Why Rest Days Are Important and Should You Have One?
We’ve all heard it; rest days are just as important as exercise. Some people are able to easily commit to this, for others rest days are easier said than done. I am going to remind us of the benefits of rest days on our body, so if you are in the group of people who find it hard to have a dedicated rest day, hopefully this can help you feeling less guilty for them.
One reason why this should become regular for us is the time for recovery this day allows on our muscles and body. When you train your muscles, you create mini tears in them. Having adequate rest for muscles worked, helps our body repair the tears and help grow these muscles. If you are attending classes 6 days a week having one day of rest a week is recommended. Even consistent cardio needs rest.
Rest days can also help in the reduction of injury. When you over work a muscle, you don’t allow your body to repair the tears in your muscles. Overworking a muscle group will lead to repetitive stress and strain, turning the good small tears into a potential injury. When overworking, we also run the risk of slipping out of good form and into fatigued movements. This poor form of movements can also result in injuries.
When we overtrain, we can lack the correct movement of an exercise. We will use other muscles to get the weights above our head or skip a few reps because we are exhausted. Rest days can help to improve your overall performance. By having our muscles recovered and fueled allows us the ability to go into a workout and give it 100%.
Obviously rest days are an important day to add into your training weeks. When we say ‘rest day’ we don’t mean you have to lay on the couch all day and do minimal movement. If you love to be active, you can still achieve a ‘rest day’ while getting outdoors. Some exercises that are able to be done on rest days include, walking, bike riding and yoga. Think low impact and low heart rate exercise for your rest days.
If you want to take these rest days to the next level and make sure that when you step back into the gym you are at peak performance, you can focus on your diet on these low exercise days. By making sure you are eating adequate protein and carbohydrates on these days helps assist with recovery your muscles.
We hope that this helps you feel better about a relaxing Sunday or at least allows you to enjoy a slower paced day once a week!
