Why Rest Days Should be an Essential Part of Your Fitness Regimen

20 Mar Why Rest Days Should be an Essential Part of Your Fitness Regimen

In this day and age, the mentality is often go, go, go. More is better and rest often takes a backseat. But, rest is an important part of working out and should be a part of your fitness regimen if you plan to see any fitness gains, weight loss or increases in performance. Even professional athletes schedule rest days within their training regimens because it is THAT important.

Here’s why…

When you exercise, stress is placed on your tendons, muscles, joints, ligaments and bones. Without a rest day every now and then, your body simply can’t keep up and it won’t have a chance to adequately repair itself. If your body can’t repair and recover, you’re setting yourself up for injury and overuse.

During a rest day, glycogen stores are rebuilt: glycogen is the stored form of glucose and a primary fuel for the body during any activity. Replenishing glycogen stores is important because your muscles will deplete its stores during a good workout. “No” or “improper” refuel = inadequate fuel stores = unsatisfactory and less than par workout performance. If this continues chronically…you get the picture.

I know, sometimes it’s easy to get into a groove where everything is going so well with your new workout routine or class; it’s been going so well that you’ve been attending religiously and it’s hard to step back and see the bigger picture: you may be putting yourself at RISK!

Exercising day-in and day-out can become very taxing physically, emotionally and mentally. We ask so much of our bodies and push ourselves continuously. It’s important to remember that your body deserves love and respect. If you don’t love and respect your body and take care of yourself properly, your athletic performance will suffer as well as your mental well-being.

It is also advised that certain muscle groups are worked on one day, and other muscle groups worked the next to allow for proper recovery. This is why RiPT targets different parts of the body each day of the week. This prevents overtraining a specific muscle group, as well as injury, while giving your body time to adapt and recover properly. You see, there are some methods to our madness!

If you are still determined to pound out workout after workout, day-in and day-out, overdoing it can lead to all kinds of injuries including stress fractures, joint pain, muscle strains and over-training syndrome. Not to mention you may become exhausted, uninspired and cranky. Plus, you might also begin to suffer from decreased performance, fatigue, hormonal imbalances, poor quality of sleep, a slacking immune system and mood swings.

When it comes to knowing whether or not you personally need a rest day, remember that everyone is different and everyone’s bodies can handle different amounts of stress. Whether you need to take a rest day or not depends on a lot of factors including your activity level, how old you are, your gender, your diet, how you feel, etc. Just remember, rest days allow you the chance to catch your breath, reboot, relax, recover, and get excited about your next workout.

Just remember it’s ok to take a break and you don’t have to have an intense workout every day! A light to moderate workout may just do the trick!

Take a rest and we’ll see you right after at RiPT!