When most people hear of my intense exercise practices they call me a masochist. In reality I’m not, while I do exercise for the pain there is a reasoning behind it, and its not tied to sexual gratification. Yes, I know I’m part of a elite group, most people are not this crazy. People commit to daily exercise for a wide variety of reasons, to release endorphins, to become stronger, lose weight etc. Well the reality is a daily dose of intense exercise training wrecks your body and is not going to help you become stronger. And instead of emerging as a lean and sexy sculpted individual you are going more in the direction of wasting away into a more sickly version of yourself.

I know you may think I’m overacting. But I’m really not. The key to sculpting your body into the best it can be is nutrition, exercise, and REST.

When you eat you are filling your body with precious gems to give you energy, help you stay positive, help the true you emerge from your shell, and  encourage glowing skin and overall well being. When you exercise you are mentally redefining your limits and tapping into a form of discipline that can be applied to all areas of your life. This is the time when you are sculpting your body. But sculpting your body has two steps to it. The first one is exercise, the potter molding the clay. The second step is rest. This is the time that your body is growing stronger. It needs to be able to rebuild itself, the clay has to be able to set. When you exercise you are creating small micro-tears in your muscle and it takes 24-48 hours for these tears to repair, and when they do repair they are stronger then they were before. The result is called DOMS or delayed onset muscle soreness. Going back to the potter example, if you are constantly messing with the clay there is no chance for it to set in a desired shape, change is always occurring. But if you carefully spend time molding the clay  and then leave it be then all the hard work pays off and the clay can set into its desired shape.

Earlier I mentioned my struggle with following my own advice. Well this is because I exercise for the pain. It’s not that it “hurts so good”" as much as when the level of pain is at its highest all my other struggles go away, and the pain is my sole focus point. I know I’m crazy. People are addicted to daily exercise for various reasons, I just shared my (personal) reason. Rest days can be active rests days. If you are focused on losing weight then go on a brisk 20-30 minute walk. If you just have to do some form of exercise do 5-10 reps (LIGHT loads) of a few full body exercise. What do I do for my weird pain addiction? Pole dancing. I spend about 15-20 minutes practice pole tricks and the rest of time to exotic exercise, belly dancing and recently Tahitian dance. The secret about pole dancing is that it can be painful. At some point I may run out of painful moves but I will handle it when I get there. You can spend 5 minutes dancing in your room singing to your favorite song or jumping rope for 5 minutes. Those are all ways to have rest days. In your week though make sure that 1-2 days are devoted to complete rest. Which means that you do not exercise at all.Your body needs this, trust me. M typical schedule is heavy training: MWF. Pole dancing and exotic exercise: TR. Saturday and Sunday are toss ups. One active rest day or both days are complete rest days. See the video below of Cameron Diaz’s rest day.