Cheat days, Rest days, off weeks, vacations, "overtraining," and a ton of other words can describe some sort of pause or interruption in your routine.

We've all heard these different terms in the gym and around the fitness world. But what do they really mean? Most people make it an excuse to take a break from the lifestyle. But there is a method to the idea. It's not just a cheat day so one can not eat properly for a whole day, or deem yourself "overtrained" because you feel a little tired and sore. Rather, many of these concepts are born with an idea to somehow enhance your training, your transformation and enable your journey to new heights. These methods provide tools to continue the grind. It's important to use these principles as a way to provide assistance and support to your workouts. It's easy to find reasons to not give 100%. It's an exhausting journey to peak strength and it requires quite enough effort in your body and mind to maintain the routine day in and day out.

Cheat days are the idea that once a week, you can eat meals that you normally wouldn't during the week. Now the risk with cheat days is the temptation to go overboard. Here is the day that many people, instead of understand that cheat days are made to enhance your metabolism and keep it from being completely adapted and leveled, just use the excuse to eat a bunch of crap with no reason except it's a "cheat" day. The purpose of the cheat day is to switch up your typical consumption so much like your muscles, your metabolism sees something different and has to alter itself slightly in order to properly utilize the nutrients from different sources. In a diet that varies frequently, a cheat day is not so necessary.

Rest Days are supposed to be a day that your body has some time to let the adaptations and changes take hold. Activity is not completely forsaken, instead, lighter activity is done to keep the muscles active and stimulated but not so much as to break down the tissue as in a typical routine. The danger with rest days is deciding to completely take off from any activity. When you interrupt the weekly routine with a complete shutdown, you can create a sense of slothfulness that will manifest itself in your next workout. When your body stops being active it tries to recover and repair for obvious reasons, but this causes the ligaments and joints to become stiff from the newly formed tissue that will not be as mobile as the existing tissue.

Overtraining is a term that has been used for years and years by fitness professionals to describe injuries of overexertion. Overtraining is a very avoidable condition that comes down to having enough fuel and recovery activity proportionate to your workouts. Many people use the excuse of not wanting to "overtrain" and take days off in between. It is possible to overtrain, but if you have proper programming, and enough fuel in your body, you can train 7 days a week at an intense level.

Giving anything less than 100% to your routine and training is unnecessary. Anything less than 100% wont give you the best results possible. if you want the best return on your work, you need to invest 100% of your effort. In every aspect of your life, you should be giving 100% in order to get the most out of everything you do. Working at your job, working out at the gym, spending time with the family, playing around and enjoying life. Anything less than 100% is just not enough!



2 weeks out from Ironman 70.3 Calgary, the #journeytocalgary is coming to an end. I've still got work to do, as I have decided not to taper to compete. 10 more training sessions for the events. I've got some work to do on the bike to get my speed down to where I want it to be for the whole 56 miles, I need to work on keeping an even cadence so I can focus on maintaining the speed I want to be at. I've got my run fine-tuned to where I would like it to be, but it was always going to be my strongest event. My swimming, I just have to keep going and going and keep perfecting the technique as much as I can, As of now I am on track for my goal this first time around. My training this time around has been focused a little more on reaching time goals, but with the next one already in the planning, I am going to focus on technique and efficiency. The more efficient I am with my events, the better they will come together as whole race!  I'm also going to be planning out my nutrition for the race this weekend, and I would like to give a special thanks to A2O fitfuel for providing me
in-race nutrition to keep me on pace for the finish line.

Every Day... A Little Stronger