Often people after completing their training blocks (usually these are about 28 days) are advised to take a weeks complete rest. I think this is a good idea, especially for the mature trainer, to give joints and muscles a complete ready for a slightly more intense new 28 day training block. As usual I got to thinking about this. What if during the rest week you did some very light work to just enforce muscle movement patterns. I then thought what if we made this a unilateral exercise per movement pattern. We could use the week to –
- Enforce correct technique
- Check any muscle imbalances between left and right side.
- Work the core musculature maintaining good posture
The exercises I used were
- Vertical Push: Single-arm Military Press (10kg)
- Vertical Pull: Single-arm Half-Kneeling Lat Pull-down (40lbs)
- Horizontal Press: Single-arm Bench Press (10kg)
- Horizontal Pull: Single-arm bent-over Row (10kg)
I would perform 2 sets of 5 repetitions of each exercise per side each day for a week until I started my new training block.
As mentioned in some of my training articles I am training legs separately, they have their own issues.
Having tried the above I found I was refreshed for my new heavier training block. I felt really good. Now the wise amongst you will say that would have happened if you had not done any training whatsoever and they might be right. But I really enjoyed the above week which allowed me to concentrate on the basics without putting any strain on the Central Nervous System.