The importance of being idle

On waking today I noticed that my arms were stiff from over use - I stupidly pushed myself a bit further than I should have lifting weights and am now suffering from slightly tweaked tendons. Obviously it would be stupid to be lifting weights in this condition. And that brings me on to my point - over training.

Regardless of what type of training you are doing - its important to ensure that you give your body enough time to recover from whatever you put it through before you start again. You don't have to be exercising like this guy to be over training.

The best way I've found to figure out if you are overtraining or not is to check your heartbeat first thing in the morning, if its 10BPM more than your resting rate - today is going to be a rest day as your body is still recovering. That being said, unless you want to be Arnie or Sly then you'd only be lifting weights every second day.

But whats lifting weights got to do with riding a bike? not a lot to be honest, you can ride a bike all your life and never have to lift a weight, but I am taking a different view on this. We don't know what the terrain will be like in Sweden or Norway at all. Some of the roads will be rough. Thats a given. That means standing on the pedals, maybe lifting the bike on to my shoulder for a short distance and thats where upper body strength comes into play. Obviously the legs will be worked constantly from the cycle training but the arms and shoulders are basically relaxed all the time. Lifting weights will help increase their stamina and strength.

At the same time it should help maintain my body size and weight so that I dont become even skinnier than I am!