What is a rest day to you?

annebaum41912

I admit, I am not so good with these. I tend to go and go and go because I'm afraid if I stop I will not start again. This is not to say that I think I am overdoing things. Usually my exercises are pretty low impact like walking A LOT or doing some WATP videos. I zumba 2 days a week as well. But I do something every day. I'm starting to think maybe I could take a day "off" without losing my motivation.
But my question is, what makes a rest day? What can you still do and call it one? And how do you get your minimum steps in if you are "resting" all day? Or do you just not worry about that on a rest day.

beatgirl98

What about pilates or yoga or a low impact swim on your rest days? Then you're varying it up, but none of those exercises are high impact.

cwolfman13

No high intensity, vigorous exercise...letting the body rest. I'm still active...go for walks, ride my bike, do yoga, etc. Pretty much everyone who performs vigorous exercise should have 1-2 days per week of rest and/or lower intensity exercise dispersed throughout a given week.

If all you're doing is walking and what not, that's great and walking is great for the heart and a great way to be moving...but you don't really need a rest day. Rest days are to avoid beating the ****e out of your body 7 days per week with vigorous exercise.

dbg1

Agreed. I walk on my day of rest. No intense exercise. The body needs to recover. Muscles need to recover from the tear down that occurs and build back up again.

Hexahedra

Rest days are days where I don't lift or run. At most I will do one set of push ups and one of chin ups, both until failure.

RunHardBeStrong

No high intensity, vigorous exercise...letting the body rest. I'm still active...go for walks, ride my bike, do yoga, etc. Pretty much everyone who performs vigorous exercise should have 1-2 days per week of rest and/or lower intensity exercise dispersed throughout a given week.

If all you're doing is walking and what not, that's great and walking is great for the heart and a great way to be moving...but you don't really need a rest day. Rest days are to avoid beating the ****e out of your body 7 days per week with vigorous exercise.

This. On my rest days I do something very low impact, if I do anything extra at all.

Iron_Lotus

If anything I go for walks. Some rest days I actually rest. It depends how I feel

lokecheer

I have this same feeling. I just had one yesterday, and I basically did nothing....maybe a 1 mile walk. But what I did a lot of was stretching, since my muscles are sore from the previous days of vigorous Tapout XT.

annebaum41912

No high intensity, vigorous exercise...letting the body rest. I'm still active...go for walks, ride my bike, do yoga, etc. Pretty much everyone who performs vigorous exercise should have 1-2 days per week of rest and/or lower intensity exercise dispersed throughout a given week.

If all you're doing is walking and what not, that's great and walking is great for the heart and a great way to be moving...but you don't really need a rest day. Rest days are to avoid beating the ****e out of your body 7 days per week with vigorous exercise.

Good deal. Then I guess I don't really "need" a rest day. I don't do much high intensity stuff. The most I do is little bouts of jogging as I've just started the cto5k program but of course that is only 3 days a week. I just read so much about rest days I was starting to think I should be taking one. Thanks guys

KANGOOJUMPS

i do not BELIEVE, is a rest day,,, i just do less of something.

MzzFaith

Sundays, because I am totally busy

JusticeGirl25

A rest day for me is not working out at all, no light workouts or nothing.