Rest days are an essential part of your fitness program.īut what should you actually do on your rest day? Should you kick back on the couch, fix yourself a batch of butter popcorn and binge on some Netflix? It’s a question on many people’s minds, especially those just starting their fitness journey.Įxercising on your rest day may sound like an unnecessarily tiring and entirely counterproductive idea, but the truth is that it offers more benefits than sedentary rest. However, anyone serious about their fitness knows rest is just as important as working out. They pour every bit of themselves into training, in order to achieve the goals they set out for. To help you plan your next active recovery day, we asked our experts to lay out some of the best options.Those dedicated to their workouts go hard every day. There's nothing wrong with taking days off completely, so don't forget to listen to your body and give it a break when it needs one. That being said, complete full-on couch-mode rest days (as well as sleep) are a worthy part of your training routine too. If you’re currently training three or four times per week, you can turn a couple of your “off” days into active recovery days to keep building strength and aerobic fitness even when you’re not working at your hardest. If you’re training more than five days per week, or you just hate the idea of taking a day completely off from exercise, consider subbing out one of your weekly workouts for an active recovery day. Make sure both types of rest are regular parts of your workout routine. Sometimes you’ll want to schedule an active recovery day in order to help increase blood flow to sore muscles other days, you’ll want to sleep in to help with fatigue. Both active and passive recovery days, however, are important for giving your body the adequate rest it needs. Unlike passive recovery days-where you’re sitting on your couch all day binge-watching Stranger Things-active recovery days involve movement. Planning an “active recovery” workout on rest days is a great way to give your body a break without being totally sedentary. Not to mention, dialing it down for an active recovery day can offer a refreshing mental break from intense training, Alberta-based kinesiologist and exercise physiologist Dean Somerset, C.S.C.S., tells SELF. It also helps flush out waste products that built up during exercise (like hydrogen ions and lactic acid) and contribute to muscle damage and fatigue, Michael Rebold, Ph.D., C.S.C.S., department chair of the integrative exercise program and assistant professor of integrative exercise science at Hiram College in Ohio, tells SELF. Giving your circulation a little boost helps get nutrients (like amino acids and oxygen) to your muscles so they can repair themselves. Working at a lower intensity will help increase recovery from your previous workout by increasing blood flow to your muscles and tissues. For example, if you’re training for a marathon, you can use an active recovery day as an opportunity to walk a few easy miles or take a gentle yoga class to work on flexibility. In general, an active recovery day features easy workouts equivalent to no more than 60 to 70 percent of your maximum effort (low to moderate intensity). That can mean anything from yoga or light stretching, a walk, or a leisurely jog. What It IsĪctive recovery, also called active rest, is when you do some sort of movement that is less intense than your regular workout days. Here's why active recovery should be part of your weekly workout routine. But that doesn’t mean you need to avoid all activity on your rest days. “Think of it this way: If you don’t give your body time to adapt to the physical demands, it will never get a chance to ‘catch up’ and get stronger,” Lindsey Corak, a certified personal trainer at Life Time Athletic Boston and TEAM Burn program lead, tells SELF.
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