Strength Training on Rest Day? (Page 2)

REST day… you should recover and rest. If you want to get anything out of the strength training you need to put something in. If you're not feeling it the day after, then you didn't put enough into it. In other words, not a good idea!

Since aesthetics was brought up, thought I'd chime in. Turning 40 in few months; spent 20 of those years in hardcore natural bodybuilding. Competed 3 times. Stayed clean the whole while. That is my foundation and true love. I have that "magazine ready physique mentality"
That said, I have always stayed athletic and have since moved into duathlon/aquathlon/sprint tri. Quality muscular strength with flexibility makes any endeavor all the more possible and really maintains bone density, tendonous strength and ligament strength. Well documented and mentioned in this thread, how wonderful this is in injury prevention and even recovery capacity.

Thing is, to do tri work AND weight training that is not only therapeutic and preventative, but building and aesthetically geared is a serious balancing act.
To achieve physique work and tri event improvement simultaneously is very much possible but will take longer because muscles NEED rest for strength and fullness to be maintained. Many people in the tri world won't care about this because it's mostly performance numbers/times and serious volume.
All of which can sap muscle over time, unless, adequate strength/weight training is done (and hard mind you) with NECESSARY recovery time. This also depends on what the overall goal is and when you desire to reach it.
There's:
1) strength training for maintenance and basic strength to be able to do other things (bike/run/swim/general life etc)
and then there's
2) hard weight training to build or maintain muscle you've got while defining it and chiseling it out to look great....whiiiiile accomplishing #1 as well
Both work, but the latter will make tri progress slower & dragged out over time

Age and amount of sleep have a major impact on recovery as well. (not to mention genetics)

PS, I could've just gone with my original post and said:
REST DAY = Massage & 30 minutes in Epsom soak

Edited by TJHammer 2014-09-20 9:35 AM