Once someone gets too deep into fitness and exercise, they find it difficult to skip even a day. Often they feel guilty for not working out, or they fail to take a day off. Also, fitness influencers rarely speak about rest days. All these together create a confusing state of mind. People often think that they have to workout every day to stay fit or keep the momentum going. Evan Bass Men’s Clinic experts encourage people to take rest days to their benefits. Rest days are not luxuries or being lazy. These are needed like you need your workout days.
Evan Bass Men’s Clinic on Rest Days
Skipping a day in a week is allowing your muscles to heal. If you won’t let them heal, you will not see muscle buildup. Rest days are breaks from the intense activities you are doing to build muscles and core. Your body needs a comfortable time and space to recover. High intensity workout creates tears on muscle fibers. Your body needs time to recover and heal these tears and to develop stronger muscles and better body. If you keep skipping rest days, you are going to find it difficult to get desired result. Therefore, don’t get swayed by guilt, include rest days in your fitness routine.
Why You Need Rest Days
Do you really need rest days? This is a question many ask. The straight reply is – yes you do need rest days. It is because your muscles need time to grow. Rest days does not only help building muscle strength, but also helps you stay away from muscle injuries.
Weight training, cardio, and even yoga expose body to work out injury. If you keep pushing your muscles without giving them a bit of rest, you will expose yourself to the risk of serious injuries. Over-training may feel good. But eventually you will experience muscle aches, joint pain, and even burn out. Therefore, don’t train so much that you will not recover from its intensity.
Rest Days – Should Rest Completely
Now, this is a common question – to rest completely or not to rest completely. Intense workout demands passive rest. This means you need to sleep well in these days and do nothing. However, such rest days are ideal for those who are experiencing sore muscles or mild fatigue. If you are into heavy lifting, then yes, you need passive rest days where you do nothing.
Active rest days are also possible. However, these are for those accustomed to low intensity exercises. If you are into yoga, you can have active rest days. Such rest days involve low movements or very light stretches. You can go for a half an hour walk during your rest day. You can stretch your muscles a little. Even cycling and swimming work well when you are not into heavy lifting.
Evan Bass Men’s Clinic experts assure that you are not going to lose touch with your progress if you skip a day. You will not gain the lost weight back during your breaks. However, be mindful of what you eat during these days. Often people end up eating too much and regretting later.