The "What Do You Do on a Rest Day?" Question

Hail to the Dinosaurs!

One quick note, and then we'll talk training.

1. Train with Doug Hepburn

Last year we launched a revised version of
my Doug Hepburn training course as a
Kindle e-book. The cover is over the top
good, so even if you already have the
hard-copy version of the course, head on
over and check out the cover. My design
guy is ready for the Big Leagues.

Doug Hepburn was one of the strongest
men who ever lived -- and one of the most
massive -- and his training methods are
well worth learning.

Go here to grab the e-book:

http://www.brookskubik.com/hepburn_kindle.html

Go here to grab a hard-copy version of
the Doug Hepburn course:

http://www.brookskubik.com/doug_hepburn.html

If you grab the e-book, please post a
review. The reviews really help us. If
you're an Amazon customer and you
have a hard-copy version of the course,
you can still post a review.

BTW, the little monster made it up to no. 5
on the Amazon Top 10 in its category -- so
I need to say THANK YOU to everyone who
made it happen!

2. "What Do You Do on a Rest Day?"

On the training front, I received an email from
a 49-year old Dino who trains heavy three
days a week, and asked about what to do on
his rest days.

He wanted to know if the recovery day
should be a complete day of rest or if it
was okay to do CV work. By CV work, he
means "walking, running, swimming, skipping
rope, circuits, etc."

This is a very common question, so I thought
I'd cover it with everyone.

The answer -- like the answer to so many
training questions -- is IT DEPENDS.

It depends on your age, training experience,
goals, how much iron you move in your weight
training workouts, what kind of CV you do,
and how hard you go on the CV work.

1. If you're training to gain maximum strength
and muscle mass as fast as possible, extra CV
work isn't going to help you and will probably
slow your progress.

a. Doug Hepburn became the strongest man
in the world by lifting heavy iron, not by mixing
weight work with jogging.

b. Vince Gironda always used to warn body-
builders not to do running or jogging (or high
rep ab work) because it would lead to what he
called "over-tonus" -- meaning that you would
over-train and your hormone levels would drop.

2. On the other hand, lots of very strong and
powerful athletes have combined strength
training and cardio work. Wrestlers do it all
the time.

a. Of course, most of these athletes are young
men.

3. If you're a younger trainee, you will find
it much easier to do weight work one day and
some modest CV the next day.

4. If you're an older trainee, it's usually better
to do both weights and CV on the same day,
and then have a day of complete rest.

a. You also can try two days per week of strength
training workouts and one day of cardio work.

5. If you do hard CV -- especially something
that works your legs hard -- then it will affect
your squatting and deadlifting (or Olympic
lifting).

6. If you do breathing squats, you don't need
any other cardio training.

7. If you do lugging and loading drills -- or
Dino-style finishers -- you don't need extra
cardio training.

8. Walking is great exercise and will not cut
into your recovery unless you do lots and lots
of it.

9. Swimming is easy on the joints.

10. Jogging and running is hard on your joints
if you are older or heavier.

The bottom line is this: if you feel strong and
you're adding weight to the bar and you sleep
well and you look forward to your workouts,
then you've got things balanced out pretty
well -- so keep on doing what you're doing.

If not, look at your weekly schedule and
think about making some adjustments --
which usually means, reduce the length and
the frequency of your workouts and cut
back on the cardio.

And remember, there's nothing at all wrong
with making a rest day a REST day. You don't
have to do anything. Save it for the iron.

As always, thanks for reading and have a
great day. If you train today, make it a good
one.

And be sure to take a look at the new Hepburn
e-book -- that cover is amazing:

http://www.brookskubik.com/hepburn_kindle.html

Yours in strength,

Brooks Kubik

P.S. I cover real-world cardio for Iron Heads
in Gray Hair and Black Iron:

http://www.brookskubik.com/grayhair_blackiron.html

P.S. 2. My other books and courses are right
here at Dino Headquarters:

http://www.brookskubik.com/products.html

For e-books, look at our Amazon Kindle pages.
We have 15 or 16 Kindle e-books, including:

http://brookskubik.com/dinosaursecrets01_kindle.html

http://www.brookskubik.com/dinosaur_secrets2_kindle.html

P.S. 3. Thought for the Day: "Work, rest and
repeat is a pretty good way to do it." -- Brooks
Kubik

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