time. We start to slack a bit with diet, or maybe we are over trained. Taking that time off does us some good. Say we take off from the gym when it’s not needed. Research supports that the body can actually lose some strength when taking off from exercise after just 2 days. It’s not what you think though. You’re not suffering from muscular atrophy, it’s a side effect of the CNS and cardiovascular system not being stimulated. Simply staying active when you’re not at the gym can be enough to keep the CNS and cardiovascular system stimulated to prevent energy and strength loss. In other words, too much rest can be a bad thing too.
Motivation plays a large role too. Going to the gym and telling yourself you're going to get a good workout because you had rest. Killing your motivation with thoughts of lost strength is def going to pay a toll.
As for getting smaller, this is really quite simple in most cases. After a longer than usual lay off from the gym, the body has a tendency to retain some water. When you exercise, you dehydrate your muscles and they appear to be harder and not to mention, the pump you get helps too. This is the psychological part. Many of us are used to seeing our muscles pumped and dehydrated many times a week, whether it be from cardio or weight lifting, both will have similar effects on how we look in the mirror. When we go for so long without seeing this, we begin we begin to feel that we are getting smaller. This little idea hit me when I hit the gym today, after my time off, only doing cardio and abs and when I saw my arms, they were hard once again, like I hadn’t lost any lifting time.
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