Resting is different than stopping.
One of the first and foremost rules I try to live by is “Complacency Kills.”
If things are going well it’s easy to think that it will continue to go well without following the same process you took to make it go well in the first place. Whether it’s business, baseball, school or anything else, success tools are transferable.
Bodies in motion tend to stay in motion, while bodies at rest tend to stay at rest. Have you ever started a workout program you were excited about, but after a day or two off or one too many cheat days it was easy to stop? The energy went away, desire faded, and just like that the routine was over?
I see many athletes go through the same thing. They get the high of how good they “could be” without realizing how much work and how INCONVENIENT, true success really is. Typically the goal doesn’t change but the attitude towards the goal does.
For example, if a High School player sits down and puts a plan into action that includes “x” amount of days of lifting, hitting, throwing etc. there is always a brief excitement of where all of that hard work will lead and how good they will get over that period of time. But…….
Then they have a Spanish project, and have to study for Algebra, and it’s a family members’ birthday, one thing or another that throws their plan off the tracks and excuses become the norm not the exception.
After a 3/3 day at the plate, usually the first thought isn’t “I gotta’ get my cuts in.” However, the process that led to you having positive experiences on the field should be repeated to continue to have positive experiences.
However, things do come up, and that’s why it’s important to REST, instead stopping. Planned rest periods are great. Impromptu rest periods while sometimes needed, are not, that’s called procrastination. “I’ll get back after it tomorrow” turns into a month, turns into almost the entire year which can be a lot of valuable time depending how your age and goals.
Some solutions:
- Earn your rest periods, not by accomplishments but by time invested. When you invest “x” amount of time, you get extra time off that week/month, depending on what it is.
- Plan your rest periods, pick a day of the week that you know you are going to focus on other hobbies and tasks. Let your mind decompress and body recover. Choose your de-load weeks that are designed to still have training activities but with much lower workloads
- Write down the things you did to get better at the end of the night. If you go a few nights in a row with a short or non-existent list you know it’s time to get back to a routine, or if your old routine doesn’t fit into what you have going on that particular week, then you just need to tweak your routine to make it work.