Do I need a rest day?

shardown

I started my gym routine again last week after leaving it for a couple of months. I've started slow, worked out from Tuesday to Friday and had a 2 hour badminton session on Sunday. I went to the gym on Monday and decided that instead of doing 15 mins on the treadmill like I was doing the week before, to go at it for half an hour and managed to put 3km's in that time. I'm paying the price today though.

My left knee is bugging me a bit but I don't want to lose this momentum. It's alright when I'm lying down or sitting but once I go from seated to standing position, my left knee nags a bit.

Should I take the day off or can I still go to the gym but maybe lay off the treadmill and use the elliptical trainer instead?

shardown

BTW, I plan to hit the gym and do some yoga til Friday and then badminton again on Sunday. Am I doing too much? Each gym session is about half an hour cardio, 15 mins strength training and 15 mins core workouts.

ahbach2005

It's good to have a day of rest or light activity.

If your knee or a joint is bothering you try to "lighten the load" on it. Find an execise to do that is low impact or no impact like swimming or recumbent bike. The joint will have time to heal and the blood flow is good for it.

Hope this helps

spacecase76

when my muscles are too sore for too long, I take a light day or 2 to let myself recoup. By "light day" I mean LIGHT. Like, a Yoga video each day, and maybe some crunches.

I don't have scheduled rest days. I just take one if I feel I need it, but not too often!

SKismet

Do you have the option of talking to a trainer at your gym at all? When I first joined, I was able to have one session with a personal trainer for free and worked out a exercise routine.

That said, let's see if I can remember some of what he told me.... (I joined about a year and a half ago.) He told me that, when weight training, it is definitely important to rest the muscle groups for a couple of days to let them heal. Example, the routine we put together was three days per week; Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Each of those is supposed to include warm-up, lifting (low weight, high reps), cardio, and cool-down/stretching; with the weight training being split up as follows:

Monday - Back and chest.
Wednesday - Legs and abs.
Friday - Arms

Obviously, if you have the time and discipline to get to the gym more than that, you can split those up.

shardown

Thanks for the advice guys! I decided to go anyway (want to keep the momentum going) but I sticked to the cross trainer and didn't do any heavy lifting or too many glutes exercises and I feel great.

@SKismet, that's great advice. I'll keep that in mind and I'll split up my weight training days

SKismet

No problem! :happy: One thing I forgot to mention: He did say abs can be done a little more frequently, like every three days or so. (I remember this because he also gave me a suggestion of how to change things up if I would be able to add a day over the weekend.) I REALLY wish I could remember more, for both our sakes! lol

stujones2000

You should fit in one rest day a week, not just from exercise, but diet too...

With regards to exercise, you need to allow your body to recover, you shouldn't do weight training 2 days running on the same part of the body, so for example work legs one day, arms the next, core the next, shoulder the next, or a full workout every other day and do cardio on the other days.

With regards to diet, have one day where you eat close to your reccomended calorie intake, this stops your body adapting to your lower calorie intake and 'shocks' the body into keeping your metabolism going... when the body gets used to having less calories, it slows your metabolism down as it goes into 'energy saving mode' , which in turn means you'll burn less fat/ lose more weight.

Beth720

You should fit in one rest day a week, not just from exercise, but diet too...

With regards to exercise, you need to allow your body to recover, you shouldn't do weight training 2 days running on the same part of the body, so for example work legs one day, arms the next, core the next, shoulder the next, or a full workout every other day and do cardio on the other days.

With regards to diet, have one day where you eat close to your reccomended calorie intake, this stops your body adapting to your lower calorie intake and 'shocks' the body into keeping your metabolism going... when the body gets used to having less calories, it slows your metabolism down as it goes into 'energy saving mode' , which in turn means you'll burn less fat/ lose more weight.

THIS!

Also, most training plans I've seen recommend at the first sign of injury (a la the knee pain), taking three complete days off (meaning if it hurts Saturday, you rest Sunday, Monday and Tuesday and THEN on Wednesday try things out slowly). If the cross-trainer machine you're talking about is anything like the ones at my gym, the LAST thing I'd get on with a sore knee is that darn cross-trainer.