This post is part of a partnership with adidas. As an adidas brand ambassador, I received a gift card to create and share my experience. All opinions are my own.
As someone who always loves to stay active, I used to think that the more I moved, the healthier I would be. But over the years, I’ve realized something important: rest days are just as important as the workouts. Just like it’s important to eat a balanced diet, it’s just as important that we use a balanced approach in our exercise strategy as well. Here’s why you should be incorporating rest days into your programming.
Why We Need Rest Days
I struggle when I see that my Apple Watch shows my exercise and movement rings haven’t closed at the end of the day. Isn’t that silly? It actually stresses me out. I was to the point where I was strapping on my trainers and going for a backyard walk at 8:00pm just to close my rings. That wasn’t necessary, I know. But it felt like I was failing myself when I seen that I wasn’t active that day. It made me feel lazy, and unaccomplished for the day – even though that was far from being the case.
Rest days are crucial for giving your body time to recover. When you’re exercising, especially lifting heavy weights – your muscles get micro-tears in them, breaking up the muscle fibers. Recovery time is what allows those tears to repair and get stronger. Similar to when you get a head cold – you have to take time to rest, slow things down, focus on fluids and allow your body time to do it’s job!
How I Embrace My Rest Days
It took me some time, but I learned that rest days are a blessing, not a curse. For that reason, I would adjust my movement and exercise rings down on my rest days. It would allow me not to stress about getting crazy amounts of movement in.
Knowing what rest days are doing for my exercise program also helps me to feel good about taking the day off. So when I train hard, I rest hard. There’s power in the knowledge that balancing our movement is the key to our success.
There’s also just something about feeling content staying in your cozy clothes for the night, knowing that you earned a night off. My shameless plug for some of the athleisure I’ve been loving is these womens hoodies from adidas. But I also know many ladies who swear by the trendy womens tracksuits for the season as well. I love the matching set combination that is on trend right now!
Eating for Rest Days
Now I don’t change a whole lot of my diet to accommodate rest days, except that I do tend to pull back on carbs while still focusing on protein and healthy fats. Because I don’t need extra energy and calories to fuel intense workouts, it makes sense to me that my intake drops a little bit on these days. If you’re interested more in the logistics of that, you can look up carb cycling for more information and details.
At the end of the day, rest isn’t a weakness, it’s a strength. You’re giving yourself the chance to regroup, recover and investing in your long-term health and wellness. You’re helping yourself to prevent injuries and avoid burnout. Trust me, it is so worth it!
Happy resting.
Sarah
Leave a Reply