Staying healthy requires consistency, motivation and discipline – establishing a routine and sticking to it. But staying healthy also requires breaking that routine periodically and getting enough rest. Choosing times not to exercise is just as important as the exercise itself.
“Recovery is part of the process,” says Justin Santos, head coach at the Academy of Lions, a fitness club in Toronto. “Not resting is just as bad as skipping a month’s worth of training.”
To be healthy, we need cycles of fatigue and repair, and as we adapt, our bodies become stronger, faster and more powerful.
For the average gym-goer, it can be difficult to know exactly how much rest is appropriate. What is an appropriate rest day?
Do you have too little or too much time off?
When we exercise, our muscle fibers create microscopic tears, but when we rest, they repair and adapt, becoming bigger and stronger. This adaptive process is called supercompensation, and it allows us to run faster, jump higher, and lift heavier.
“We adapt to training when our bodies recover from periods of fatigue,” says Giles Warrington, professor of human performance and innovation at the University of Limerick.
Without adequate rest, your muscles won’t have time to adapt, halting your progress and hindering your improvement. But not all fatigue is the same, and not all recovery is the same.
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For aerobic exercises like running or jumping rope, “adaptations are relatively quick” and can even happen overnight, Warrington says. After a quick jog, your body will be primed for a run the next morning.
For more intense, explosive power training, “the recovery process is longer” and may take a day or two. “Generally speaking, you don’t want to do strength training on consecutive days,” he says.
That said, there’s no need to wait until you’re 100% recovered before resuming exercise, especially if you’re training for a goal like running a marathon, Santos says. Some smartwatches and wearables that track sleep quality can also provide a score for your readiness, but the accuracy varies.
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If you are just working out to keep up with your kids or to age gracefully, I would recommend staying around 80% fit. You might feel a little less exertion than before, but it won’t affect your performance. If you are training for a race or a mountain climb, I would recommend training through some pain to make your body improve faster. For example, if you want to run 10km faster, the shorter the recovery time, the better.
If you’re working out three or fewer times a week, you probably don’t need to add more rest days. In fact, you may need to work out more frequently. Scott Panchik, a former CrossFit Games athlete who now owns a gym, suggests incorporating other forms of physical activity into your routine, like playing Frisbee or going for a hike. “If you want to get better at something, you need to stick with it for four or five days.”
Rest days shouldn’t be completely sedentary: “Recovery doesn’t mean doing nothing,” says Warrington. Active recovery, which includes low-impact aerobic activity like a light jog, a long walk, or a game like pickleball, has been shown to be highly effective in promoting recovery.
Panchik says his recipe is to train three days, rest one day, then train two days, rest one day (and repeat). On the rest day, he’ll take a long walk or do some light cardio. “I’ve tried to rest less, but that led to overtraining and injury,” Panchik says.
Another way to determine if your dog needs more rest days is its overall temperament.
“Mood appears to be the most reliable indicator of overtraining,” says Christy Aschwanden, author of Good to Go: What the Athlete in All of Us Can Learn from the Strange Science of Recovery.
If you wake up irritable or grumpy in the morning, or suddenly don’t feel like doing the exercise you normally enjoy, it’s probably time to take a day off.
For people who love training, taking a break can be hard. “Taking a break can be really hard for some people,” says Ariel Loewen, a professional CrossFit athlete. “It can be hard to feel like you’re training enough. It takes a lot of patience.”
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Forcing yourself to take rest days is important for maintaining a long-term exercise habit: “If you don’t take rest days, your body will force you to take them,” says Loewen.
Finally, it’s important to get to bed early before and after training. “Sleep is probably the most powerful tool in your recovery toolkit,” says Warrington. –This article was originally published in The New York Times
