Rest & Recovery Days – BowlFit Tips

In the last 8 years I have spent training clients and coaching teams I have noticed that people have forgotten the importance and purpose of rest days. Bowlers especially tend to not want to take days off from bowling or the gym- myself included!

We live in a generation where we equate working hard to the amount of time spent doing things rather than the quality of the time spent. I recommend that everyone has at least 1 day a week that is a designated rest day. This doesn’t mean that you spend the day being a couch potato and not doing anything at all. I recommend an active recovery day in which you engage in physical activity that isn’t very strenuous but improves circulation- walking, restorative yoga, or swimming. This gives your body a chance to really recover and repair itself in order to prepare for you next week of training and practice.

Without rest days it is very easy to end up over training and suffering from chronic fatigue and overuse injuries that take a great deal of time to heal from. Other great options to consider on rest days are steam rooms, saunas, jacuzzis, foam rolling and massage therapy. These modalities can increase blood flow and help bring nutrients to the muscles in order to speed up their recovery time. Foam rolling and massage therapy are especially useful for keeping muscle tissue healthy by breaking up adhesions that are built up over time and relaxing overworked and tight muscles before they become injured. One can check this out to get health related tips and get in touch with medical professionals to see what suits your medical needs.

About Heather –

Heather D’Errico MS, CSCS, CFSC, LMT

Heather began BowlFit in 2013 with the hope to provide awareness to bowlers about how crucial training off the lanes truly is. She has been an avid bowler her entire life competing as a collegiate bowler for Robert Morris University, assistant coaching at the University of Central Missouri, and now head coaches at Roberts Wesleyan College in Rochester, NY.

She obtained a master’s degree in kinesiology with an emphasis on exercise science and interned with the head strength coach at UCM. She became a certified strength and conditioning specialist (CSCS) through NSCA shortly after graduation and began coaching athletes at Next Level Strength and Conditioning in Fairport, NY.

In October 2015 she received her certified functional strength coach certification and then went back to school in July 2016 for massage therapy. She is now a licensed massage therapist and runs a business called Restorative Bodywork in Rochester, NY that specializes in movement therapy and sports massage.

Heather has also been competing on the PWBA tour the last 3 seasons and continues to use her experiences as a competitive and professional bowler to create programs for bowlers. She enjoys the challenges of making programs specific to each bowler as every person needs to focus on different areas for their performance goals. With that said her training motto is “do no harm” and believes each program should most importantly make a bowler FEEL better and play with minimal injuries/pain.