In Peak Performance, Brad Stulberg and Steve Magness tell us:
“Think for a moment about what it takes to make muscles, such as your biceps, strong. If you try lifting weights that are too heavy, you probably won’t make it past one repetition. And even if you do, you’re liable to hurt yourself along the way. Lift too light a weight, on the other hand, and you won’t see much, if any result; your biceps simply won’t grow. You’ve got to find the Goldilocks weight: an amount you can barely manage, that will leave you exhausted and fatigued —but not injured—by the time you’ve finished your workout. Yet discovering such an ideal weight is only half the battle. If you lift every day, multiple times a day, without much rest in between, you’re almost certainly going to burn out. But if you hardly ever make it to the gym and fail to regularly push your limits, you’re not going to get much stronger, either. The key to strengthening your biceps—and, as we’ll learn, any muscle, be it physical, cognitive, or emotional—is balancing the right amount of stress with the right amount of rest. Stress + rest = growth. This equation holds true regardless of what it is that you’re trying to grow.”
Again Stress + Rest = Growth. How is your rest?
Whether you are trying to grow new muscles or new neural pathways, this equation is true.
