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From Fellrnr.com, Running tips
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== Introduction ==
'''Exercise does not make you fit, it''It is s the rest that follows exercise that makes you fit.'''''This is a critical aspect of training that must be understood. This is how a single bout of training impacts your fitness:
Note that the training reduces fitness, and that rest time is required to gain the benefits.
Ideally, you will get sufficient rest so that you recover from the training stress and get the maximum benefit. This would mean starting the next training session near the peak of supercompensation, as shown below.
(The image is quite wide, and may not show up fully on a low resolution screen - there is a scroll bar at the very end of the article, or [http://jfsavage.smugmug.com/photos/760137714_Xiw68-X3.jpg view])
Without sufficient rest, you may start your next training at the end of the period marked ‘Recovery’. This means that you have not benefited from the training, just barely recovered from it. This can carry on indefinitely, with no improvement in fitness.
== Insufficient rest resulting in injury ==
Without even sufficient rest to recover from the training stress, the fitness level starts to decline, with each training bout further reducing fitness. Sadly, the response to this is often to increase the training stress, creating a positive feedback cycle. Eventually this will result in some type of injury.
== How long to rest? ==
== Too much rest? ==
It is possible to get too much rest. Trying to gain fitness on one or two days training per week does not seem to work for most people.
