How do rest days improve your health

• Allows time for recovery

Rest is vital for muscle growth. But not all the time! When you exercise you create microscopic tears in your muscle tissues. However when you rest, cells known as fibroblasts repair those microscopic tears in your muscle tissue. This helps the tissue heal and grow, leading to you gaining stronger muscles! 

• Helps prevent muscle fatigue 

Rest is necessary in order to help avoid exercise-induced fatigue. It is important to remember that exercise reduces your muscles glycogen levels. Your muscles need glycogen to function, by getting adequate rest  – you will allow your glycogen stores to refill. 

• Reduce risk of injury 

Overtraining puts your musculoskeletal system under an increase in demand. This may lead to an increase in likelihood of sustaining an injury. Therefore, it is important to try and incorporate a rest day into your fitness schedule. 

What is active recovery

Active recovery involves undertaking low-intensity exercise. Active recovery is extremely beneficial for your body compared to staying sedentary on your rest day. These benefits include some of the following:

• Increases blood flow
• Helps reduce muscle soreness 
• Keeps your muscles flexible 
• Helps you maintain your fitness regime

You may be wondering, what exercise could I do as an active recovery? 

Well, below are a few examples of fantastic low-intensity workouts, which will have you feeling fresh to smash the next few days of training!

• Swimming
• Yoga
• Cycling
• Walking
• Jogging

Adding rest in your routine 

It is important to strike a balance between following a strict fitness programme and allowing yourself the flexibility to listen to your body. Having rest days built into your training schedule can be very useful to ensure you don’t overtrain. As a general rule it takes 48 hours for your muscles to fully recover after a workout – so don’t train the same muscles two days in a row! 

Sleep is a key aspect of your rest and recovery. During a good night’s sleep your body’s production of growth hormones increases. By not getting a quality night’s sleep, it may lead to a decrease in your body’s production of growth hormones. 

Remember to listen to your body and stay active on your recovery days!

Sources:

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/1623894/#:~:text=Overtraining%20places%20a%20demand%20on,be%20detrimental%20to%20sport%20performance. 

https://academic.oup.com/sleep/advance-article/doi/10.1093/sleep/zsac222/6702165?login=false

https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/active-recovery#vs-passive-recovery