I’m not much of a Sabbath person in general — not being one of the People of the Book and all.
But, I did rest physically today. I’d worked out well all last week. I did three days of good solid swimming interspersed with three days of kickin’ weight training. I planned to rest today.
Last winter I was getting back into swimming while rehabbing knee surgery. My physical therapist had cautioned me that while I was antsy as hell to get moving, I had been through some relatively major surgery. Doing my therapy and being faithful with it was great, certainly. But when I started hitting the pool again, I was cautioned to work up and refrain from swimming on consecutive days until I got my strength back.
I followed medical advice better than I usually do after the surgery. It was an elective procedure1 and I figured with all the pain in the ass that I went through to get it done, I was damned if I was gonna risk a graft failure from breaking Rule One. Know what, it really did take awhile for me to get my strength back.
I’m not rehabbing anything now, which is nice. Even so, I’m taking the lesson I learned about the importance of appropriate rest to heart. I say “appropriate rest” because there’s a line between getting enough of a workout, driving yourself into the ground, or wimping out then claiming virtue for “getting enough rest”. In my case, I’m a writer. I sit on my butt all day long. My leisure activities are nearly as sedentary. I’ve spent the time today when I wasn’t working knitting. (Almost done on a kickin’ sweater with mjollnirs! Elizabeth Zimmerman’s seamless yoke sweater is da bomb!)
I’ve been feeling antsy. You know you get when you get into a project and excited about it. Thing is, appropriate rest is part of keeping the body healthy. I’m feeling a bit like a racehorse, pawing at the ground, tossing my head, ready to go! go! go!
Which is not a bad way to start the week, I think.
1 You can live fine without your anterior cruciate ligament. You just lose some stability under physical stress.