What Taking a Rest Week Does to Your Body
Just think about your workouts. Squatting deep with a loaded bar for heavy reps, panting afterward because your body needs to supply oxygen to your muscles. Jumping, running and punching with sweat dripping from your face onto the ground. We exert ourselves to the max because we not only enjoy the feeling we get from it, but because we want to do better than last time. So, what if I told you there was a secret way to guarantee you will do better than last time.
The benefits of taking a rest can be both physical and mental. In this article I am going to focus on the physical benefits of giving your body a rest from your usual workout routine.
Your Body Needs Time to Recuperate
I recently returned from vacation. During this my vacation I completely dropped my usual workout and eating routines. This is not to say that I did not stay active or that I ate junk. While I only did traditional workouts twice during my vacation including a rowing session and a whole-body weightlifting workout, I did hike or walk nearly every day.
If you are like me, you love to work out and spend 5 to 6 days a week exercising — lifting weights and pushing yourself with various types of cardio exercise. Overtime this takes a toll on your muscles and your nervous system. Even if you are not technically overtraining a break from your usual routines helps you to adapt to new activities and provides a reset.
Immediate and Lasting Performance Gains
There are multiple systems involved in physical activity. These systems include the muscular, neurological, and cardiovascular. Allowing these systems a break from intense exertion and giving them a chance to fully recover has been shown to result in improved performance.
After returning from my vacation, I was either stronger in each exercise, able to perform more reps, or able to go for longer without rest. Even with my background knowledge this was surprising when after hiking several miles in various terrain nearly every day during my vacation, I was able to hit a squat PR on my first day back in the gym. On my second day back in the gym I was able to follow that with a bench press PR. And on the heavy bag and jump rope cardio I felt less fatigued between rounds and after the workout.
Now we are nearly a month out from my vacation. And I want to share with you a little secret. I did not just hit PRs and improve performance immediately after returning. I have seen benefits in nearly every workout since giving my body a rest from the constant exertion of before.
A lot of individuals program in de-loads in order to maximize strength and hypertrophy gains. The main reason I have not generally programmed in de-load periods for myself is that I am often able to continually progress with my weight and volume to some extent. The problem with this is that the progress had been so incrementally small that I should have recognized the signs of fatigue.
With a typical deload period you are going to decease weight, sets, and reps for an active recovery period. Following the deload you will then start to progress back to your maximum working volume. This is in many aspects different from just taking an all out break. But, the principle is similar in that you will allow your body to repair itself and give your nervous system a chance to adapt.
Give Your Body a Rest Week
Your body needs a break every now and then. Of course, how often depends on your personal circumstances. For me it had been well over a year since I had been able to take time away from work and during that time, I had not taken more than a day or two of rest from my workout routine. I think that this was too long. Going forward I plan to experiment with the timing of my rest weeks.
I recommend that you do the same. There truly is a point of diminishing returns when it comes to performance. You should realize that even if you love working out it sometimes pays to take a break from your usual routine. Although you may feel fine physically, like I did, taking this break can allow your body to recuperate fully and push you forward when you get back to your routine.
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