We joke about it all the time. We all know that one athlete who comes in 7 days a week for 7 weeks straight.
They get to the point where they’re running on fumes, and the coach asks “when was your last rest day?”
In this article, we’ll dive into rest days, why they’re important, and why we understand they can be tricky to take!
You put your body through a lot when you do CrossFit. Technically, you put your body through a lot, even without CrossFit.
Simply working a 9-5 job, dealing with your children, meeting family or friends, or whatever else you might fill your time with. All of these are stressful in their own right (not always bad stresses, mind you).
Either way, it’s still something your body has to deal with. So, sometimes, you’re going to need to take a day off.
Simply taking a day off is a great way to reset yourself. We do it by default at most workplaces. So, why does it seem so much harder for us when it comes to training?
Are you perhaps a little confused about when you should take a day off from the gym?
The answer is, luckily, quite straightforward. You should take time off when your body is asking for it.
Does your knee hurt a little more than usual? It might be time for a rest day.
Do you find yourself getting to failure quicker than usual because your body simply can’t fight against heavier weights? It might be time to take that day off.
Do you wake up and still feel sleepy? The rest days are calling you.
You have to learn to listen to your mind and body with these things. No one else can tell you when you should or shouldn’t rest. It’s up to you to decide what works.
For the most part, we recommend getting into a routine with your rest, too.
So, if you take a Thursday off one week, maybe try to repeat that every week. Then, Thursdays will become a regular resting day, and your body will get used to it and give you back the valuable energy you’ve been missing at the start of the week.
Most people fear taking a rest day because they fear losing progress in the gym when the truth is quite the opposite.
During workouts, our bodies go through extreme stress. Muscles will rip (that’s part of the process, don’t worry), and we’ll be tested in ways we might not be used to.
With a rest day, you’re allowing your muscles (and mind) the chance to recover back to full health.
It’s that recovery window that creates change and allows you to progress.
When muscles tear down in workouts, they repair themselves - usually over the next few days. These repairs are vital when you want to see progress in your own training.
So, if you’re not taking a rest day, guess what happens? That’s right, your muscles aren’t repairing themselves at an efficient rate, and you’ll often cause even further damage to them if you keep trying to train on top of the work you’ve already put in.
Eventually, extra, unrested training becomes unproductive. It stops being beneficial to you, and you often also lose the ability to hit any intensity in your training.
We see it all the time! People who never rest often burn out and give up, moving into new fitness ventures thinking the training style was the issue. In reality, it was their lack of time away from the gym!
For some people, the gym is their escape. They use it to relax after a long week, or they use it to improve their mental health.
Whatever the reason you come to the gym, we understand how hard it can be to take time away when you rely on it so much. And we're absolutely not trying to stop you from doing so.
As coaches, we want the best for all of our athletes.
So, we will always encourage you to take a rest day, but we’ll never force you to leave the gym. If you absolutely have to train on the day, we’ll find a way to scale a workout down to allow you to hit relative intensity without pushing yourself beyond what you’re capable of.
Of course, we can go on and on about how important rest days are. Realistically, it's up to you as an individual to learn yourself.
Once you start taking them more frequently and seeing the results you get from them, you’ll start to realise they’re not the demons you think they are!
Just start with one day thrown in here and there. One day away from the gym or any vigorous exercise.
But until that day, we’ve got your back. We'll find ways to help scale around your achy body. Training is important to us all; otherwise, we probably wouldn’t be at Market Town CrossFit, right?
We appreciate it can be hard to take rest days when you rely so heavily on the gym. We will never tell you off (or at least try not to) for ignoring your body’s natural need to rest if you absolutely have to come in.
But again, we think it’s time to let you know that resting is not the enemy.
You can rest a few times during each week and still make huge overall progress towards your goals.
You have to learn your body and mind signals yourself, though. Once your body calls for a rest, try to listen to it!
