Rest days? How many?

I generally have one day a week of doing absolutely nothing more than a casual stroll, even if I feel like doing something. I don't do Yoga so I can't comment but I find the (arguably) similar Pilates certainly isn't rest, as the idea is to work muscles until they fatigue.

You might feel you don't need it at the time but that's the point; if you wait until you are tired and strung out, it's too late and much harder to recover from. You'll also be susceptible to every bug and virus going. Now that really puts a hole in your routine.

It's rare that I'll take a rest day and do nothing I do, however, aim for at least one recovery day per week which will be low volume, low intensity (which sounds like what you're doing with yoga and/or walking). It really comes down to fitness levels, adaptation and learning to know your body's signs of fatigue.

I make a distinction between rest and recovery, a lot of my exercise needs recovery but for me it's only normally a heavy cumulative training load over an extended period of time that requires rest.

For example my legs are recovering from a long (4hr) cycle ride yesterday but that doesn't stop me doing upper body strength training this evening.

In answer to your question, I very rarely take rest days. After an exceptionally long mileage (or exceptional intensity) event or after several weeks of a hard training block or if I'm showing signs of impaired recovery such as general fatigue or elevated RHR.

I run every other day. I do: long slow run, shorter race-tempo run, short slow run ... repeat.

So one week its 3 runs, one week it's four.

So for my legs, every other day is a rest day. On those days I try to stay active but do not do any specific workouts. Maybe chop firewood, or haul lumber, stuff like that.

I take a couple of rest days a month. That doesn't mean I go all out every single day, I mix in harder and easier runs.

I monitor my resting heart rate and use that as a warning for when I need a rest day. RHR > 50 for me means it's time for a day off. RHR in the high 40's means I should probably have a somewhat easier run. RHR in the low 40's means I'm fine to push it that day. It seems to work for me, YMMV.

When training for a specific even like a marathon or a half marathon/ trail run I use a pre-planned training schedule and do my best to stick to it. Most call for 1-2 rest days a week. And many that I’ve used suggest nice mellow walks or stretching as part of that rest day. Sitting your *kitten* down on the couch for a full day of “rest” can lead to tightness that could lead to injury down the road.

"rest are for the weak" j/k

Everyone needs rest once awhile. pick a day or two..

For me.."rest" is a rest.. no stretching, walking, excercises etc.

RunnerGirl238 wrote: »

How many rest days do you take a week? Also, what do you count as "rest"? Like, yoga, for me, isn't a strenuous activity so I will do it on a rest day. However, is that rest? As training and mileage ramps up, I'm really trying t ok avoid injury, but I HATE stillness. My Type A neuroses need a way get out and that seems to be through movement.

I know officially guidelines, but what works for you?

How many depends on what you're doing and what kind of intensity you're working at. I really prefer to call them recovery days...as in recovery from more aggressive or intense workouts. I would consider any lite activity like walking, yoga, easy swimming, recreational cycling, etc to be proper recovery activities. I try to be active 7 days per week most of the year, but a couple of those days will be lighter than others to make sure I'm recovering from harder workouts. I'm not as active in the winter and I'm lucky to get 3-4 days of exercise...so plenty of rest there.

Right now I'm not training for anything in particular and just lifting a couple days per week and cycling 4-5 days per week for fitness. When I was training for endurance cycling events I followed my programming as much as possible to get in the proper miles and proper rest...but that was a lot more time in the saddle than 45-60 minutes and having hill repeats and interval sessions programmed in there.

RunnerGirl238 wrote: »

firef1y72 wrote: »

I don't exactly have a rest day, but I do have a 24hour period each week from after Saturday morning bootcamp until I set off for my long run on Sunday morning, where all I'll do is stretch and roll.
But I have a pretty structured workout week, where my trainer focuses on different things throughout the week. So different body parts are being used everyday

I like this! This feels right. I'm not running daily and ok...i alternate upper and lower on days I dont run so i feel like nothing is being overworked. If I'm sleeping enough and feeling well, a "rest day" isn't totally mandatory....

My coach generally has her athletes on a full 7 day schedule. During our "in season" training blocks, we do several sessions in each discipline each week, with supplemental strength(weights) and flexibility sessions(yoga) in addition to the swim, bike and run work. As far as rest days, we have one "recovery day", usually on Mondays following long work on the weekends. The Monday workout is typically an easy bike session to "spin out" fatigue in the legs. This is optional and occasionally I'll take that day as pure rest.

Finally, my coach monitors sleep, nutrition and fatigue, and adjusts or eliminates workouts if athletes are not recovering properly. From your post, it sounds like you are generally doing this and its working for you, so I'd guess that you're getting enough recovery.