Do you struggle to take a day off from working out?
I sure did. Today, I’ll tell you how I learned to love my rest days and stop worrying that I wasn’t training hard enough.
I used to be someone who didn’t really keep track of my training schedule. I would work out for 10 or 15 days straight before a very busy work schedule, nasty virus or some other barrier popped up and forced me to rest.
It wasn’t optimal. As a coach, I know my body recovers and rebuilds when I give it a rest. But I have goals, so it’s hard to take my foot off the pedal.
Over time, I learned to appreciate the value of rest and recovery and started using down time to enhance my training and ultimately my results. But I know that some people are still stuck in an overtraining cycle, and breaking free from it is truly a challenge. I understand how you feel.
Here are some ideas and strategies for you to consider that might help you take the rest you need and deserve.
When You Train, Train Hard!
I recommend you follow a program that uses progressive overload, challenges you and pushes you to get stronger and grow some muscle.
If you do this, you will find you actually look forward to rest days because you physically and mentally need them.
If you’re showing up daily but not challenging yourself enough, you’re likely not making optimal progress. And because your intensity isn’t as great as it could be, chances are you don’t ever feel like you need a rest day. I’m not saying all of your workouts she be at Level 10 intensity. But some of them should hit that range, and others should rank high on the scale to produce the results you want.
If you’re not sure how hard to train, an experienced coach can tell you exactly what you need to do to reach your goals!
Nurture Hobbies Outside the Gym
A balanced lifestyle includes hobbies outside of structured workouts—fitness is my career and a hobby, but I truly thrive when I spend time focusing on pursuits outside the gym, too. The activity you choose can be literally anything: Playing outside in nature, taking an art class, learning to play an instrument.
Depending on your fitness goals, this balance will look different for everyone. Some people will have more varied interests outside training, while others might have just one extra thing they make time for. Right now I’m using my rest days to take my dogs on extra-long adventures, and I’m enjoying every minute with them that I can. I am also writing my first novel.
I always look forward to a day off during a tough week of training, and when I “fill my cup” outside the gym, I look forward to the next workout, too.
As your life changes seasons, your balance with fitness might change as well. For very busy people, a day off from the gym might just be the window they need to grocery shop, fold some laundry and catch up with friends over coffee. On my rest days, I get a lot of stuff accomplished, and I look forward to an extra 90 minutes in my schedule.
The bottom line is that your life should include fitness, but it doesn’t have to be fitness 24/7. Fill your rest days with hobbies!
Remember What Rest Days Do
Rest days enhance the effects of all the hard work in the gym.
Your muscles grow and your body makes positive adaptations to exercise if you allow it to recover. This happens on rest days, not during workouts. You stress the body during workouts, and it responds by rebuilding to be stronger. That looks like greater endurance, more strength and so on.
If you constantly stress the body and never allow it to recover, you’ll enter a state called “over-reaching,” which is followed by overtraining. In both states, results are less than ideal—and in some extreme cases you start moving backward.
I’ve seen overtraining in gyms, and it’s incredibly frustrating for athletes. They keep working hard, but gains slow or stop. Sometimes they get injured. They desperately need to rest, but many can’t, and it causes problems. When they finally rest and return to the gym on a reasonable schedule, they start making progress again.
The older you get and the harder you train, the more important rest becomes. It takes a little more time to recover when you reach the “masters category,” and you might have to adjust your training load to keep making progress.
If success is truly important to you, then rest days are going to be a staple in your program. The benefits of rest are immense: You’ll experience better sleep, better moods and better results.
Train Then Rest
I’m not saying you shouldn’t hit the gym regularly. I love it when people work out consistently.
Just be sure to build in recovery time.
How much? Some people will work out for three days and rest for one, while others work for two and rest for one. Others still will do one on, one off. A rule of thumb: Make sure you have one or two rest days a week—and maybe more if you aren’t recovering.
For example, if you’re super sore, tired and cranky, you aren’t letting yourself down if you decide to take a rest day, fuel with nutritious food and head to bed early. You’re not “skipping a workout.” You’re investing in your next training day.
If you have any questions or worries, talk to an experienced coach. After years of working with clients, I know exactly how hard they need to go to get results, and I can spot over-reaching well before it becomes a problem. An outside perspective can make all the difference in the world.
So when’s your next rest day, and what are you going to do with it?
