Rest and Recovery 💪

Physically and creatively

It’s great to be back in the driving seat of TBOI after a few weeks away! And for the first time here, I decided to include the audio. Let me know what you think as I may do some more of these going forward.

Also, I want to say a huge thank you to you the readers, whether you are a subscriber, follower, or came across this newsletter by other means, your support means a great deal to me. And it’s great to be back!

In the rough… Photo by Virgile Donadieu on Unsplash

FYI - This post has nothing to do with golf, so apologies if you saw the image and were hoping for something golf-related, but if you can forgive the preamble there is a tenuous link to the sport.

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Back in mid-May, I was in the middle of a gym class when I found myself having to triple-check what the movement was at each station. Likewise, I couldn’t seem to remember the number of reps that I completed or the weight-load. It’s not that unusual for me to forget what I am doing, or wonder what I am doing next, often it feels that I have a memory of a sieve, but taken together, these events made me feel uncomfortable. It was as though something had happened to a mind-muscle connection.

Later on when I grumbled to my husband, he said: ‘Well, you have been working out a lot recently? Perhaps your body needs a rest?’

I was quick to dismiss my husband’s comments (even though I had approached him and started moaning), and instead put everything down to a poor night’s sleep and carried on (business-as-usual!). However, when a similar thing happened a few days later and this was compounded by a sharp twinge in both of my elbows in the middle of doing a barbell deadlift, the penny finally dropped.

My body was in need of some rest.

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It wasn’t the first time that I experienced this type of elbow pain. When I first started strength training six years ago, I went all in, and would go to the gym at least four times a week.

A few caveats: I don’t have children, or any other caring responsibilities, and back then, I was working full-time as a teacher so I would go after work. I also didn’t have many (or any) hobbies or friends as I was new to Hong Kong!

I had been strength training for around six months when I first noticed some discomfort. But in typical fashion, I continued training as normal and if anything, I tried to work harder in the sessions and lift heavier, somehow believing that I was strengthening my arms muscles?! (That tells you how green I was when it came to this type of training). So, it was only when I experienced a flash of pain down the length of my right arm when I thought – Perhaps there is something wrong here.

It turned out that I had golfer’s elbow (or medial epicondylitis), which is inflammation of the tendon on the inside of the elbow.

‘Don’t you have to at least go near a golf course to catch that?’ I joked to the physio. She didn’t appear amused and said that if it wasn’t treated properly then it could create further issues down the line.

So after paying a decent sum to be told that yes, you can develop golfer’s elbow without going anywhere near a golf club or course, I was shown several stretches and she advised me to rest.

I protested: ‘What? I can’t go to the gym?’

The physio said that I could continue training, but it would be for the best that I reduce the weight and in the event of any pain, to modify the movements and rest for longer.

Unfortunately, I am not that good at resting. And although there are a bunch of reasons of why this might be the case, I do believe that my past career in education should carry some of blame.

Rest breaks during the teaching day? You were lucky if you had time to go to the toilet and wash your hands during break or lunch time.

Okay, I am being a little facetious, but for many years, rest as an action, as something to do, often felt secondary to other things, and this permeated into other areas of my life.

(I can’t be the only one to think that being told/advised to rest, is like ‘Why can’t you just relax?’ And it feels like it has the opposite effect.)

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The importance of rest and exercise

Rest breaks play a crucial role in any training program and will vary based on the type of workout that you are doing and what goals you have. For example, in strength training, if you are trying to increase strength and power, longer rests are recommended during a workout, while less rest is suggested if you are trying to grow muscle (known as hypertrophy).

Something similar applies between workouts too. Rest days help your body to repair muscles and tissue, and they restock important fuel reserves. Otherwise, you risk overtraining and this can lead to plateauing, or in more serious cases, developing injuries.

However, who is to say if the fatigue that you feel, or that stiff neck and shoulder are a result of overtraining, a crappy night’s sleep, a combination of the two, or something else entirely?

And that’s why paying attention to your body and seeing how it responds both when doing exercise and doing something non-exercise related is a good starting point.

I may have felt that familiar twinge of golfer’s elbow when doing deadlifts back in May, but I also noticed some discomfort while typing on my laptop, and even when opening cans and bottles!

So in a bid not to prolong the pain and ensure that I could crack open a beer in the future, I returned to the advice that the physio gave me - reduce the weights, make some movement modifications, and take more rest breaks.

Yet, something else has struck me, I have noticed some parallels between prioritising rest at the gym, but also when it comes to writing too.

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Creative rest

This is my first post back after taking a creative writing break. There wasn’t a definitive plan to take an entire month off from writing this newsletter, and in fact, back in mid-May (around the same time of the twinges in both elbows), I was brainstorming ideas of what I wanted to write about over the summer. I was excited.

But then I started to hit some walls, and sometime in June, it just felt like everything that I wrote had no coherent thesis, and what I did write down all felt a bit… blah.

After some thought, I realised that I had a choice - adopt a business as usual approach and carry on like the Sarah of five/six years ago, or take some rest and restock the fuel reserves?

This time, I opted for the latter.

I would be lying if I said that I was not frustrated when I began to experience golfer’s elbow symptoms again and felt a bit blah about my writing.

But if there is anything (seriously, anything) that I have learned from quitting my job last year after experiencing a slow-decent into occupational burnout, it’s that I want to prioritise the things that nourish me. And one way to do this is to make some of the things that I enjoy sustainable, such as writing and exercise. I am playing for the long-game (although not an 18-hole kinda one), and so if that means making modifications, and prioritising rest to ensure that I can maintain a certain pace, then I want to adapt.

I think that’s growth for you!

I’d love to hear from you - have you taken a creative rest or break at some point? What did it look like? And did it have an effect on your creativity?

Please let me know in the comments below 👇

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And an elbow update. After a few weeks of rest and doing some stretches on most days (though not all), both elbows appear to have healed. So I am back in the gym and opening cans of beer, but not at the same time 😉 💪

Back at it, although hiding behind a power rack

Finally, if you enjoyed the post, please consider liking it, or sharing it with a friend, as this makes it more visible to other readers (although perhaps don’t pass it onto golfers - I don’t want to disappoint them).