Rest days are essential for muscle recovery and growth, preventing injuries and overtraining, boosting motivation, and more. When you strength train, you cause small microtears to the muscle fibers. Rest days give the muscles time to fully repair and grow back stronger. Without adequate rest, the muscles do not get a chance to properly rebuild, leading to possible overtraining, burnout, and increased injury risk.
Do you really need rest days?
Yes, rest days are absolutely crucial. Here’s why:
- Muscle repair – Lifting weights causes tiny microtears in the muscle fibers. Rest days give the muscles time to fully repair and grow back stronger.
- Prevent overtraining – Frequent high-intensity training can lead to overtraining syndrome, with symptoms like persistent aches, fatigue, strength loss, and decreased performance. Rest days prevent overtraining.
- Reduce injury risk – Lifting places a lot of stress on the muscles, tendons and joints. Adequate rest allows the connective tissues time to adapt and heal, reducing injury risk.
- Boost motivation – Rest days provide physical and mental breaks from intense training. This helps maintain motivation and prevent burnout.
- Improve performance – Rest allows the body to clear out metabolites like lactic acid that can hinder performance. It enhances future training quality.
Experts recommend at least 1-2 full rest days per week for adequate recovery. Muscles typically need around 48 hours after strength training to fully regenerate.
What happens without enough rest days?
Failing to take enough rest days can inhibit muscle growth, hinder your progress, and lead to overtraining or injury. Here are some of the effects:
- Reduced hypertrophy – Muscles need time off to properly rebuild after microtears from lifting. Without rest, muscle protein synthesis is impaired.
- Decreased strength – Fatigued muscles can’t generate as much force. Strength begins declining without adequate rest between training sessions.
- Elevated cortisol – Insufficient rest spikes cortisol, a catabolic hormone that impairs tissue repair and breaks down muscle.
- Increased injury risk – Tendons, ligaments and joints require recovery time to handle heavier weights safely.
- Greater fatigue – Fatigue accumulates without recovery periods, hindering motivation and performance.
- Overtraining – Pushing too hard without rest can lead to overtraining syndrome, requiring extended time off.
How many rest days do you need per week?
Most experts recommend 1-2 full rest days per week for optimal recovery and muscle growth. Here are some general rest day guidelines:
| Training Frequency | Recommended Rest Days |
|---|---|
| 3 days per week | 2 rest days |
| 4 days per week | 2-3 rest days |
| 5 days per week | 2 rest days |
| 6 days per week | 1-2 rest days |
However, factors like age, training intensity, nutrition, and individual recovery rates can all impact optimal rest day frequency.
Listen to your body
The best gauge for adequate rest is listening to your body. Signs that you may need more recovery time include:
- Persistent muscle soreness
- Lack of energy and heavy legs during workouts
- Decreased motivation
- Failure to hit normal reps or weights
- Elevated resting heart rate
- Increased aches, pains, and niggles
If you experience these consistently, try adding an extra rest day until symptoms clear up.
How to make the most of rest days
Here are some tips to optimize your rest days for muscle growth and recovery:
- Engage in active recovery – Do light cardio or mobility work to enhance blood flow without further fatiguing muscles.
- Prioritize proper nutrition – Focus on hitting protein intake goals and replenishing carbs to fuel the recovery process.
- Get plenty of sleep – Aim for 7-9 hours per night to allow the body to fully regenerate.
- Receive massage – Massage helps muscles relax, boosts circulation, and reduces soreness.
- Avoid excessive sitting – Alternate periods of sitting and standing to improve circulation on rest days.
- Take a full break – Mentally detach from the gym by engaging in hobbies, socializing, relaxing at home.
Active recovery done right
Active recovery like light cardio, mobility work, and stretching on rest days can enhance blood flow to speed healing without taxing the muscles. But what’s the right amount?
According to experts, aim for:
– 20-30 minutes of light activity
– Keep heart rate under 120-130bpm
– RPE of 5/10 or less (very easy)
Some great active recovery options include:
- Walking
- Stationary cycling
- Yoga
- Light kettlebell swings
- Swimming
- Mobility routines
Avoid HIIT, sprints, plyometrics or other high-intensity exercises on rest days which can hinder muscle recovery.
Better performance with rest
Many trainees worry that too many rest days will impede progress – but in fact, the opposite is true. Here’s how adequate rest improves performance:
- Muscle repair – Rest allows full regeneration and strengthening of muscle fibers.
- NSAID recovery – NSAIDs work better when muscles aren’t under constant stress.
- CNS recovery – The central nervous system resets, allowing better focus and intra-muscular coordination.
- Clearing metabolites – Excess metabolites like lactic acid or ROS are cleared out.
- Injury prevention – Connective tissues strengthen to safely handle heavier loads.
- Fuel replenishment – Muscle and liver glycogen stores are topped up.
Make the most of your training by scheduling regular rest days to come back stronger. Adequate recovery is just as crucial as hard training when building strength and muscle.
Common rest day mistakes
It’s easy to undervalue rest days, leading to mistakes that impede your progress. Here are some common rest day errors:
- Training too frequently without breaks
- Continuing normal activity instead of proper rest
- Neglecting mobility and active recovery work
- Missing out on sleep and nutrition for recovery
- Ignoring signs of overtraining and fatigue
- Having overly difficult active recovery sessions
Ensure you take full advantage of rest by scheduling dedicated off days each week. Prioritize active recovery, nutrition, sleep, and keeping things low-key.
Who needs more rest days?
Certain groups should err on the side of extra rest days. These include:
- Beginners – Early lifting creates a lot of initial muscle damage and fatigue.
- Teens – Young athletes are still developing strength and resilience.
- Masters athletes – Older trainees have higher recovery demands.
- Injured lifters – Rehabbing an injury requires extra time off.
- Weight cutters – Calorie restriction impairs recovery abilities.
Increase rest days if you fall into any of these categories until you adapt to the training stress.
Active rest versus total rest
You can take rest days in two ways:
- Active rest – Light activity like walking to promote blood flow without further fatiguing muscles.
- Total rest – No training and minimal activity aside from everyday life.
Active rest is preferred for optimizing recovery. However, periodize your training to include the occasional total rest day when you feel run down.
Benefits of active rest
- Improves circulation
- Enhances nutrient delivery
- Speeds clearance of metabolites
- Reduces stiffness and soreness
Benefits of total rest
- Allows muscles to fully switch off
- Gives tendons and ligaments a break
- Provides a mental break
- Lets you catch up on chores, errands, socializing
Aim for primarily active rest days, with 1-2 total rest days per 4 week training cycle.
Rest day dos and don’ts
Here are some dos and don’ts to make the most of your rest days for bodybuilding and strength training:
Do:
- Plan 1-2 dedicated rest days weekly
- Perform active recovery like walking, stretching, light cycling
- Focus on proper post-workout and daily nutrition
- Get plenty of sleep to allow muscle protein synthesis
- Receive sports massage for enhanced muscle relaxation
- Take occasional total rest days when very fatigued
Don’t:
- Train the same muscles two days in a row
- Do heavy strength training or HIIT on rest days
- Neglect mobility work, foam rolling, and injury prevention
- Skimp on protein intake on rest days to optimize growth
- Cut back on overall calories or carbs unless purposefully dieting
- Ignore early warning signs of overtraining like persistent soreness
Changing rest days to fit your schedule
It’s best to stick with a regular rest day schedule rather than constantly shifting days around. However, you can safely change your rest days on occasion if needed. Here are some tips:
- Don’t swap a hard training day directly for a rest day. Have at least one normal training day in between first.
- Avoid switching a heavy lower body day directly to an upper body day without a rest day. This causes excessive fatigue.
- If swapping days, keep the general weekly periodization the same rather than reversing the order of sessions.
- Add an extra rest day after several weeks of changed schedules to allow full systemic recovery.
With adequate recovery between sessions, it’s fine to occasionally shift days as long as the overall weekly split stays consistent.
Should you train when sore?
It’s common to feel some residual muscle soreness for 1-2 days after working out. You can train again while still mildly sore, but take care not to exacerbate it into full-blown DOMS.
Here are some guidelines on training when sore:
- If soreness is mild and fades with light activity, train as normal.
- If soreness intensifies when working the muscle, take an extra rest day.
- Reduce volume and intensity slightly for the sore muscle group.
- Don’t train through moderate-high soreness as it impairs muscle recovery.
- Utilize active recovery methods to alleviate soreness quicker.
While you can safely train with mild soreness, take extra rest if it worsens when using the muscle or feels debilitating.
Conclusion
Rest days are absolutely vital for making progress with your strength training. Adequate rest allows your muscles to fully recover and grow stronger. Without proper recovery, you can quickly plateau or even overtrain.
Aim for at least 1-2 dedicated rest days per week and be diligent about sufficient sleep and nutrition on rest days. Periodize your program with a mix of active and total rest. Listen to your body and take extra days off if you feel run down.
Make rest days a priority and your hard work in the gym will be rewarded with more strength and muscle gains.