The Importance Of Rest Days
I am going to be honest. I am really bad at rest days. I hate resting. I get agitated. It’s hard for me to justify resting when I feel so good after exercise.
I also love the feeling of progression and getting stronger. However, it wasn’t until recently that I realised that in not resting, I was actually contradicting this.
My wake up call came in a random gym when I was on holiday in Krakow. I was doing an overhead squat and my shoulder popped out. I panicked that I would have to go to hospital and have hospital food in Poland (to which I am not particularly a fan of their cuisine anyway and I wondered what their hospital robes were like). These thoughts went through my head whilst I popped it back in haha.
Pre overhead squat, my shoulder felt unstable, but I ignored the feeling and wanted to carry on. I hadn’t rested in over a week. This isn’t a brag. It is quite the opposite- for someone who’s so clued up on the importance of rest days, I was stupid.
Fast forward to today and I make sure to schedule rest days in. Now this doesn’t mean that I am lay in bed doing nothing, simply because I know that wouldn’t be good for my mental health.
In fact, I usually work on my stretching and mobility, particularly focussing on my shoulder stability. Since focussing more on this, I am stronger than I ever have been and I can push press without any feeling of instability (whereas I used to).
Aside from this, I sometimes have active rest days whereby I cycle in to Manchester as I find this helps to ease off muscle soreness (particularly post leg day).
I also like to keep active such as practice a skipping skill or football skill. This is at a low intensity.
HOW TO APPLY THIS TO YOU?
Schedule in rest days
Work on mobility and stretching on rest days (prepare your body for a good session post rest day)
Keep active during your rest days e.g. go on a walk and increase your steps (aim for at least 10,000). Perhaps, you could even do your housework.
Still remain on plan with your nutrition. eg if you are resting then you aren’t expending as much calories so eating 1000s more cals would just put you in a calorie surplus. If fat loss is what you are after then this is only going to bump up your average calorie count for that week.
Final comments
If you’re like me and you love exercising, you’ll find it particularly hard to schedule in rest days. However, if you don’t rest then you are probably actually getting in the way of your progression. You also increase the likelihood of injury which then sidelines you from training for a longer duration of time than a days rest. TRUST ME- INJURIES ARE FRUSTRATING.
Instead, work on your mobility and stretching. Keep active during rest days (increase steps) and stay on plan with nutrition!
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