If you’ve been working out and are as tired as I was this month,
it might be time for a rest day.
If you’re a “no rest for the wicked,” person (like I am), you’ll need to read this newsletter.
This month, in a bid to hit 1,000 total running miles, I’ve run over 160 miles in three and a half weeks.
Years ago, I wouldn’t have done this.
But after turning 30, I realized the body has a finite amount of energy. Oh, to be young again.
I’ve recently shifted my mindset around what it means to be busy and work smarter.
I think millennials like myself (and Gen Z, too, for that matter) — who make up the new majority in the workforce — have to draw a line regarding work-life balance.
The combination of career work and physical work creates a devious cocktail of stress and anti-recovery that can slow progress if you’re not careful.
Today I’m making the case for more rest days.
Newsletter Summary:
Why rest days are essential for those who train hard
Why you shouldn’t use them as a crutch to slack
How to assess how hard you’re working
😴 How Often Do You Need Rest Days?
Previous generations have glorified sleepless nights, extended office hours, and overtime. It’s been thrust upon us by the Gary Vaynerchuks and Andy Frisellas of the world.
In fitness, there seems to be a resurgence of this mindset — get your workout in, every day, no matter what it takes.
While the message has purity and earnestness, it could probably also lead some of us to sacrifice some things that are important to our fitness — rest, relaxation, and leisure activity come to mind — and set us back.
My argument today is that your leisure time can (and should) supplement your long-term health and fitness goals when implemented appropriately, especially if you’re training hard (more on that later — but for the sake of this argument, let’s call “hard” 5+ times per week).
It’s like resting between exercise sets or drinking water throughout the day.
You should be budgeting hours, maybe even entire days, for relaxing and recovering.
There is a “sweet spot” for the amount of leisure time that can contribute to your most productive self (more on this in the last section).
As a general rule, someone who is strength training (only lifting weights) can probably expect to be pretty wiped out from 4 consecutive sessions.
For example, three sessions per week —Monday, Wednesday, and Friday — will most likely get you to the AHA-recommended exercise guidelines for resistance training.
Sure, someone could taper the intensity of these sessions to train four, maybe even 5 days a week and not be too sore, but someone who primarily strength trains during the week should budget at least 36-48 hours of rest per week, or one or two whole days (Sundays are my day!).*
Someone hitting their regular strength and cardiovascular activity (hopefully all of you aspire to this level) might do well to stagger their exercise days to avoid burnout.
These people may very likely have an increased capacity for exercise because of their regular cardio schedule, but they should still probably budget at least 24 hours between workouts (even long walks) and have ONE full rest day if not two.**
And if you’re not in either of these camps but training for a more serious physical activity like an obstacle course race or marathon, you should aim for periodic rests during your days (chunks of 8-10 hours, not including sleep) alongside much more compact workouts (45-60 minutes max).
Competitive athletes are also allowed entire days of rest, but depending on the urgency and specificity of the goal, the timing of that full day off will vary.
*For those whose primary mode of exercise is weight/resistance training, these sessions should be HARD (60+ minutes) sessions full of muscular tension (that shaky sensation you feel mid-way through a set).
**These people may also be more inclined to fall into the trap of not resting at all. Sure, someone with good CV health might be able to go through 9-10 straight days of training, but eventually, everyone needs a rest day to develop a healthy relationship with movement.
🦥 The Rest Day Laziness Spiral
Before continuing with suggestions on budgeting your rest, relaxation, and leisure time, I think we should address the elephant in the room.
Taking a rest day every few days is important insofar as you don’t let it snowball into multiple days off (or falling off the wagon completely).
Scheduling an active leisure day, like a walk in the park or a long dog walk/playground session with your kids, is technically also a rest day.
But a complete vegetable day — crashing on the couch or lounge chair of your choice for 12 hours straight — might spurn a habit of anti-movement.
This means when it’s time to move again, whether it’s first thing in the morning or after your work day, it could lead to some procrastination.
It’s hard for procrastinators to distinguish between their bad habits and leisure time. Sometimes something that feels like it’s recharging you can actually be siphoning away the energy needed to return to movement when your rest day is over.
Courtesy: Kevin Greenlee, Business Insider
There’s a science to this — procrastination usually comes from a fear of the task itself and a fear of failing a task.
So more than a day off of exercise might have you feeling like 1. Your next workout is going to be bad and 2. You’ll hurt yourself trying to pick up where you left off. Both of these feelings have causal relationships to procrastination.
But those things usually don’t happen.
It’s much harder for a physically active person to fall out of shape than you think.
It’s also more of a reason to keep your rest days “active” — by scheduling some outdoor time or for a fun, movement-based activity — so that you don’t have a laziness spiral.
For what it’s worth, though — one research paper on procrastinators and intent workers showed that procrastinators often tend to work as hard or harder than non-procrastinators.
It’s just one meta-analysis, but I thought it was pretty interesting. If you’ve ever crammed on a school assignment and gotten a better score than your studious peers, you can probably relate.
Hard work, Relaxation, and Leisure = Productivity?
Okay, now for that “train hard” concept I mentioned earlier.
If you’ve trained with weights or cardiovascular activity at all, you’ll know that there’s a difference between just working out and working out hard.
There’s a few ways to assess how hard you’re working during your sessions, the likes of which we’ll cover here:
The Borg RPE Scale
RPE = Rate of Perceived Exertion. 1 = Easy. 10 = Hard. Live somewhere between 6-9 for most workouts, occasionally drifting down to a 4-5 for easier days. Self-assess by writing it down in a notebook after your session.
Sleep Scores
A somewhat imperfect measure of effort, how easily you fall asleep (latency), and how deeply you sleep (REM sleep) can be an indicator of good, intense workouts if done properly. Find a good smartwatch that tracks this and wear it to bed.
Soreness
Soreness is not necessarily a goal for each workout but can be an indicator of a well-structured session. If you’re sore, congrats! You did something stressful enough to elicit muscle growth. You just shouldn’t be sore after every workout.
These three metrics can also help you determine when rest days should be.
A super sore body might cause you to take an involuntary rest day — and that’s fine!
A great night of sleep after a hard workout, conversely, might also push you to train hard again.
With all these variables, keep in mind that structuring a routine with proper recovery and leisure time can have a ripple effect on your personal life.
A good exerciser and recoverer(?) might be a more productive worker in their job, simply because they’ve organized things so well outside of their job.
If your leisure activity lines up with your fitness, you’re probably maximizing your day-to-day schedule really well.
A 2018 study determined an actual, quantifiable number of hours during the year (5813, to be exact) that is optimal for productivity.
The study looked at 21 countries, the likes of whom each worked different hours throughout the year, and found the most productive people in each country (based on work and personal accomplishments, free time, and stress levels) had about 4-5 hours per day where they weren’t working.
Something to think about.
If you can budget that time for yourself during the day, imagine how much you might be able to get done.
Happy Holidays.
See you Wednesday for a short newsletter.