The Importance of Rest Days

Maybe you’re somebody who’s been lifting weights for years, or you could be someone that just started lifting consistently. Heck, today might be the day you try to find a consistent groove in your fitness routine. Regardless, it’s safe to say you have (or are going to) run into a number of questions on the topic of rest days.

In this article, I want to address the following questions:

  • How many rest days per week do you need?
  • Why do you need rest days in your routine?
  • What is overtraining, and why should you avoid it?
  • How can you make the best day out of your rest day?

HOW MANY REST DAYS PER WEEK?

I’m going to speak on how many rest days you need from a practical point of view first, then touch on the biology behind it. I believe that if you don’t try to make your exercise routine as practical as possible, there’s a good chance it will be harder for you to integrate any kind of consistent exercise routine into your life. Let’s increase those chances as much as possible so that we can set a solid workout habit—an incredibly powerful tool to set the foundation for long-term health.

We need to take into account our personal situations when designing a long-term fitness routine. Time and fitness-level are two major limiting factors when coming up with the number of days you’ll be working out compared to the number of rest days you’ll take. If you’re limited to 3 days a week for exercise, then it looks like you’re going to have 4 rest days regardless of your fitness level. If you can workout every single day of the week, and your fitness level is high enough to make that practical, I’d say save one day to rest your body.

No matter your situation, the one key thing to remember is to make sure your muscles are not excessively sore when going into your next workout. Ultimately, you know your body best. If you’re incapacitated after a workout, you’re pushing your body far beyond its limits. A bit of post-workout soreness is what you should be aiming for, lasting around 1-2 days.

Soreness lasting longer than 1-2 days is an indication that you’re over-exerting yourself. If you find yourself in any of the previous circumstances, take it as a sign to have a rest day and to rethink the intensity-level of your workout. If you want more information on the science of soreness is, give this article from the University of Delaware. a read

WHY DO I NEED REST DAYS?

This is a warning for all you overachievers and no days off-ers: if you don’t give your muscles the appropriate time to recover, your risk of injury increases significantly. This is because the muscles are not able to perform at their optimum levels when performing a taxing exercise, thereby increasing the chance of compromising your form in the middle of the movement.

That compromised movement—whether you’re lifting 300 pounds or you're doing a classic bodyweight squat—puts you in a risky situation where your body will start to jeopardize form in order to complete the movement.

Although this may allow you to get a few more repetitions in, they are not working the muscles the way the exercise was designed. This can lead to pressure and tension on joins, ligaments, or tendons that aren’t functionally designed for that type of strain.

What could happen next: a popping/cracking followed by some potential pain and swelling, ending with a not-so-cheap visit to your primary care doctor.

Rest days allow for the muscles you’ve broken down to recover enough so that you can rely on them for your next workout. Progress in fitness largely comes from resting and recovering from the hard work you’ve put in. Based on this, we can argue that resting correctly is just as important as training.

Although people can get away with poor form for quite some time (especially younger fitness-goers/athletes), it can often come back to haunt you later in life. Performing incorrect repetitions for an extended period of time can lead to muscular imbalances, chronic pain, and reinforce poor movement patterns, which can further worsen the former problems.

REST AND OVERTRAINING

Overtraining is defined by NASM (National Academy of Sports Medicine) as an “excessive frequency, volume, or intensity of training, resulting in fatigue (which is also caused by a lack of proper rest and recovery).”

Although this simply sounds like being sore for a couple of days after a strenuous workout, there are negative side effects to overtraining that I want you to be aware of. An issue that can develop in those who consistently train above their fitness level is overtraining syndrome.

Some common side effects of overtraining syndrome include (Clark et al., 2017):

  • Decline in typical fitness ability
  • Exhaustion
  • Changed in the bodies typical hormone levels
  • Irregular sleeping patterns
  • Decreased appetite
  • Weakened immune system
  • Changes in mood

HOW TO MAKE THE BEST DAY OUT OF YOUR REST DAYS

A ‘rest day’ doesn’t mean a full day void of movement. Health and fitness expert Jonathan Ross defines a rest day as a ‘non-training day’ in his article “Exercise and Rest.” He goes on to explain that it is a day without the demands of heavy activity. If you’re feeling like an overachiever and you want to do a bit of activity on a rest day, try active recovery!

Active recovery is just that—a recovery that is active. Research has suggested active recovery allows muscles to recover at faster rates because the movement helps to stimulate blood flow and proteins to the muscle tissue, which in turn speeds up the recovery process (Comana, 2017).

Exercises that would be considered active recovery could be a variety of movements, but the key is to keep it light for your fitness level. A body builder that typically squats 400 lbs. on a typical leg-day may choose to squat 40 lbs. for their active recovery, but that isn’t appropriate for someone who finds body weight squats difficult.

An easy way to gauge what type of exercise to do for active recovery would be considering the intensities of your cool down exercises and try to match them on your rest day. If you need help further visualizing how to actively recover, check out NASM’s article on active recovery.

If there’s one thing I would like you to take from this article, it's to make sure you listen to your body and rest when needed to avoid putting yourself in harm's way. Hard work paired with recovery makes you stronger. Keep in mind that this article covers the general concept of rest days, but there’s a lot more to learn on resting and fitness, so stay tuned for future articles!

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