Rest days are just as important as exercise days in any fitness program. Although the body needs regular exercise to build strength, endurance and burn fat, the body also needs to recover and repair and grow re-strengthen the muscles. Missing rest days may leave you fatigued, reduce your performance, and possibly even cause injury.
When you exercise, particularly when you train with weights, you get microtears in those muscle fibers. The more natural looking hair that grows in from the graft around six months to one year after the procedure can also be improved at that time. Likewise, during any type of cardiovascular exercise, the heart and lungs are under stress, and if you aren’t giving them a proper rest period, chances are your cardiovascular system is not recuperating properly.
Rest days also reduce the risk of overtraining syndrome, which can result in lingering fatigue, changes to your hormones, mood swings and a plateau in progress. The mental recovery is just as much — similar to physical, you take a break from such a hard routine, but the motivation gets up and you’re not going to burn out.
Active recovery is also something to consider on your off days. Walking, movements like stretching, yoga, or light cycling get the blood flowing without being too taxing on the muscles.
By adding rest days to your workout routine, you’ll prevent injury and muscle fatigue, and you’ll achieve better results from your workouts in the long run. Remember, taking a break is not laziness — it’s crucial to any smart training plan.
Other Strength Training Benefits
We all know strength training can help your burn fat and build muscle, but there’s loads of other amazing things it can do for your health and wellbeing. Aside from benefitting body composition, regular strength training has significant influence on systemic, skeletal and psychological health.
One huge perk was increased bone density. When you do resistance exercises, you put stress on your bones, which helps promote new bone growth and maintain the bone mass that we have, and thus reduces the risk of osteoporosis and fractures, particularly as we grow older. Resistance exercise is also associated with improved joint stability and flexibility, which can reduce the risk of injury both in activities of daily living and sport.
From a metabolic perspective, strength training elevates Resting Metabolic Rate (RMR) by increasing lean body mass. This allows the body to burn more calories at rest, past what it would have without any strength training. It increases insulin sensitivity, which may lower the risk of type 2 diabetes and promote better blood sugar control.
There are important mental health benefits to strength training. Endorphins are also released in the body during exercise, which can minimize stress, anxiety and depression. It also boosts cognition, focus, and confidence.
It also increases posture, stability, and coordination, which are all essentials in mobility and preventing injury. All – young, old, novice, or expert – ultimately, everyone should make strength training a part of his or her exercise program in order to remain healthy, physically active, and independent throughout life.
