When we work out, we pour our all energy into it. Lifting heavy weights, fast running, longer cardio time, and lot more. From progressive workouts to healthy diet. We do everything to keep our body fit and strong. But there is one mistake that many of us end up committing.
Skipping the recovery day and not giving yourself a break. Training is important but so is recovery. Many of us overlook the recovery time. Putting recovery days on the back seat is one of biggest flaws in your health journey.
This article is going to help all those fitness enthusiast who have been neglecting an important aspect of working out, the recovery time. So, just take a pause from your sweating session and take ten minutes to understand why recovery is an essential part of your fitness journey.
Understanding the rest days
First thing to understand is that recovery days are as important as your workout sessions. These are the planned days when you can give yourself a break from all the exercising. You put your physical activities to halt. Letting your body rest for a while simply becomes a rest day.
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Rest days are actually of two major categories. The first type of rest day is when you allow yourself a complete rest. Skipping all sort of exercising to allow your body to rest.
Second one is active rest. This type of rest eliminates the heavy workout. You must skip the regular cardio or high jumps and heavy weight lifting. But you can still do simple stretching, yoga and walking.
Rest days: An essential element of fitness journey
Many gym goers, young fitness enthusiast end up thinking that muscles grow when work on them. Whereas, the truth is that muscles actually grow when they rest after work out. During exercising, your muscles get small tears in muscle fibres.
When you give your body some rest, these tears can heal easily. Your body repairs them naturally. In fact, these muscles become even stronger than before.
But if you skip your recovery day, you are hampering and causing more trouble to already torn muscle fibre. This way when you are resting, your body is actually working. It is working to make your body stronger than before.
When you rest, your body heals. And when you are healed, you become stronger. When your body becomes stronger, you can work out even better! So simply, this rest time is important to make you and your muscles stronger.
Rest well: Recover better
Now when you know what rest days are, let us understand how impactful they can be in your fitness journey. Let us remind you the first thing, relaxing and recovering is not a luxury.
It is an essential part of your growth. If you give recovery some time, you may unlock even better results! Here is why else recovery can be beneficial for you:
Prevention from injuries: We know how your muscles tear up while working out. To allow them to recover, you need to rest. This way you are also preventing any major injury from happening. Longer and continuous work out sessions can cause a serious damage to your muscles.
Longevity of workouts: Many of us are passionate about working out. If you wish to work out for a longer time in coming years, you need to rest!
Yes, recovery days can increase the longevity of your workouts. Many people refuse to believe this. But when you rest well, you work out well. Your performance level increases.
Healthy mind set: Physical health results in better mental health. When you rest, you also burn out the stress. To prevent any sort of burnout, ensure a good recovery time for your body and your mind both.
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Hormonal balance: If you exercise without rest, your hormones can stress out. Cortisol can increase which may lead to many health problems. Fatigue, poor sleep, sudden weight gain even after workout can happen.
Better sleep quality: Recovering from workout can help you sleep better. If you sleep well, your body repairs faster which means you get result better than ever.
Your body's way of asking for recovery day:
If you are an athlete or a workout enthusiast, you can easily feel the way your body reacts under various situations. In fact your own body can tell you when you need to stop and rest. Here are some of the common signs of your body demanding rest days:
- Constant fatigue even after workout
- Decreasing performance
- Musculoskeletal discomfort
- Uneasiness or soreness in muscles
- Poor sleep quality
- Loss of appetite and motivation
- Sudden stress and depression
- Falling sick again and again
When and how long should you rest?
Recovery level is different for everyone. Your recovery days depend on various factors such as age, how fit your body is, your lifestyle and the kind of workout that you follow.
If you are a beginner then you can rest for at least two or three days, depending on your exercise and intensity level. If you are an athlete or an intermediate level of exerciser than you can take about one to two days of recovery in a week.
But if you are an advanced level gym goer or an athlete then you must plan your recovery days according to your workout plan. You can follow an active recovery day.
Final thoughts:
People are often eager to achieve the desired results. Underestimating the rest mode and doing heavy workout may slow down your progress. Now when you know hoe important resting can be, focus on that as much as you focus on work out.
Even though we are talking about resting and recovering. It still does not have to be a complete rest without moving at all! Even during your rest days, you can indulge in soft walking, light cycling and simple stretches.
Doing yoga is highly recommended during rest days. But if you wish to choose a complete rest day then that is also fine! Your body needs time to heal to give you better results.
