Quoting: wayofthewarrior
Why did you need a week of recovery?
I lift heavy and push myself pretty hard (I take maybe one day off every other week) so after 8-10 weeks of that, my body usually tells me that I should take it easy... typically for this "week off" I just do cardio and play basketball and generally take it easy while staying somewhat active, so it's not a week of sloth heh.
The usual suspects that tell me it's time for a week off are the obvious muscle "soreness", but also a decrease in strength gains. Last week I wasn't able to increase my weight at all for all 3 sets of any exercise, the third set was always a drop weight set (peeling off a pair of 2.5s for squats sucks!) The week of rest has also helped me avoid plateauing so far... plus, the intensity always tapers off a little bit by the end of week 10, so taking a week off to recharge my batteries gives me a lot of bonuses when the cycle starts back up.
Besides all that, I get to be social again this week since, between the office and the gym, I've been pretty antisocial the past few months.
