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This article is part of a series:
→ Part 2 — Sleep.
→ Part 3 — Naps.
→ Part 4 — Rest.
→ Part 5 — Nutrition.
→ Part 6 — Magic.
→ Part 7 — How to recover.
→ The Recovery Magic Tool
Recovery for runners and endurance athletes.
→ Part 1 — Eat, sleep, rest, repeat.→ Part 2 — Sleep.
→ Part 3 — Naps.
→ Part 4 — Rest.
→ Part 5 — Nutrition.
→ Part 6 — Magic.
→ Part 7 — How to recover.
→ The Recovery Magic Tool
Rest your body and your mind to get ready to go again.
Thomas Solomon PhD.
4th Jul 2020.
Having now helped you learn about the importance of sleep and the relevance of napping for optimising your recovery, as this series continues, I now turn my attention to the simple concept of rest. So, to help yourself get “ready to go again”, stay tuned to learn about the importance of resting your mind...
Reading time ~11-mins (2200-words)
Or listen to the Podcast version.
Or listen to the Podcast version.
To accumulate “hard time” of cardiovascular and muscular stress during your training sessions, it is commonplace to intermittently run hard for set periods with specific rest-intervals to help you replenish your physical and mental tools to be “ready to go again”. Since exercise hits your homeostasis like a sledgehammer, it takes “time” between sessions for homeostatic restoration to be achieved for you to be ready for your next session. I.e. time is important: it takes a period of rest to recover from exercise. During an interval session, easy minutes between hard efforts is the rest-interval that allows you to get ready to go again. Between days of life, sleep hours are your rest-intervals to help you get ready for tomorrow. In between hard training days, your easy days are your rest-intervals that facilitate adaptation. And, during a training block, easy weeks are your rest-intervals that allow for full recovery and adaptation. Rest intervals are measured in units of time. Your training is a layer cake of hard and easy time.
Image Copyright © Thomas Solomon. All rights reserved.
In 2018, a meta-analysis of all known literature found that cognitive fatigue indeed impairs physical performance but that studies lacked consistency in their reporting of levels of cognitive fatigue achieved before exercise. In 2020, a follow-up systematic review and meta-analysis of 2581 subjects concluded that prior mental fatigue impairs isometric and dynamic resistance exercise performance and aerobic performance but that the currently known effects on maximal anaerobic performance are trivial. Two of the key studies found that exercise performance was impaired following just a single 90-minute mental fatigue-inducing cognitive task. Macmahon and colleagues found that running performance in a 3 km time trial was reduced by approximately 10-seconds, on average, while a study by Sam Marcora found that cycling time-to-exhaustion at 80% of peak power was reduced by about 2-minutes, on average. The second of these two studies also found that mental fatigue caused cyclists to reach their peak RPE sooner when compared to the non-fatigued control trial.
So, resting one’s mind and not being mentally fatigued appears to be an important component of being “ready to go” since it affects both mental and physical attributes. So, embrace rest to boost recovery.
This topic is rather timely since I have just taken a 10-day hiatus from my academic consulting work to “rest” my brain and take a break. This freed up bags of time for more fun, personified as hiking and climbing high in the peaks around where we live. The increased training volume during those 10 days came purely in the form of excess easy-effort volume and the increased free time was filled with lots of reclining and generally being a bum and trying to “complete” Google Podcasts. I did not add any extra Hard-effort volume on top of my normal load. All the free time provided ample opportunities to think about what rest really is and the time to appreciate how well-rested one’s mind needs to be in order to be “on it”.
In these modern times, we humans can certainly be chuffed with ourselves for creating all the automation and transportation that allows us to rest physically. Unfortunately, I would argue that such technological developments have also partially caused our decreasing levels of habitual physical activity levels over the last 50 years; not an admirable achievement when considering that inactivity is a leading cause of chronic disease. That aside, we have also created devices and gadgets that are supposed to give our brains a break and enhance our productivity, but smartphones and social media are, as it turns out, doing just the opposite. Time spent on social media is time poorly spent. For example, a study of ~3000 Facebook users found that reducing social media time reduced political polarization and increased subjective well-being, while a smaller intervention of 140 people found increased life satisfaction and increased physical activity levels following a 2-week Facebook time-reduction. So, resting one's mind very likely does not come in the form of relaxing in a chair while mindlessly scrolling through feeds. Consequently, my recent 10-day hiatus from work was also filled with a purposeful 10-day hiatus from such habits. And... it was awesome.
As it turns out, my grandfather was some kind of Zen master. Naturally, the chain-smoking nicotine-driven buzz probably didn’t help his calm, but the old Irishman was certainly pretty chill while I destroyed his well-kept garden. For him, sitting down in a comfortable spot with no distractions and just the sound of nature whirling by was an incredible way to rest his mind, find calm, and meditate.
After gathering information and sucking knowledge from PubMed, I was convinced it wouldn't hurt so I tracked down some learning platforms for mindfulness and meditation practice. There are many ways to “find your calm”, including popular apps like Calm or Headspace. But, I found my calm in the resources from the Mental Health Foundation, the Mindful Awareness Research Center at UCLA, and Smiling Mind, which make a free meditation and mindfulness app. Several moons on from my first experience of “being mindful”, there’s a large body of evidence in support of adding mindfulness practices to your healthy lifestyle toolbox.
Back to the future, I now make time every day for a 5-minute “session” of meditation. No apps. No devices. No DeLorean. I admit that my incentive for meditating has nothing to do with training load, but it is related to dedicating time to being restful. Just me, my chair, and some peace and quiet. I get comfy, close my eyes, and focus on my breathing for a couple of minutes, considering how it feels and which parts of my body are moving as my breathing cycle inflates and deflates. I then scan down my body, mentally noting the physical feelings my body has against the chair and how my feet feel against the floor. I always notice that my right shoulder takes longer to relax and that my right glute (aka, arse cheek) is a bit uncomfortable. Silly bum. I finish up simply by listening to the soundwaves that surround me. The birds sing their melodies like a group of Swedish people having some banter. “Jag kan inte tala svenska”, they sing. The Doppler effect of distant passing traffic puts my inner geek into overdrive and makes me think about ultrasound being used to measure blood flow. The whirring of my computer’s Windows-based hard drive makes me wonder whether it is plotting to totally annihilate whatever I’ve just worked on. But, best of all, is the sound of my wife’s graceful power-smash death-tapping on her keyboard. Some use fingers to type their way to work glory; clearly, like the God of Thunder, she uses hammers. This always makes me smile and think, “she must really love what she is working on”. Amen.
So, it is pretty simple. To “rest” your mind, take inspiration from the Dalai Lama: for just a few moments, do not live a past- or future-tense version of yourself, be in the present. Alternatively, if seeking the help of a Buddhist is against your values or beliefs, simply do as Fat Boy Slim would do, be “right here, right now”.
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Right here, right now. Even the Dalai Lama likes to rest to recover.
During your rest-intervals between sessions, you must rest your body and your mind:
Make “rest” a daily ritual.
Associate your new restful ritual with another habitual daily task to ensure it becomes embedded in your schedule.
Prioritise finding yourself some daily “me” time and help those in your life understand your need for it. I.e. get your family and colleagues on board to support your athletic journey.
During that “me” time, you can either choose to stress over which of the many devices or gadgets to use to “speed up” your recovery or you could just stay calm, relax, and let time do its job. Clear your schedule — no work, no chores, no distractions — and do something that makes you feel relaxed, calm, and happy. Downtime. Me time.
If you are heading to a race, also plan on being calm and well-rested on that start line:
Cognitively demanding tasks impair exercise performance. Flying and driving are cognitively demanding tasks.
Minimise the effects of travel on your race day performance by planning to travel to your race venue before race day (ideally at least 2-days prior).
This will allow you to recover from the travel, acclimate to your new surroundings, locate food, and rest and sleep.
Rest-intervals are for rest, not extra stress. Keep it simple: exercise smart, recover smart. Read that book you've been meaning to. Listen to that new album. Lie in the bath. Disappear into nature. Try some meditation. Whatever it is, gift yourself some downtime from this wired world of constant stimulation and let your body and mind recover from and adapt to your training load.
Thanks for joining me for another “session”. As you might be starting to notice about recovery, all those sentiments your mother’s always bombarding you with are pretty spot on; clearly, mothers are Jedis of athletic recovery. Until next time, find time to relax and keep training smart.
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Optimal recovery and adaptation are largely driven by an optimal rest-interval between your sessions. Just as I described for sleep, the duration and quality of your rest between sessions are critical ingredients of your recovery mix. Optimizing your training programme will involve identifying the appropriate rest periods between key sessions. At the granular level, day-to-day rest is super important; filling your time between sessions with stress (physical or psychological) will not allow you to be optimally ready to go again… So, to get your recovery toolbox in check, in addition to sleeping like a pro, you need to rest like a pro.
But what is rest?
While sleep can indeed be restful, rest is not sleeping. Rest combines the minimisation of physical exertion with the quest for psychological calm. In between the stress of exercise sessions, one can be exposed to other stressors, like work, family, and social life. The balancing act of managing these important things can be a stress in itself, but finding the optimal balance between your real-life tasks is critical for maintaining the calm. Finding time for yourself to be alone, uninterrupted, and not distracted, is golden. Not allowing for this precious time can easily lead to under-recovery. Yes, it is important to rest your body and your mind.A lack of rest will impair your running performance.
A huge body of evidence indicates that mental fatigue and psychological stress reduce cognitive performance in all folks, including athletes and non-athletes. As an athlete, it is worth considering that you may also be more susceptible to increased levels of psychological stress at certain times. For example, a recent study published in Frontiers in Physiology, found that while undertaking full-time university study, elite athletes were vulnerable to increased levels of stress during pre-season and examination times of the year. While impaired motivation, reduced alertness, and blunted decision-making abilities might render an athlete unable to unleash their true ability on race day, it is speculative to suggest that psychological stress directly impairs exercise performance. Fortunately, scientists have examined just such speculation.In 2018, a meta-analysis of all known literature found that cognitive fatigue indeed impairs physical performance but that studies lacked consistency in their reporting of levels of cognitive fatigue achieved before exercise. In 2020, a follow-up systematic review and meta-analysis of 2581 subjects concluded that prior mental fatigue impairs isometric and dynamic resistance exercise performance and aerobic performance but that the currently known effects on maximal anaerobic performance are trivial. Two of the key studies found that exercise performance was impaired following just a single 90-minute mental fatigue-inducing cognitive task. Macmahon and colleagues found that running performance in a 3 km time trial was reduced by approximately 10-seconds, on average, while a study by Sam Marcora found that cycling time-to-exhaustion at 80% of peak power was reduced by about 2-minutes, on average. The second of these two studies also found that mental fatigue caused cyclists to reach their peak RPE sooner when compared to the non-fatigued control trial.
So, resting one’s mind and not being mentally fatigued appears to be an important component of being “ready to go” since it affects both mental and physical attributes. So, embrace rest to boost recovery.
But how can you rest?
Resting physically is simply just relaxing and not moving. However, it is very easy to rest physically while applying mental stress. Working at your computer or scrolling through social media is a classic example.This topic is rather timely since I have just taken a 10-day hiatus from my academic consulting work to “rest” my brain and take a break. This freed up bags of time for more fun, personified as hiking and climbing high in the peaks around where we live. The increased training volume during those 10 days came purely in the form of excess easy-effort volume and the increased free time was filled with lots of reclining and generally being a bum and trying to “complete” Google Podcasts. I did not add any extra Hard-effort volume on top of my normal load. All the free time provided ample opportunities to think about what rest really is and the time to appreciate how well-rested one’s mind needs to be in order to be “on it”.
In these modern times, we humans can certainly be chuffed with ourselves for creating all the automation and transportation that allows us to rest physically. Unfortunately, I would argue that such technological developments have also partially caused our decreasing levels of habitual physical activity levels over the last 50 years; not an admirable achievement when considering that inactivity is a leading cause of chronic disease. That aside, we have also created devices and gadgets that are supposed to give our brains a break and enhance our productivity, but smartphones and social media are, as it turns out, doing just the opposite. Time spent on social media is time poorly spent. For example, a study of ~3000 Facebook users found that reducing social media time reduced political polarization and increased subjective well-being, while a smaller intervention of 140 people found increased life satisfaction and increased physical activity levels following a 2-week Facebook time-reduction. So, resting one's mind very likely does not come in the form of relaxing in a chair while mindlessly scrolling through feeds. Consequently, my recent 10-day hiatus from work was also filled with a purposeful 10-day hiatus from such habits. And... it was awesome.
So, what can we do to truly rest our minds…?
Recent years have brought meditation into general conversation. Meditation brings to mind thoughts of hippies and incense sticks. I love hippies. Incense? Not so much. As a kid, I remember playing in my grandad's garden, for hours! During those long bouts of play, which I now understand was a hullabaloo of varied physical activities critical for childhood development, my grandfather would often sit there, for hours, just looking out across the fields, watching the world go by. I never asked him what he thought about, but now I am absolutely certain he was meditating. Not in the “hippie, incense, app-driven headspace” type of way but in more of an “I’m just gonna sit here and chill the feck out (he was Irish) while my grandson keeps himself occupied with a spade and some mud for the next 4 hours” kind of way.As it turns out, my grandfather was some kind of Zen master. Naturally, the chain-smoking nicotine-driven buzz probably didn’t help his calm, but the old Irishman was certainly pretty chill while I destroyed his well-kept garden. For him, sitting down in a comfortable spot with no distractions and just the sound of nature whirling by was an incredible way to rest his mind, find calm, and meditate.
Meditation and being mindful. Try it, you might like it.
Meditation is essentially a practice that uses attention and self-awareness to foster clarity, focus, and a feeling of calm. Being mindful of the present — mindfulness — is an aspect of meditation just like the simple act of purposeful breathing, which links the motor cortex (used for control of voluntary movements) and limbic systems (for motivation, emotion, learning, and memory) in our brains to help facilitate attention and focus. Now, if Doc Emmett Brown rocked up and took you back 5 years, it would be revealed that my attitude was, “Meditation sounds like a bunch of tree-hugging hippie-crap. I’ll just have a cup-o-tea, man-up, and get back on it”. But, as the moons went by, three people I knew well and genuinely trusted, a GP, a psychologist, and a firefighter, all encouraged me to “give it a go”. Eventually, I relented.After gathering information and sucking knowledge from PubMed, I was convinced it wouldn't hurt so I tracked down some learning platforms for mindfulness and meditation practice. There are many ways to “find your calm”, including popular apps like Calm or Headspace. But, I found my calm in the resources from the Mental Health Foundation, the Mindful Awareness Research Center at UCLA, and Smiling Mind, which make a free meditation and mindfulness app. Several moons on from my first experience of “being mindful”, there’s a large body of evidence in support of adding mindfulness practices to your healthy lifestyle toolbox.
Back to the future, I now make time every day for a 5-minute “session” of meditation. No apps. No devices. No DeLorean. I admit that my incentive for meditating has nothing to do with training load, but it is related to dedicating time to being restful. Just me, my chair, and some peace and quiet. I get comfy, close my eyes, and focus on my breathing for a couple of minutes, considering how it feels and which parts of my body are moving as my breathing cycle inflates and deflates. I then scan down my body, mentally noting the physical feelings my body has against the chair and how my feet feel against the floor. I always notice that my right shoulder takes longer to relax and that my right glute (aka, arse cheek) is a bit uncomfortable. Silly bum. I finish up simply by listening to the soundwaves that surround me. The birds sing their melodies like a group of Swedish people having some banter. “Jag kan inte tala svenska”, they sing. The Doppler effect of distant passing traffic puts my inner geek into overdrive and makes me think about ultrasound being used to measure blood flow. The whirring of my computer’s Windows-based hard drive makes me wonder whether it is plotting to totally annihilate whatever I’ve just worked on. But, best of all, is the sound of my wife’s graceful power-smash death-tapping on her keyboard. Some use fingers to type their way to work glory; clearly, like the God of Thunder, she uses hammers. This always makes me smile and think, “she must really love what she is working on”. Amen.
So, it is pretty simple. To “rest” your mind, take inspiration from the Dalai Lama: for just a few moments, do not live a past- or future-tense version of yourself, be in the present. Alternatively, if seeking the help of a Buddhist is against your values or beliefs, simply do as Fat Boy Slim would do, be “right here, right now”.
×
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What can you add to your training toolbox?
Despite there being insufficient experimental data to inform practice guidelines, there is growing interest in the effects of psychological calm on exercise performance and the emerging data shows that daily relaxation techniques might have positive effects on running performance. What is absolutely certain is that psychological stress can cause chronic disease and we can all agree that a diseased athlete is not an athlete performing at their best. While the direct effects of resting one’s mind on running performance have not been examined in detail, rest is an important tool for your recovery toolbox. Having appropriate rest between the repeated exposures to the physical stress of your workouts, and reducing the acute psychological stress you are under, will help keep your training load manageable.During your rest-intervals between sessions, you must rest your body and your mind:
Make “rest” a daily ritual.
Associate your new restful ritual with another habitual daily task to ensure it becomes embedded in your schedule.
Prioritise finding yourself some daily “me” time and help those in your life understand your need for it. I.e. get your family and colleagues on board to support your athletic journey.
During that “me” time, you can either choose to stress over which of the many devices or gadgets to use to “speed up” your recovery or you could just stay calm, relax, and let time do its job. Clear your schedule — no work, no chores, no distractions — and do something that makes you feel relaxed, calm, and happy. Downtime. Me time.
Cognitively demanding tasks impair exercise performance. Flying and driving are cognitively demanding tasks.
Minimise the effects of travel on your race day performance by planning to travel to your race venue before race day (ideally at least 2-days prior).
This will allow you to recover from the travel, acclimate to your new surroundings, locate food, and rest and sleep. Thanks for joining me for another “session”. As you might be starting to notice about recovery, all those sentiments your mother’s always bombarding you with are pretty spot on; clearly, mothers are Jedis of athletic recovery. Until next time, find time to relax and keep training smart.
Disclaimer: I occasionally mention brands and products but it is important to know that I am not affiliated with, sponsored by, an ambassador for, or receiving advertisement royalties from any brands. I have conducted biomedical research for which I have received research money from publicly-funded national research councils and medical charities, and also from private companies, including Novo Nordisk Foundation, AstraZeneca, Amylin, A.P. Møller Foundation, and Augustinus Foundation. I’ve also consulted for Boost Treadmills and Gu Energy on their research and innovation grant applications and I’ve provided research and science writing services for Examine — some of my articles contain links to information provided by Examine but I do not receive any royalties or bonuses from those links. These companies had no control over the research design, data analysis, or publication outcomes of my work. Any recommendations I make are, and always will be, based on my own views and opinions shaped by the evidence available. My recommendations have never and will never be influenced by affiliations, sponsorships, advertisement royalties, etc. The information I provide is not medical advice. Before making any changes to your habits of daily living based on any information I provide, always ensure it is safe for you to do so and consult your doctor if you are unsure.
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About the author:
I am Thomas Solomon and I'm passionate about relaying accurate and clear scientific information to the masses to help folks meet their fitness and performance goals. I hold a BSc in Biochemistry and a PhD in Exercise Science and am an ACSM-certified Exercise Physiologist and Personal Trainer, a VDOT-certified Distance running coach, and a Registered Nutritionist. Since 2002, I have conducted biomedical research in exercise and nutrition and have taught and led university courses in exercise physiology, nutrition, biochemistry, and molecular medicine. My work is published in over 80 peer-reviewed medical journal publications and I have delivered more than 50 conference presentations & invited talks at universities and medical societies. I have coached and provided training plans for truck-loads of athletes, have competed at a high level in running, cycling, and obstacle course racing, and continue to run, ride, ski, hike, lift, and climb as much as my ageing body will allow. To stay on top of scientific developments, I consult for scientists, participate in journal clubs, peer-review papers for medical journals, and I invest every Friday in reading what new delights have spawned onto PubMed. In my spare time, I hunt for phenomenal mountain views to capture through the lens, boulder problems to solve, and for new craft beers to drink with the goal of sending my gustatory system into a hullabaloo.
Copyright © Thomas Solomon. All rights reserved.
I am Thomas Solomon and I'm passionate about relaying accurate and clear scientific information to the masses to help folks meet their fitness and performance goals. I hold a BSc in Biochemistry and a PhD in Exercise Science and am an ACSM-certified Exercise Physiologist and Personal Trainer, a VDOT-certified Distance running coach, and a Registered Nutritionist. Since 2002, I have conducted biomedical research in exercise and nutrition and have taught and led university courses in exercise physiology, nutrition, biochemistry, and molecular medicine. My work is published in over 80 peer-reviewed medical journal publications and I have delivered more than 50 conference presentations & invited talks at universities and medical societies. I have coached and provided training plans for truck-loads of athletes, have competed at a high level in running, cycling, and obstacle course racing, and continue to run, ride, ski, hike, lift, and climb as much as my ageing body will allow. To stay on top of scientific developments, I consult for scientists, participate in journal clubs, peer-review papers for medical journals, and I invest every Friday in reading what new delights have spawned onto PubMed. In my spare time, I hunt for phenomenal mountain views to capture through the lens, boulder problems to solve, and for new craft beers to drink with the goal of sending my gustatory system into a hullabaloo.
Copyright © Thomas Solomon. All rights reserved.