REST AND RECOVERY : A PART OF EXERCISE
- josephplatt1979
- Nov 19, 2021
- 8 min read
Updated: Jul 11, 2022
REST AND RECOVERY
To become stronger, faster, and fitter, you have to push your body hard. We eat, sleep, train, repeat as we constantly striving to get bigger, stronger, faster or slimmer. But there a point where too much becomes harmful and we hear terms like overtraining and over reaching. In order to allow your body to recover and grow then you have to rest, too. Rest and recovery days are critical for athletes at all levels and getting adequate rest has both physiological and psychological benefits.
All workouts, especially tough ones, stress the body and you’re fatiguing, or tiring out, various muscles when you work out, which means you’re causing microscopic damage to muscle cells. Hormone and enzyme levels fluctuate, and inflammation actually increases. The changes you’re causing can do your body a lot of good. They lead to muscle growth, fat loss, improved insulin sensitivity, reduced inflammation, better cardiovascular health, and overall healthier bodies. But you need to give your body time for those good changes to happen before you start stressing it out again. The benefits for giving the body rest and recovery include:
Promotes Muscle Recovery - Exercise depletes the body's energy stores, or muscle glycogen. It also causes muscle tissue to break down. Giving adequate muscle recovery time allows the body to repair both of these issues, replenishing energy stores and repairing damaged tissues. If you don't allow sufficient time off to replenish your glycogen stores and give your muscles time to recover from damage, performance will be compromised. Further disregard of replenishment can lead to sustained muscle soreness and pain.
Helps Overcome Adaptation - When we undergo the stress of physical exercise, our body adapts and becomes more efficient. It’s just like learning any new skill. At first, it’s difficult, but over time it becomes second nature. Once you adapt to a given stress, you require additional stress to continue to make progress. But there are limits to how much stress the body can tolerate before it breaks down and suffers injury. Doing too much work too quickly will result in injury or muscle damage. Doing too little too slowly will not result in any improvement. This is why we have specific programs that increase time and intensity at a planned rate and allow rest days.
Promotes Relaxation- Taking a rest day also gives your mind and body a break, and it keeps your schedule from becoming too busy. Use your free day to spend more time with family and friends. Take your normal exercise time slot and do a hobby instead. Creating a healthy life is all about balance. It involves finding a way to split your time between home, work, and your fitness routine. Taking a rest day allows you to tend to these other areas while giving your body the time it needs to fully recover from your exercise sessions.
Prevents Overtraining - Too little rest and too few recovery days can lead to overtraining syndrome. This condition is thought to affect roughly 60% of elite athletes and 30% of non-elite endurance athletes. And once you have it, it can be difficult to recover.
WHAT TO DO ON A REST DAY
There are two types of recovery you can do on a rest day and they are passive recovery and active recovery.
Passive recovery involves taking the day entirely off from exercise. Passive recovery, in contrast, requires no movement at all. You simply let your body rest while you sit or lie down, for example. Sleep is also important so make sure to get plenty of rest, especially if you are training hard. Even one or two nights of poor sleep can decrease performance for long bouts of exercises, but not peak performance. However, consistent, inadequate sleep can result in hormone level changes, particularly those related to stress, stress hormones, muscle recovery, muscle building, and worst of all performance. Sleep deprivation can lead to increased levels of cortisol, decreased activity of human growth hormone, and decreased glycogen synthesis.
Active recovery is when you engage in a low-intensity exercise, placing minimal stress on the body, if any. During active recovery, the body works to repair soft tissue (muscles, tendons, and ligaments). Active recovery improves blood circulation that helps with the removal of waste products from muscle breakdown that build up as a result of exercise. Then fresh blood can come in to bring nutrients that help repair and rebuild the muscles. Examples of active recovery exercises include:
YOGA - This tried-and-true recovery activity not only increases flexibility, but it also teaches proper breathing techniques and body control. In addition, an easy yoga flow also promotes blood flow to help repair your broken-down muscle tissues.
MASSAGE - it decreases muscle soreness, pain and stress, improves circulation and lymphatic flow, and creates an enhanced perception of recovery. You can purchase a massage gun online instead of paying out for an expensive therapist.
CRYOTHERAPY - Cryotherapy chambers cold constricts blood vessels in the iced area, sending blood away from that part of your body and toward your core and vital organs. That diversion of blood flow slows your metabolic process, which reduces swelling. The cold also numbs the area to temporarily relieve some pain. Temporarily reduces muscle temperature, stimulating vasoconstriction and reducing inflammation and pain.
COMPRESSION - believed to alleviate muscle fatigue and soreness, accelerate lactate and metabolic by product removal, reduce muscle stiffness, increase venous and lymphatic flow and muscle oxygenation, and accelerate recovery while also improving performance. Elastic compression clothing appears to reduce some muscle soreness and perception of fatigue, but it also slows the removal of metabolic by products. Pneumatic compression (which incorporates pulsatile pressure) tends to have a greater effect on increasing blood flow and decreasing muscle stiffness, but it offers little or no improvement in power, strength or performance. You can also buy compression massage device that will help with recovery for your legs. It will improve blood circulation when inflating, helping to reduce swelling, leg fatigue and soreness, and promote exercise recovery.
HYDROTHERAPY - The cardiovascular system responds to hydrotherapy (water immersion) by changing heart rate, peripheral blood flow and resistance to flow. It also changes the temperature of the skin, muscles and core, influencing inflammation, immune function, muscle soreness and perception of fatigue. The three most common immersion techniques are cold water immersion (CWI), hot water immersion (HWI) and contrast water therapy (CWT), which alternates immersions between hot and cold water
WALKING - You will probably have experienced the stiffness that comes from sitting down or holding one position for a long period of time. When the muscles have already been damaged during the workout, the last thing they need is to be ceasing up like that. Instead, by keeping the muscles moving you keep them flexible and help to reduce soreness.
REST DAY NUTRIENTS
Your rest day nutrition should include plenty of protein from a variety of sources including meats and protein shakes, complex carbohydrates to fuel recovery, and healthy fats to help bring down inflammation created by training.
Aim for 20-30g protein every 2-4 hours throughout the day as this will support recovery by keeping your intake of amino acids steady.
Focus on natural, complex carbs from wholegrains, potatoes and vegetables, and fruits as these will deliver important vitamins, minerals, and fibre. Remember that carbohydrates don’t just replace energy, they also assist with protein absorption.
Your rest day fats should come from oily fish, nuts and seeds, and quality oils. You can get your fats from supplements also.
Even though you’re not training on a rest day, do not cut your calories too low. Your body needs the energy to recover and repair from the previous few days of training. You body needs those calories from nutrition to refuel and prepare for your next session. This is particularly important if your goal is muscle or strength gain.
SIGNS YOU NEED A REST DAY
Regardless of your exercise schedule, it's important to listen to your body. It will tell you if it needs a rest day, even if it's a day where you are supposed to be working out instead. Signs that you need a rest include:
You’re really sore - It’s normal to sometimes feel sore after a workout, especially if your workout was particularly intense or included movements your body isn’t used to. The soreness that comes after an unusually tough or new workout is known as delayed onset muscle soreness (DOMS). DOMS typically peaks about 48 hours after your workout, though it can persist longer. If your soreness continues for more than a week, however, or if you experience significant soreness, but can’t ID any changes to your workout routine that might have caused it—then it’s worth asking yourself if you need more rest.
You’re dreading your workout - You may think working out just challenges your body, but it also taxes your brain. Exercise demands focus, discipline, and mental fortitude, which is why your brain, just like your body, needs time to recover afterward. So, if your mind is begging for a break, you should probably listen.
You’re warmed up and still not feeling it - Some days, a workout just doesn’t appeal, even if you know it’ll make you feel better. But more often than not, once you start moving your body, your mindset will shift and you’ll be able to mentally embrace the workout. The same rule applies physically and If you feel soreness or pain even after you’ve warmed up your muscles, you should scale it back. There’s nothing to gain from pushing through a workout feeling crappy, and a lot to risk including injury and burnout.
Your muscles are cramping - If you experience muscle cramps while doing relatively gentle activities that may be a sign that your body is excessively fatigued. So, if random muscle cramps are ambushing your workout, do your body a solid and take a day (or more) off for recovery.
Your workout feels much harder than usual - We all have days where we just feel off. whether that’s physically, mentally, or emotionally. Maybe you feel like you’re dragging yourself on a run, or you’re unable to focus during virtual yoga, or you just don’t have the emotional capacity to complete your usual weight lifting routine—that’s probably a sign you need to rest.
Your resting heart rate has risen - (RHR) should be pretty stable, though it may decrease as a result of regular aerobic training. On the other hand, may be a sign your body is stressed which can happen for a variety of reasons, including too much exercise. So, if you track your RHR on your smart watch and notice that it’s 5+ bpm higher than usual over the course of a week, that may be a sign you’re not getting enough rest between workouts. In that case, take it easy until your RHR drops back to normal.
You’re dehydrated - Extreme thirst, dark-coloured pee, and low blood pressure are all signs of dehydration. If you’re dehydrated, definitely don’t start or continue a workout since sweating will only worsen the issue, and could potentially lead to more serious complications in severe cases. Instead, call it a day and resume your exercise routine when you’ve had a chance to get your fluid levels back to normal levels.
WHEN TO TAKE A REST DAY
The number of rest days you need will vary based on the type and intensity of your exercise. In general, you should schedule a rest day every seven to 10 days if you engage in high-intensity physical activity. Some workout schedules incorporate rest and recovery days more often, such as twice a week. One of these days may be used as a passive recovery day, giving you the day off from exercise completely. The other could focus on active recovery, or doing a light-intensity exercise.
Simply listen to your body and your brain and once you feel like you’ve gotten back to your baseline level of normal and that means any severe soreness, pain, or injury has dissipated and you’re feeling hydrated and healthy then start to train again. As you resume your typical fitness habits, just remember that rest days should be an integral part of your routine, not a once-in-a-while occurrence. Rest is undervalued and we need to know it’s an important and useful component to training.
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