In recovery

For a few weeks, the Mr has been convinced he's overtraining especially since he had pretty much every symptom from various websites signs of overtraining.  We talked about scheduling a recovery week but weren't sure if that was wise so close to our vacation in a few months.  While I may have been technically cleared by my chiro of Tarsal Tunnel Syndrome...my foot problems are far from over.  There is still a lot of pain involved with my leg muscles and tendons.  But like an idiot, the next day I decided to do Power 90 original which is pretty tame in the array of things I could've done.  I did fighter kicks and x-work which is nothing more than alternating your feet forward and backward and I was cleared for both.  My already pinchy arches didn't appreciate it and gave me a few zingers.  The finisher was balance board work when I went to do my side to side PT exercises and a pain shot up from my arch up into my leg.  Since ignoring my body is what got me into this muscular issue in the first place, I decided I was not willing to risk a major setback and I informed the Mr we were taking a few days off to recover.

Saturday was our normal rest day and I tacked on Sunday through Tuesday.  It was very hard to get used to  and Sunday the itch to exercise was strong and torturous.  I had to tell myself that this was in both of our best interests even if it felt counter-intuitive on some level.  Each day I could feel my feet improving.  I still did my morning stretches to keep my calf muscles in check and the new PT stretches the chiro suggested because I need to build up the tendons on the front of my ankle which made me sore but that was the only soreness by last night.   When we finally got back to it last night with Paul Katami's Ultimate Kettlebell workout, I was glad to be back to it.  I did well and got a good burn...885 calories, which I think is the highest I've gotten with that.  I did balance board work afterward and was a little apprehensive since the last time I was on it the pain sent me shooting off but quick.  Luckily I was able to do all of my PT exercises and during the workout, I felt the lowest amount of arch crampage to date.  I won't lie, my feet are tight so I need to roll them and do some massage to loosen them up.  Tonight is back to cardio so that'll be the real test.

For those who may be tempted to say "it was worth it but too bad you broke your 4 year exercise streak."  I don't consider it breaking our streak at all.  I've always said our streak was we haven't missed X years of scheduled exercise...I never said we exercised every day or whatever.  This was planned scheduled time off.  People doing P90X have scheduled recovery weeks where they do active recovery and other hardcore exercisers schedule complete rest weeks every 6 months as a reset.  I like to think we were somewhere in between.  This was a necessary part to our routine and will make us stronger.

Have you ever had to schedule recovery time off?  How long and did you feel it helped you?

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