Importance of Rest and Recovery

How many times have you heard a coach say that you need a rest day?  For some of you, and you know who you are, you’ve heard it a LOT!  But why is it important and what exactly goes into rest and recovery?  The answer is a long one, entire books are written on it, but I’m going to touch on some basics here.  

Recovery

“Recovery” is a pretty big umbrella term under which falls 2 very important topics:  nutrition and sleep.  But you could also include things like time spent mobilizing, using ice/heat modalities, and going to your physical therapist, chiropractor or massage therapist. 

I’m not a registered dietician, so I’m not here to give you any detailed nutrition advice.  I also believe that every body has its own dietary needs.  However, I think we can all agree that it would serve us to limit the amount of sugar and other processed foods we consume.  

Sleep is incredibly important.  Just for life.  Researchers are learning more and more about just how vital sleep is for physical, mental, and emotional health.  I could write a whole article on the topic of sleep alone, but we’ll save that for another day.  I want to briefly talk about the role sleep plays in physical recovery.  If you remember nothing else I say in this paragraph, remember this:  you get stronger while you are SLEEPING!  When you exercise, especially during high intensity or heavy lifting workouts, you cause microtears to your muscles.  While you are sleeping your body releases growth hormone to help repair muscle tissue and build muscle mass.  Your body is also using this time for nervous system recovery and to renew nutrients and energy stores to your muscles.  So if you want those gains… you have to make sleep a priority!  

Rest Days

Ok, now what about rest days?  Overtraining leads to fatigue and repetitive strain which both put you at a higher risk for injury.  When you are fatigued, that flawless technique you’ve been working so hard on may start to go downhill, hence the increased risk of injury.  And injury will cause you to have to scale, modify, slow down, (maybe even stop exercising for a short time - gasp!) and you wind up losing strength somewhere in the healing process.  Fatigue, poor technique or performance, and injury can all be quite discouraging - and exercise is supposed to make us feel BETTER.  So while you may be worried about not getting that high intensity workout in, or not having time to socialize with your friends at the gym, or just general FOMO, that rest day is 100% totally worth it.  

CrossFit recommends a 3 days on/1 day off schedule.  However, we all have different scheduling needs.  Just keep in mind that you need at least 1 full rest day per week, and really, 2 wouldn’t hurt!  Simply based on my personal schedule, I usually do 3 on/1 off, 2 on/1 off.  That seems to work for me.  What should you do on your rest days?  Go for a brisk walk, do some yoga, go for an easy swim, or sit on the couch and binge watch something.  You do you.  But the key is to keep it low key!  

Work Smarter, Not Harder

I’d like to leave you with some mindset advice.  Trust your gym’s/coach’s programming and don’t swap out the lighter programmed days for something heavier and more intense.  There is a method and science to the programming that you may not see from the day to day perspective.  Lastly, remember to always listen to your body, if it’s telling you to rest, there’s a reason.  Don’t push through that feeling - as hard as it is for you athletes!  You can’t stretch or massage away overtraining.  You need to take rest days.  Your body and your future you will thank you.