5 Reasons You Need to Take a Rest Day

While starting the journey towards fitness, most people are advised to take optimum rest to see results. Most athletes are asked to take a rest day here and there from the grueling gym schedule to allow them to recover from the damages they might have sustained during workouts.

Generally, a rest day is defined as a period without training. That might range from a day in between to whatever time is needed for a person to return to training with the same intensity. American College of Sports Medicine reports that a period of 48-72 hours should be treated as a rest period between two days of heavy resistance training.

Why is Rest Important for Athletes?

For any exercise to have the greatest effect on our body, varying degrees of intensity of exercises should be coupled with proper rest. Ideally, our body should be subjected to low, medium, and high-intensity exercises. This process is called periodization. Periodization is accompanied by two kinds of stresses on our body.

Metabolic stress occurs because of the depletion of the glycogen reserves in our bodies. Mechanical stress is nothing but the damage caused to the tissues and muscles during the course of the workout. This is why our bodies need time after intense training periods to recuperate from the damage and stress. The following reasons will explain better why a rest day is a must.

1. Taking Rest Replenishes Our Body’s Energy and Fluids

When a person is working out, they spend a lot of energy, which is usually in the form of carbohydrates. The sweat that our body produces drains the fluids in our body. Even though these fluids get replenished within two hours, it takes up to 24 hours for our muscles to replenish an adequate store of glycogen.

2. Taking Rest is Beneficial for the Mind

As you focus harder and try to use the mind-muscle connection to get into the groove of the workout, you use your brain intensely as well. This is why it is said that physical exertion also takes a toll on your mind. A day away from the gym can help you freshen your mind and help you relax better. Psychological recovery is as important as physiological recovery.

3. Taking Rest Can Repair Tissue Damage

The mechanical exertion of a workout can cause tissue damage. This break allows fibroblasts (individual cells that are responsible for repair) to work on the damaged tissues. Muscles react with protein to repair themselves. This process is called muscle-protein synthesis.

4. Mitigates Soreness in Muscles

When a person trains hard, it is quite natural for them to end up with sore muscles. A rest day allows our circulatory system to remove the toxins generated during training. Our circulatory system also transports the required amount of oxygen and nutrients needed for our body’s recovery.

Related Article: BCAAs > Rest to Reduce Muscle Soreness

5. Overtraining is Avoided

Not putting enough focus into a rest day can lead to a condition called overtraining syndrome. Most elite athletes and some casual athletes suffer from such problems. They want to stay at the top of their game. In uninformed niches, it is believed that avoiding the gym for a day can be seen as an indication of lethargy. However, if people overtrain, they always run the risk of being dehydrated. Overtraining can cause the accumulation of layers of body fat and a loss of libido. People who train excessively are also found to be more irritable.

What to Do on a Rest Day?

A rest day can be spent in two ways. People either go for active recovery or passive recovery. Passive recovery entails taking the entire day off from any physical exertions. Active recovery entails that a person might engage in low-intensity training, which causes minimal exertion and stress to the body.

Active recovery is manifested in the form of walking, stretching, and yoga, which helps remove byproducts generated in the body during training. Sleep should be considered an important part irrespective of whether it’s a rest day or a normal day. A couple of days of inadequate sleep might not affect performance, but if this becomes a pattern, it can affect our body’s hormone levels. Reports say that lack of sleep generates a hormone called cortisol, which is known as a stress hormone. It also leads to a decrease in the level of human growth hormone released. Growth hormone is known to have a healing effect on damaged tissues. Sleeping well and ensuring you’re getting a minimum of seven hours of sleep each night can also result in better glycogen synthesis.

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