People say a lot of things about rest days that aren’t really true, so I’d like to take a minute to separate myths from facts.
They balance your workload. Your body can handle three hard workouts in a week if you balance that by giving it four rest days. Note that the number and type of rest days depends on how hard the work days are. If you did six days of relatively easy workouts, one rest day each week would be plenty.
They take the guesswork out of “easy” days. If your program told you to alternate hard and easy days, you might find yourself working too hard on the easy days. But if it’s a complete rest day, you just don’t show up to the gym, and now you know for sure you aren’t doing too much.
They don’t prevent injury. Balancing your total workload can help to prevent injury, but as we discussed, rest days are one tool that can help in that balance. There are ways to safely exercise without rest days.
They don’t allow full recovery. The results of your workout take days to weeks for your body to fully recover from. We don’t wait for full recovery each time, or else we’d never get on a consistent schedule and never make any progress in training. Your muscles (and other body systems) can work even when they’re not fully recovered—within reason, of course.
When should I take rest days?
If you’re designing your own routine, here are some guidelines to help you know where to put the rest days. These are not ironclad laws, and lots of good programs will do things differently. But these are helpful rules of thumb to get you started:
In a running or cardio program, beginners should get a rest day after 1 to 2 consecutive workout days. That allows for a Monday/Wednesday/Friday schedule, which is very popular for beginners.
It’s OK to do two workouts on consecutive days, so long as your total work/rest balance stays the same. For example, if you can’t do your Wednesday workout and you end up running on Monday, Thursday, and Friday, that’s OK because you still have four rest days this week.
Keeping the purposes of rest days in mind, you want to make sure that your rest day accomplishes what it’s meant to accomplish.
On a rest day, you may keep up your baseline level of activity. If you normally get 8,000 steps, you can still take 8,000 steps. If you normally walk your dog, you can still walk your dog. If you work a job that has you on your feet or moving equipment all day, you can still go to work and do your job. You don’t literally have to rest, you just have to keep your activity to your baseline level.
Can I do strength training when I’m resting from cardio, and vice versa?
Beginners should approach this cautiously, though. If you’re doing couch to 5K and coming from a literal couch-potato life, give yourself a few weeks to get used to the new schedule before adding in some beginner-level strength training.
Here’s another not-ironclad rule: some coaches advise that it’s better to stack two workouts on a “hard” day to free up some rest time on a different day. That could mean doing a run and a strength workout on Tuesday so that you can take a true rest day on Wednesday. If you’ve been ramping up your exercise volume and find yourself longing for a rest day, try this approach and see if it feels better to you.
Can I walk on my rest days?
Yes, if you keep it relatively light compared to your harder workout days. A rest day is a good time for gentle flexibility work, light strength work, and just keeping your body moving a bit. If you feel like your yoga session does that, perfect.
Can I do “active recovery” on my rest days?
Depends what that means to you, but probably! Mobility work, foam rolling, light yoga, walking, and easy swimming can all fall under the umbrella of “active recovery.” Just remember that active recovery isn’t defined by what kind of thing you do, but by how hard it is on your body. If you’re a swimmer and find it relaxing to do a few easy laps, then yes, that can absolutely be a recovery activity. But if you’re new to swimming, and you find yourself flailing in the water gasping for breath, that is not a recovery activity. Use a little common sense and you’ll be able to figure it out.
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