**Are Rest Days Necessary????**

Hi, I read an article a while back where the trainer to the stars Harley Pasternak says that your body needs one day of rest per week.

Depends on your goals, I think with your routine you will need one. starting C25K for the first time will have a big impact on your legs you will get to a point where they hurt. That was my experience anyway.

Also body pump will push your muscles quite a bit.

If you are tired and you ache take a day off.

Your muscles.grow when you rest, exercising does micro-tears, resting allows them to rain which is what makes them stronger... From my non-medical training understanding of things.

I have a few medical issues that mean my rest days are every other day, which makes me sad that I can't workout as much.

you SHOULD have rest days, it helps your body recover and also allows you to build muscle, that being said, depending on your goals and your bodys ability you don't HAVE to, i went many consecutive months with zero off days and no injury. it is a great idea but not a must have.

I would definitely take your rest days for now. im sure as time goes on, the C25k program will give you less of them ....if you feel guilty for not doing some kind of activity on your rest days, try some yoga, stretching, light pilates. If you have a WII, maybe do some bowling, golf, etc, Do something very mellow but still active Make sure your getting plenty of sleep. As you go along with the program you will know how much you can push yourself.

If you're hurting, take the rest day. You'll be surprised how much your body recovers during rest days. The running after will be much easier.

What people often forget is that there are Rest days and Recovery days.

A rest day means literally 'Do Nothing'
A recovery day means 'Do something but don't push yourself to exhaustion'

As an example, my training looks something like this:
Monday: Track (fixed distance reps) or 5K Pace Run.
Tuesday: Turbo (static bike) or High weight, low volume gym session
Wednesday: Running club or (Running) Interval training
Thursday: Turbo (static bike) or low weight, high volume gym session
Friday: Swim or Circuit training
Saturday: Long run
Sunday: Long bike ride.

Generally I treat Monday, Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday as 'Work to exhaustion' (Quality Sessions).
Tuesday, Thursday and Friday I vary depending on how I feel on the day, so it can be anything - Quality, Recovery or Rest.

What you can do in a week depends on all sorts of factors: What you eat, how well you slept, stress levels, injuries, whether you are ill or not etc. You need to learn judge what you are capable of in order to guarantee you can do your Quality sessions properly.

By the way - I think that mixed sports combined with learning how hard you can push yourself is how you avoid injury.

Definitely take a rest day. If you don't want to do one a week you could plan your workouts based on a 10 schedule and take 1 of every 10 days off. Just like your body needs to sleep it needs a rest.

With a baby in the house, Rest is not an option, while it is necessary - it is not applicable.

Along the lines of Rest vs Recovery (very good point), don't forget that "rest" and "recovery" are very person specific. What counts as rest and recovery for one person might be more than another person's "heavy" day. Personally, a "do nothing" rest day only made me jumpy when I got back in to running, so I'd take the dogs for a 2 mile jog (whereas my regular "workout" was a 4 mile run). Now I am able to push hard enough on heavy days that one rest day a week feels good to me. If I slack off, my feet get too itchy and I know what I've done.

So listen to your body, avoid injury, but go for it. Rest when your body says to.