A few days after returning from a beautiful calorie rich holiday I booked in with my PT for a weigh and measure. No surprise. I had put on weight and millimetres. But a third of my weight gain was lean muscle mass. How did that happen? Of course I was delighted. But it was a mystery. 

It got me thinking about rest and recovery. So important in any training programme. Good quality sleep and recovery days when you don’t hit the weights or run around the park. And the older you get the more of those days you need.

I try to do some form of training five days a week. This could be weight training, a hitt class or Parkrun. This amount of exercise gets the endorphins buzzing. I feel energised and happy, But take it up a notch and I feel myself getting fatigued and not so happy. So I usually keep it to two rest days. 

Where weight training is concerned recovery days are essential. Lifting weights results in tiny tears in the muscle. During recovery these tears repair resulting in the muscle becoming bigger and stronger. This needs time and good nutrition.  

There is also a process of deloading that is often advocated. This is a scheduled week in a programme where the training load is reduced. So lighter weighs and/or reduced repetitions and more recovery time. The theory being that when you return to your ‘normal’ training programme you will come back even stronger. Not everyone agrees with this approach. Many think it unnecessary but even they recognise the benefit of a deloading week for the older athlete. 

Could my holiday have been a period of deloading? Although if it were theoretically I should have not consumed my body weight in cake and ice cream. 

But it was a relaxing time. Both mentally and physically. No getting up at 5am for the commute. Deciding what sun lounger to plonk myself on being the limit of my decision making. 

Who knows. It may just be an oddity that will never be repeated. But intuitively I feel that I have done my body a lot of good by my holiday deload. 

Holidays are not the sabateers of fat loss or fitness goals. It is what we allow to happen when they are over that will scupper our plans. For me I was straight back into it. Within a week of my return I’d done 2 hitt class, a boxing class (I was totally useless. My daughter kept asking if she could swap me), Parkrun and a weight training session. I’m back using MyFitnessPal to track my macros. I’m feeling rested, energised and happy. Bring on the next holiday. 

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