How Important are Rest Days?

Training
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Hi friends,

Lately I have been playing with the amount of rest days I have, trying to cramp strength and conditioning into one session and hence having an extra day of rest here and there. Usually I would hit the gym one day and then maybe the next day do hill runs etc for conditioning.

So, I was wondering how important are rest days to you to achieve your goals? Have you found that by having more rest days it helps to acheive your goals, or do you prefer to keep rest days to the minimum??

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The more you rest, the more you’re telling your body to adapt to not lifting heavy weights. :wink:

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[quote]csulli wrote:
The more you rest, the more you’re telling your body to adapt to not lifting heavy weights. ;)[/quote]

Science’d/10

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[quote]detazathoth wrote:

[quote]csulli wrote:
The more you rest, the more you’re telling your body to adapt to not lifting heavy weights. ;)[/quote]
Science’d/10[/quote]
Maybe I should re-word my query…

Lets say Im doing WS4SB, 3 day a week template, plus 2 days of conditioning(hill running) a week. Would one to expect a difference in results/performance if I added one or two of those conditioning days at the end of my gym work, and hence having an extra day or two of complete rest??

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[quote]csulli wrote:
The more you rest, the more you’re telling your body to adapt to not lifting heavy weights. ;)[/quote]
Bodies respond differently to stimulus. I do better with more rest, some people need to lift more often but get less results.

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Don’t warm up either. That’s just telling your body to adapt to lifting light weights instead of heavy ones.

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[quote]theBird wrote:
Lets say Im doing WS4SB, 3 day a week template, plus 2 days of conditioning(hill running) a week. Would one to expect a difference in results/performance if I added one or two of those conditioning days at the end of my gym work, and hence having an extra day or two of complete rest??

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For realz though, I don’t think that particular scenario you outlined makes much difference one way or the other. If you’re choosing between running hills post workout or the day after workout, I don’t think there will be a significant difference in your state of recovery on the next gym day between one option and the other.

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I actually think running hills on the non workout day would be better.

You should have already destroyed yourself lifting so doing hill sprints after might not do you much good. And then doing hill sprints on the off day would be similar to getting in some extra leg volume in the concentric area while improving your conditioning. Win/Win.

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What is more important is listening to your body. It obviously knows more then the internet.

I am not going to tell my wife that we are not going for a bike ride. But the kind of ride (Going up a hill will lots of technical aspect vs a flat trail) we do will be different. I will listen to my body or take extra Plazma…

No two people are the same, so your question is kind of loaded.

You say you are playing with rest days, try playing with Peri Workout Nutrition instead (and overall diet) and see how far you can go.

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As has been mentioned, it’s always going to be a matter of the individual person, as well as their training protocol and what they do outside of the gym.

When I first started training, I thought I was doing too much because I wasn’t gaining as well as I thought I should be. So I added some rest days and made progress. Years later, I found that as I planned my diet and training more efficiently, I didn’t need so many rest days and could still make progress. More recently, I find that as I’m still tending to a few rehabbed injuries, the ocassional rest day is actually beneficial again, and helps me continue to progress.

Different approaches at different times yield different results.

S

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[quote]theBird wrote:
Would one to expect…

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A question for the ages.

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Thanks for the advice friends.

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Here is what I would do assuming you are able to workout 6 days a week

3 days lifting
2 days conditioning
1 day off
1 other day lifting or conditioning depending which is your priority

Personally I prefer going to the gym rather than days off so if I need more recovery I would structure my workouts to need less recovery, simple as 45mins vs a full hour or something.

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[quote]theBird wrote:
Thanks for the advice friends.

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On a serious note, what your proposed in your OP seems fine. Couple days of weights plus sprints on other days is no big deal.

It might be a bit tough at first but as your body gets stronger and adapts you’ll smoke those workouts. Good luck birdie

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[quote]gregron wrote:
On a serious note, what your proposed in your OP seems fine. Couple days of weights plus sprints on other days is no big deal.

It might be a bit tough at first but as your body gets stronger and adapts you’ll smoke those workouts. Good luck birdie[/quote]
Thanks buddy.

But Im thinking of adding at least one conditioning session after lifting and hence having an extra day of rest. Im going to see how that works out for me.

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I need one FULL rest day doing nothing for mental and physical recovery, more so for mental recovery actually. Day-in, day-out training takes a toll on one’s mind, I believe, and one needs a break here and there.

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Bird,
thanks for opening an interesting topic - one thats close to my heart as time is a limited resource with a full time job and training in a competitve sport daily.
Rest, for me is an essential, but I try to keep my rest actice, so that it is of benefit to my goals.

I think its worth exploring methods of emalgimating your goals- Joint S&C sessions, that compliment rather than impede one another.
I have to admit, for me, aesthetics are not a priority, but strength and conditioning certainly are.
With limited time and the additional workload of training sports full time, I need to plan my sessions; not for goals or results, but for the tax its gonna take on my body.

This is my approach, it may not be everyones (or anyones) ideal, but it works for me

	AM	Work	PM	
Mon	S&C                       2 hr Sport
            Tue         Rec                         1 hr Sport
Weds	S&C		2 hr Sport	
Thurs	Rec		1 hr Sport	
Fri	S&C		2 hr Sport	
Sat	Active Rest			
Sun			Active Rest

As you can see I have three days Strength and Conditioning.
For me, I have one Squat, DL and Press day.

Squats are traditionally the base of the pyramid I think- but also my weaker lower body lift- so I place them on Monday to kick off the week.
additional exercises include Rows and chins- to avoid rounding my shoulders from sports workload.
Squats are a heavy exercise, so for conditioing I use bike intervals (personally I do these in boxing rounds, but others may have more suitable suggestions.) As I have been squatting, I will never do more than three rounds on a static bike to avoid my hip flexors getting cranky.
RPE; 90%

Wednesday will be the press day. I just dont find Upperbody pressing taking from my cardio at all.
As a result I use tough complexes at the end of the session and use exercises to work the whole body. I think CT’s star complexes were the business, but his new Built for Bad looks cool too (if I can get a chance to look at it!)
RPE; 80%

There are two things I find zap my CNS; The deadlift and sprints.
So these cannot be on consecutive days and each only get 1 x a week.
So, through my own (admittedly questionable) logic- I merged these sessions.
I’m gonna be a mess afterward, so I place that Friday as I’ll only have one supervised session before Monday.
RPE; 90%

The recovery days for me are an opportunity to put myself back together-
I need these because after the Mon/Weds/Fri evenings my body is a cocophony of sound as my muscles scream “fuck you donny.”
But if you deduct my sports the previous night, you could conceivably toss in some hypertrophy with those rehab sessions.
That is where I throw most of my facepulls and curls etc.
For me they are health orientated, but they could be modified for hypertrophy by a smarter man.
My usual RPE here is 50%, sports sessions M,W,F are at 75%, where as T, T would be 80-90%
Saturday and Sunday are both sub 50% and although training both days, I have a gap of greater than 24 hours here.
This gives me the benefit of training and keeping the BF% down, while also getting 24hrs+ off and avoiding DOMS- thank the LORD!

This may be no use to you at all; I’m not a big guy by the wonderful standards of this site; but I my conditioning I know is at a good international
standard.
Sorry for the novel length post I’m not sure if this is of any benefit to you, but good luck and I’ll be reading all the replies to see what I can learn.

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donnydarkoirl: we are in similar positions my friend, as I also try and juggle playing sport with full time work, and hence time management is vital.

One thing I could add to your training schedule is that maybe alternating weeks of doing deadliest and squats. I find that squatting and deadlifting in one week while trying to train for sport is way too taxing on the body and really impedes performance & recovery, although maybe you are younger and can easily adapt.

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Younger and dumber maybe :smiley:
Yeah, that would definitely be a good idea I feel.

The DL is a pretty strong lift for me, so “out of season” I’ll just squat as that’s when I do my heaviest work.

Out of season I think training is actually easier. When you can be looser with calories natural recovery is a lot better.

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[quote]sufiandy wrote:
Here is what I would do assuming you are able to workout 6 days a week

3 days lifting
2 days conditioning
1 day off
1 other day lifting or conditioning depending which is your priority

Personally I prefer going to the gym rather than days off so if I need more recovery I would structure my workouts to need less recovery, simple as 45mins vs a full hour or something.[/quote]

This is what I do. Instead of taking an off day I just adjust my next workout accordingly. For example if I need some rest I’ll do a Neural Charge workout. You are getting rest plus some added volume. Win-win.