I want to touch on a complicated subject, which is rest – after a tournament, a preparatory period, or after a regular training. I often see that people, not only sportsmen, don’t know how to rest. That’s why I’ve decided to write this article.
Rest is a very important element of our future form. I often see percentage prioritizing when it comes to effects of training. Most sportsmen, fitness enthusiasts and theoreticians use the following system:

30 percent training, 30 diet
30 % rest
10 % other factors

This is not a bad approach, but it can change with the training periods, where one needs to apply more focus to rest, in order to regenerate properly. Rest also acts as prevention of injury, which is easy to happen when overtraining. Thus, one needs to approach the subject with care, and the opposite often happens.

REST

To function properly, human body needs balanced periods of activity and rest, the essence of which are the processes of biological restoration. These processes act in order to eliminate the limiting factors, resulting from hard work, and being a part of natural reaction to stress – tiredness. Rest itself is composed of :
eliminating of products of after-strain metabolism (lactic acid)
tissue re-oxidation
replenishing ATP, glycogen
lowering inside temperature
hydrating
restoring the electrolyte balance

GENERA CHARACTER OF CHANGES DURING REST PERIODS

Various physiological tests ran after serious fatigue show us, that the process of restoring full functionality happens in two stages, shown by an exponential curve.

The horizontal axis shows periods of rest after strain, the vertical axis shows values of rest effect. The curve you see demonstrates that, right after a workout, when the sympathetic nerve system tension is lowered, and the parasympathetic tension is heightening  - the rest period is shorter. Then it gets longer, until after ¼ of rest time the effect of rest is at half value! This may have a practical meaning, because it might mean that a given amount of work is less tiring to the body, when we use frequent but short breaks. This might make tiredness less palpable. This is the way of an armfight – the longer the round, the harder it gets to regenerate after it in the same period of time of rest.

Let’s take a closer look at the changes. Most physiological parameters apply to the above curve:
minute ventilation of lungs
minute oxygen intake
repaying the oxygen debt
pulse tempo
contraction pressure and minute heart capacity
LA – the lactic acid quantity in muscle
During the analysis of changes in oxygen intake, scientists have noticed variations in curves dependent on work intensity, which happens in an intense arm fight.
A break in light and medium work lowered oxygen consumption, the process itself was quick. The half-reaction time was only 30 seconds. Lactic acid production during this kind of strain is minimal. It applies only to short sprints of 120-130 heartbeats per minute.

To learn more about other observations, read on in part 2 of the article.

Tomasz Kopeć, MA