Knowing When to Rest | Ecclesiastes 3:1

Devotional

“For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven:”

One of the hardest lessons to learn is that wisdom isn’t just knowing what to do—it’s knowing when to do it. That’s the message Solomon begins with in Ecclesiastes 3.

Since we finished our last month of conditioning following a month of strength training, we decided it would be best to take a week off. But not a traditional week off, rather we took a “deload” week.

If you’ve ever played sports, you probably remember training days where the goal wasn’t to push your limits but to move well with lighter weight or lower intensity. Those sessions may have seemed easy at the time, but they served an important purpose. When you’re younger, you want to just keep going with the heavy weights, but the older we get, the more important these lighter weeks are.

A deload isn’t inactivity. It’s intentional training with reduced intensity. Every movement still has purpose, but the goal shifts from pushing harder to preparing for what’s next.

Ecclesiastes chapter 3 verses 1 through 8 tells us at there is a time for everything. Verse 3 is my favorite where king Solomon mentions “a time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up”.

You cannot live your life in a constant state of pressure; a never ending cycle of tearing yourself down. A time for rest is purposeful, beneficial, and biblical. It should not be overlooked or ignored.

Several studies have researched the benefits of a deload week. According to the Cleveland Clinic⁠,“In one study, participants who took planned breaks from high-intensity resistance training every six weeks gained as much muscle and strength as their counterparts who didn’t deload. And they achieved the same results with 25% fewer training sessions.”

It’s not a restart.

It’s a rest.

While God designed us to toil and labor, for His glory, He also gave us the ability to rest.

Workout

Studies show it takes two weeks of no activity to lose muscle. Some show this number to even be as high as three weeks. So don’t worry about losing progress during this week of intentional recovery. Trust the process, recover well, and prepare for what’s next.

For our next program, I plan to mix up the devotional format. Before, we went through a devotional for every workout. For this next program, we will go over the workouts once a week. This will give you the ability to see an entire week’s worth of workouts in one post and will allow us to dive deeper into a passage, with more time between posts.

Below are the workouts completed during this deload week. For all exercises, think 60% of your normal working weight. If you normally bench 185 for 8 for example, use 115 to 125 for a set of 8 this week.

Day One (circuit):

15-minute AMRAP

1. Goblet Squat - 10 reps

2. KB Swings - 15 reps

3. Pull-ups - 8 reps

4. Push-ups - 15 reps

Day Two (push):

Strength

1. Bench Press - 3x8

2. DB Shoulder Press - 3x10

Conditioning (3 rounds)

⁃ Dips (10)

⁃ Tricep Push-downs (12)

⁃ Ab-wheel (12)

Day Three (pull):

Strength

1. Pull-up - 3x8

2. Bent-over Row - 3x10

3. Barbell Curl - 3x10

Conditioning (3 rounds)

⁃ Lat-pulldowns (12)

⁃ DB Curls (12)

Day Four (legs):

Strength

1. Barbell Squat - 3x10

2. KB Deadlifts - 3x10

Conditioning

⁃ Forward Lunge (10)

⁃ Ab Wheel (12)

5 minutes on row machine to cool down