Rest days?

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girlalmighty08
girlalmighty08 Posts: 130 Member
in Fitness and Exercise
I've been on a solid streak of eating right and working out for the past two months and I'm loving all my workouts at the gym. I find it really hard to take a rest day and am just wondering how many I should be taking per week? My workouts generally consists of resistance training (body weight and free weights) and cardio in the gym, for about an hour per day.

Can I get by with just one rest day a week or should I be giving my body more time to recover? Also, does "rest" need to be actual rest, or can a stretching session or long walk be incorporated in to a rest day? I just find I have a really hard time doing absolutely nothing.

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  • jacksonpt
    jacksonpt Posts: 10,413 Member
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    There is no nice and tidy answer here. Rest when you need to rest. If you're able to workout at a proper intensity (whatever that is for you), then you probably don't need to rest. If you're feeling good day to day, you probably don't need to rest. If you're getting sufficient sleep and cals, you probably don't need to rest (or at least not as often).
  • kshama2001
    kshama2001 Posts: 27,982 Member
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    New Rules of Lifting for Women recommends one complete day of rest per week and easy endurance like walking or [non-aggressive] yoga on the other two in-between days.
  • gdyment
    gdyment Posts: 299 Member
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    girlalmighty08 wrote: »
    I've been on a solid streak of eating right and working out for the past two months and I'm loving all my workouts at the gym. I find it really hard to take a rest day and am just wondering how many I should be taking per week? My workouts generally consists of resistance training (body weight and free weights) and cardio in the gym, for about an hour per day.

    Can I get by with just one rest day a week or should I be giving my body more time to recover? Also, does "rest" need to be actual rest, or can a stretching session or long walk be incorporated in to a rest day? I just find I have a really hard time doing absolutely nothing.

    1 day is fine and walking/yoga for a fit person IS a rest day. You don't have to lounge on the couch and do nothing if you don't want to.
  • cwolfman13
    cwolfman13 Posts: 41,871 Member
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    girlalmighty08 wrote: »
    I've been on a solid streak of eating right and working out for the past two months and I'm loving all my workouts at the gym. I find it really hard to take a rest day and am just wondering how many I should be taking per week? My workouts generally consists of resistance training (body weight and free weights) and cardio in the gym, for about an hour per day.

    Can I get by with just one rest day a week or should I be giving my body more time to recover? Also, does "rest" need to be actual rest, or can a stretching session or long walk be incorporated in to a rest day? I just find I have a really hard time doing absolutely nothing.

    Where lifting is concerned, you don't want to be working the same muscles or groups of muscles on consecutive days so people follow either a full body routine that is generally 3x per week or they do body part splits which are usually 4-5x per week with at least one off day of lifting splitting up those days. If you're lifting day in and day out, you're really negating your work...the magic happens with recovery.

    Beyond that, start looking it as recovery day(s) rather than rest days. Recovery is an essential aspect of fitness. A recovery day doesn't have to mean doing nothing...it's just letting your body recovery from more intensive exercise. A typical recovery day for me would consist possibly of some yoga...walking my dog...taking a recreational family bike ride, working in the yard or cleaning house, etc.

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