If you wish to take your vertical jump to a new level, you certainly should not underestimate the importance of sufficient rest. The number one mistake of many athletes is too little rest. As a result the danger of injuries increases and overtraining may occur. Yet, if you are very focussed on your trainings you feel bad when you skip a few trainings.
This feeling is completely normal as most athletes do not have a problem with keeping to the training schedule, but more from resting from it. Yet, big changes in our organism occur when you recover and rest. For example after an intensive strength training tissue damages need to heal and the muscles need time to repair themselves and grow.
Sleep is very important at that time!
Of course a few days with little sleep shall not cause great damage, but if not sleeping enough becomes a habit it is a serious problem. Rest is the time when the effect of your training becomes real. An athlete needs more sleeping time than ordinary people as an athlete uses more energy. If an athlete does not get enough sleep it directly affects their training results. Recovery also involves the right food, which restores your energy reserves. Right nutrients received from food are the material for growing muscles.
Yet, short-term and long-term recovery are differentiated. Short-term recovery is your everyday routine after the training and the time until the next training. This includes all of the aforementioned – sleep, right food, stretching, massage etc. However long-term rest should be planned by each athlete in their long-term training schedule. This means specific days of rest in the monthly or annual plan. Everybody needs long-term rest when the body can restore from exhaustion and training stress, in order to go one with more power. If this has not seemed logical to you yet, I am going to introduce the matter to you more closely.
The objective of sport training is the increase in the efficiency of the organism accompanying the improving physical form. All this is mainly affected by optimal training load and sufficient recovery. If recovery and rest have been insufficient for a longer period of time, the organism becomes exhausted and the athletic efficiency will decrease. Yet when you train with right strain and according to the correct plan, these should increase.
