Last night I after my run home from work I worked through my "home dumbbell fitness routine" my sit ups set and my press ups fitness routine. It was a great set where I worked up a real good sweat and afterwards I was feeling pretty tired.

I stayed up quite late, till around 12am which is normally ok, but I was really feeling the affects of the exercise, not in a negative way, but just feeling tired and that my routine is making a difference. This morning I woke up for work at the regular time but then hit the snooze button on my alarm for 3 minutes.... I woke up whole hour and a half later! (what I thought was 3 minutes) I was late! I suppose on the up side I was looking better :D!

This is a classic example of making sure that if you're working out and your fitness routine is making an impact, then your body needs the extra sleep and rest to recover. A good nights sleep can really help your body in many ways:

source: http://www.lifehack.org/articles/lifestyle/sleep-your-way-to-better-fitness.html

This "oversleep" has highlighted a couple of things to me, 1: That my fitness routine is having an impact on me (and I felt I was looking even fitter this morning) and 2: I need to get enough (more) rest!

From the research I've done today it looks as though the average person generally needs 7 hours of quality sleep when working out.

Some useful tips to ensure you're getting enough rest and help you to gain from your fitness routine are:

1. Get plenty of sleep – track your sleep.
I can track my sleep but just need to make sure I'm in bed by a certain time!

2. Set realistic goals and time lines for your fitness program.
DON'T expect to work out for a week and then to be on the cover of men's health magazine or woman's fitness, respectively.

3. Join a group to surround yourself with motivated people - No one's added me to my "Gyminee.com"account yet! My username is "Swimace"). Although I am looking to join the gym in September.

4. Track you progress. - I've always highlighted the importance of this, if what you're doing is written down you'll defiantly know and see you've progressed!

5. Tell everyone about your goals. - I thought this was a great idea I picked up from another web site! If you tell people what you're aiming for then you've set your goals out to other people, so every once in a while they'll be sure to ask how you're getting along. It will also help to keep your goals realistic!

An early night for me tonight I think!