Resting Days Question

I usually take a day off, but sometimes I can't stand it and have to do "something." Walking bores me, so I'll do some kind of dance workout, but nothing too strenuous since you need a day for your muscles to repair themselves.

Then do it.. There is no rule- Let your body guide you! Symptoms of overtraining: Fatigue, not being able to push as hard in your standard workouts. If you feel tired, Rest- If not, go conquer the world!

I sometimes do Yoga so I can give all my muscles a good stretch.

It's rare anymore that I go a whole day without exercise.

These days, "rest days" are the days when I only do a half hour or so of milder exercise instead of an hour and a half of exercises that include more strenuous work.

Being active everyday is great for your mind, body and soul. You don't have to be super active ... But I get some type of exercise in daily ... It's all about feeling your best !

You should rest. But rest needs to be proportional to your workout. For example. Saturday, my rest day, I may go out on a hill walk, or just do a Jillian Michaels DVD; on workout days I'll run 12km/crosstrain 15km /cycle50km (one of those) Plus some kettlebells, so a saunter in the hills or in the countryside is nothing in comparison. Sometimes, if I've been working my legs especially hard, I'll do an upper body weights sesh, with light cross training bursts to get my HR up. It's not your muscles per se that need rest, but the connective tissue that gets small microtears through impact and use. (This is what causes the DOMS pain which is entirely normal and NOT a sign of injury). If you want to workout everyday, you can. You just make a program suitable for it, so cross training and using different muscle groups on different days.Or just choose to have more strenuous and easier workouts on alternate days.

Or...don't clean your house all week and do it all on your rest day for a cheeky small burn!

I do not strenous stuff, no heart rate over 120, that way my body can repair the damage from the gym, lol.

There is no reason to not take your HR over 120 and HR is very subjective on what you normally train at, your age, your VO2max and your MHR. For example, a low intensity workout for me would be a HR betwen about 125 and 140. Moderate 140-155 and intense i would look at as about 156-MHR.

Once you get to a certain stage with a workout your repeat, your body becomes used to it so aside calorie burn, doesn't get much real benefit. So keep changing up your workout.

I worked out solid for a month, then took yesterday off, I feel SO much better today and ready to tackle the world! I'm doing what my body tells me, rather than having a plan, seems to work well for me

Rest days are important. You want your muscles and body to recover from the stress of working out. However this does not mean you aren't allowed to be active and must sit on the couch all day resting. Go for a walk, a bike ride, hike, something leisurely, just nothing too strenuous. Go for a nice restorative yoga class.

So I know you're supposed to have resting days while doing excercise. Does this mean no excercise at all or does it mean just do some light excercise?
I do cardio and weights on mon-wed-fri and Zumba Cardio on Tues-Thurs.

However I kind of want to do stuff on the weekends as well. It just feel so good.

This sounds PERFECT - keep punching!
You are doing great.

As for weekends, just do not do any resistance or hard, intense cardio.
Again, great work!

I'm bad about taking rest days, but in general your body does need some rest. However, if you're rotating workouts, you don't need to rest in quite the same way I think. I wouldn't lift upper-body two days in a row, but I might lift upper-body, then do cardio the next day. Which sounds like what you're doing. Unless I feel like I need the break (or life majorly gets in the way), I work out most days, I just don't do the same thing, or work the same areas, every workout.