How many resting days per week?
leda1515
Posts: 8 Member
How many resting days a week should I take? Is one enough or should it be more?
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Replies
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I personally take 1-2 most weeks. It really depends though on what activity you are doing on your non-rest days1
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I'd say it depends upon your goals, the type of exercise(s) you're doing, the intensity level you're doing them at, and how developed your workload tolerance is.3
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The days I don't run I walk five miles or cycle.
Rest days don't have to mean you do nothing.3 -
I don't do rest days but that is because walking is something I enjoy so make sure I get at least 1 hour of brisk walking in a day. I have 7 rest days from the gym though as the thought of even going gives me anxiety. I really should do resistance training..........3
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I don't take any rest days unless I am ill. But I do vary the exercise / activity I do. One day might be a 2 km walk ... another day might be a 5 km run .... another day might be a 100 km bicycle ride.1
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I take two rest days a week, but they include walking at least a few miles. Most workout days I do doubles, so I can only do three days straight before I need a light day.1
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I do an intense (for me) bodyweight and kettlebell workout every second day, sometimes two days in a row if I'm not hurting too bad from the day before. On the days off, I'm walking my 10k steps cause I love that Fitbit streak. So, I guess no days "off"?
Now if I were lifting really heavy in the gym, I would be a bit more methodical about rest days. I would even shorten my walks after leg day and maybe do some stretchy yoga instead. But I'm broke, so no gym weights for me for a while, hahaha.1 -
Depends on a lot of factors. Your individual recovery, how intense your workouts are, training history, how much you eat, what your goals are, etc etc.1
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do what you feel works for you. if you think you need to adjust, adjust.
i dont go to the gym on wednesday and sunday. sunday because it doesnt pen till 1:30 and thas way WAY too late or me to go workout, and wednesday cause it gives me a mid week break and i can leave my house at 8 instead of 6 45. lol.2 -
Do what you need to recover from whatever training you're doing. Once you've been at it long enough, your body will tell you.
I take active rest days and just walk, rest doesn't have to mean being a couch potato.1 -
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I do one lighter day per week. Today I'm going for a walk on a trail nearby, I'll keep the pace easy and avoid the steeper paths. I consider this my rest day.0
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It really depends. Generally, my 'rest day' is Sunday because I am doing Insanity at the moment. But if do yoga on my rest day, and I walk/cycle every day, regardless of the exercise I did. If I am very busy and/or extremely tired, it might happen that I skip exercise altogether but it's not something that I plan, it just happens, and rarely.
A rest day doesn't mean you have to be completely inactive. You can take a walk, do more housework, garden...just like 'cheat day' doesn't mean you have to eat the whole cake alone.1 -
Similar here. I'm careful to take an active rest day on Thursdays where I do a light yoga class and walk, and Mondays I do a light yoga class and run with a slower friend. If i need Monday to be a rest day, we just go her pace. If i need it to be heavier, i throw on ankle weights to run with her. My other days I do a fairly heavy mix of lifting and cardio. occasionally i skip a whole day and don't excercise beyond my usual walking, but that's maybe once a month.0
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Similar here. I'm careful to take an active rest day on Thursdays where I do a light yoga class and walk, and Mondays I do a light yoga class and run with a slower friend. If i need Monday to be a rest day, we just go her pace. If i need it to be heavier, i throw on ankle weights to run with her. My other days I do a fairly heavy mix of lifting and cardio. occasionally i skip a whole day and don't excercise beyond my usual walking, but that's maybe once a month.
Please be careful about running with ankle weights, they aren't meant for that and can be dangerous.9 -
Right now, none. I just restarted and need to make it a habit again. I am in tune with my body though and will make things lighter if needed.0
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It's all very personal and based on your ability level. I've got 2 mandated rest days and I am supposed to limit myself to 25min of walking, stationary bike, or swimming 5x/week to avoid injury. Because I kept overdoing it after being sedentary and injuring myself! If you're worried about doing things correctly I do suggest speaking with a professional, if not a physiotherapist (who's been helping me, because injuries) maybe a trainer or someone might know more.0
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I don't do rest days. I aim for 10k steps every day, or I can only eat 1400 calories, and that's not happening.3
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Depends on what you're doing.
My exercise consists of lifting 3x per week on non consecutive days and cycling most days and walking my dog. I'm not doing any big training rides right now, so I do some kind of exercise most days unless I just feel like taking a day or something comes up.
In the past when I've been training for endurance cycling events, I typically reduce my lifting to 1x per week and take a couple of rest days where I would just go for a walk and/or do some yoga. A rest/recovery day doesn't have to be full stop do nothing...it's just rest from more vigorous training.0 -
I have Friday scheduled as a rest day. So that means that instead of a brisk walk I will do a more leisurely walk, or not stress if life happens and I can't do purposeful activity that day.
Sometimes I swap days around though. Depends on life.0 -
This is a total generality, but when speaking about regular, routine activity, I think it's not a great idea to do similar very high-intensity cardio for day after day, or to do relatively intense strength training of the same muscle groups day after day. Those things, IMO, are better on an every other day basis, or less. Beyond that, I think a lot of this question is subjective, and the specifics change as you get fitter.
Again an extreme generality, but if one's goal is general fitness and health (including weight loss), I think our workouts should be challenging in varied ways, but our overall workout schedule should leave us feeling energized for the rest of our daily life (after maybe a brief post-exercise period of feeling the workout's impact). If the overall schedule leaves us feeling drained, fatigued, and exhausted in general, that's a sign of overdoing. (If the major goal is weight loss, it can even be counterproductive, by leading us to subconsciously reduce daily activity because of the fatigue, reducing NEAT calorie burn).
I've been pretty active for around 15 years (even while obese), and am kinda old (62). I'm not as active as I was in my 50s when I was actually training and competing. I slack off a bit in the Winter (I'm a rower), but my routine is try to do some aerobic activity at sustainable but challenging intensity 6 days a week most week, and lift 2-3 times a week. In summer, I usually row 4 days (M-W-Fr-Sa) and go to a spin class 2 (Tu-Th). Occasionally, especially if I miss a row for weather or other reasons, I'll ride my bike for an hour or so, or walk 4-6 miles at a challenging pace I can sustain for the whole walk. Late in the rowing season, I usually include more intensity on more rowing days (intervals, usually), but still intersperse a good bit of steady state work. Sundays are my standard rest day, which means normal active stuff - maybe casual walk, yoga, yard work, easy bike ride, but nothing intense. If I've had a hard workout week, I may just spend the day on sedentary hobbies.
When I started working out regularly, in my mid-40s, there was more of a ramp-up process, with lots of steady state (lower intensity) cardio of shorter duration, and more rest days. Gradually, the length, frequency and intensity of workouts increased.
During periods when I was really trainng, I followed a formal, professionally-developed structured periodized training plan, which laid out workouts in terms of their duration and intensity, which varied day by day & week by week. Even that included one rest day per week, and some periodic lighter weeks. Nowadays, I'm just active for fund and general fitness, so I'm not as formally structured, but I still think about varying workout details for a good balance.
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I dont usually do any purposeful exercise on the weekends, I still make sure I get my 10k steps though.0
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How many resting days a week should I take? Is one enough or should it be more?
My workouts are probably considered moderalty intense 6 days per week. I try to take the 7th day off. Sometimes I still go to the gym but I'll just do some light cardio or a yoga class. At this point I really just listen to my body. Some weeks I feel like I need two rest days. Do whatever works for you!0 -
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The answer will vary from person to person, personally I take rest days on the weekends but they are fairly active rest days..or if I feel like chilling instead I will0
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Normally I workout twice a week and do some sort of other activity the other five days, but I did close to 5 hours of gardening yesterday and my hamstrings aren't up for anything more than foam rolling and light stretching.0
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