AF family, we’ve got some important news for you: You don’t have to work out every day to be healthy.
What? That’s right! Rest days are just as important as the training you are doing. How does resting your muscles benefit your health journey? Rest allows your body to adapt to the training you’re doing. Each time you do a hard workout, you’re breaking down your muscle fibers. Sounds painful, doesn’t it? Not necessarily—it’s the natural process that happens in the body when you’re pushing yourself to your limit. Of course, you only receive benefits from pushing your muscles to their limit if you give them time to rest, too; that resting time is what allows muscle fibers to repair themselves and come back even bigger and stronger. Without rest, workouts would do little to nothing for our body. You’d be breaking your muscles down constantly without giving them time to heal and build themselves back up. If you’ve ever felt exhausted before you even arrived at the gym, that might have been during a time you were overtraining… which is a key sign that you need a rest day!
While some people look forward to their rest days, it can be difficult for others to take one, whether because they’re worried about meeting their health goals or just used to working out as part of their daily routine. Whether you love or hate rest days, they’re an important part of your fitness journey; and even if you’re anxious about taking one, we promise that your body will thank you. Here are the top five ways to identify if you need a rest day, and remember, you can tweak your rest days to the type of activity that’s best for you!
1. You feel tired or moody.
Even though you got 7-9 hours of sleep, you wake up on the wrong side of the bed and can’t seem to get going. Often when we’re overtrained or burnt out, we feel like we need another two hours of sleep. Overtraining can also lead to some difficulty falling asleep, which only compounds the sleepless feeling. In addition to being tired, you might suffer from headaches or mental fatigue, which can lead to moodiness and feeling off. If your body isn’t feeling well, this can be a telltale sign that you need a rest day!
One note: Working out is a well-known endorphin booster that can help improve your mood. But while it’s one thing to perk up after feeling down in the dumps, it’s quite another to push your body too hard when all it really needs is rest. Learn to listen to your body to find out what it needs, and choose wisely.
2. You’re getting sick.
When the body doesn’t get the proper rest after exercise, it can actually weaken your immune system enough to get sick. While exercise can help boost your immune system in the long term, too much exercise causes the body to focus its energy on muscle repair, rather than giving you the immune responses needed to fight off sickness. When you’re sick, it’s almost always best to rest.
3. You’re always sore or injured.
You’re probably familiar with soreness as a sign that you’re starting a new workout routine, trying a new move, or just changing things up and getting stronger. As your body adapts to the new stimulus, soreness can be a welcome sign that the change is working! However, if you are still feeling sore after 2-3 days of rest, this can be a sign of overtraining. While sore, tight muscles are one thing, new and unfamiliar moves can sometimes introduce minor injuries, which require extra rest to allow the body to focus its energy on repair. Working an extra rest day into your program so that you can heal can have a large impact on the effectiveness of your workouts! And of course, it goes without saying that if you have a serious injury, hit the couch and skip the gym, no buts about it.
4. You’re hitting a plateau.
Have you ever had this experience? You’ve been working your tail off at the gym, but the results aren’t happening like they used to. What gives? The likely culprit is overtraining, which is one of the most common causes of an exercise plateau. When you exercise so frequently that you’re not allowing the body to properly repair the muscle tissues that you’re breaking down, you actually lose more muscle than you gain. You are essentially breaking down fibers that haven’t had a chance to fully heal yet and come back bigger and stronger. Work a few rest days into your routine to let that recovery happen, and you’ll be amazed at how much progress you’ll start making!
5. You feel like you need it.
Here’s the thing: You are in charge of your body. No one can tell you how you are feeling after a long week of training except you. Listen to what your body is telling you and rest when needed. Remember that your mental health is just as important as your physical health, so take those days that you really need and rest up. If you still want to get some movement for the day in, consider some lower intensity exercise such as walking oy roga, or recovery work such as foam rolling, to make sure you are prepped and ready for your next workout!
