Some thoughts and discussions from me.
What to Do on Rest Days? Complete Rest or Active Rest?
Oh, the rest day.
I’ve found that there’s two camps of people when it comes to rest days:
- Those who look forward to each and every one of them, and
- Those who are itching to get back in the gym the next day.
I personally enjoy mine, if only for the fact that I know taking one will not only help me get the most out of the work I put in the gym, but also because it helps stave off burn out later.
Regardless of whether you love or loathe your rest days, they’re an integral part of every sound training plan.
But the question is: what to do on rest days?
While some people take a rest day as an excuse to be horizontal on the couch with Netflix all day, that probably isn’t the best idea either.
Instead, “light activity” tends to be the best to get the blood flowing, flush lactic acid build up, and release fluid and pressure. What “light activity” means depends on your training regimen (i.e. a run probably wouldn’t be the best if you run every other day of the week.) It could be play – like a light hike, casual game of volleyball, or a leisurely walk (all three are some of my personal preferred methods) or something more directly-related to recovery like mobility work or self-myofascial release (foam rolling or massage.)
Mobility work takes your joints through a range of motion that staves off stiffness, as well as gets the blood pumping through the the working muscles. In fact, I program in a mobility day for nearly all of my clients, having them move their joints through a pain-free range of motion to get the blood pumping to the surrounding muscle.
You could even use your dynamic warm up as your mobility work, like this one here:
For less direct methods of recover, you can simply go outside (or inside) and play! Personally, I take walks, play a casual game of volleyball, or take leisurely hikes on my rest days.
Movement and fresh air…not much out there that’s better!
Just make sure the ‘play’ you partake in isn’t quite intense enough to make you sweat or make you sore, but just get the blood flowing a bit.
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What about YOU? How many rest days do you take a week, and how do you spend them?
I take anywhere from 1-3 rest days per week, depending on that week and my training/goals of my current program. I love to take walks on those days or do a little yoga, though I need to be better about that whole yoga thing.. 😉
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ME TOO, girl!
Love this post! I actually love rest days and usually try to do one day of active rest, we have an 80 lbs dog that needs at least a 30-60 min walk a day or some days I just choose to do my every day chores as rest, so grocery shopping, cleaning, something where I’m still moving but not as ACTIVE as I normally would be. I try for two days of rest each week. Three days of my workouts are full body weights and the other two (well one right now as I’m 10 weeks post baby -) are spinning so 6 days of workouts usually was too much for me and now with a new baby I’m working on trying to scale back or do shorter workouts for better time management so two days of rest seem to be the best for me.
Wow! You’re getting right back to it, Fiona! Glad you’re feeling well 🙂
Couldn’t agree more! I usually have Friday’s off training clients/classes, so I tend to make those days my off day. I usually don’t do anything but go on a walk, sometimes yoga. I find that sometimes I just need total rest or super light active rest like a walk!
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I tend to take one rest day a week which always contains either joint mobility or yoga. I also love to take hikes or leisurely walks to get me out in the fresh air. Trying to take it all in before it gets too cold.