Build a Better You: What’s the difference? Rest versus recovery

Your body needs rest to recover from intense workouts. Rest and active recovery are tools we can use to achieve optimal recovery. A rest day doesn’t involve any exercise at all.

The best way to think of these days is like a good night of sleep. You have a plan to completely relax, sleep in, enjoy time at home, or do light errands or maybe even housework. You are going to avoid harder tasks like cleaning up and raking the yard, painting the house, or helping someone move.

An active recovery day is more like a cat nap: You’re still including activity in your day like running or cross-training, at an easy to moderate intensity to get blood flowing to your muscles to help them recover. Low or no impact activities like cycling, swimming, yoga, or strength training to aid the demands of your high impact workouts.

Runners who run more than three days per week can use easy runs as active recovery, too. To see the benefits of recovery, this includes both complete rest and active recovery.

Cross-training is performing any exercise that isn’t what you normally do, and it can be part of your active recovery day, but it doesn’t have to be. Sometimes more strenuous cross-training is too taxing to be considered as active recovery. If you’re building up your training to reach a goal or just getting back into exercising, you should only cross-train at easy to moderate effort levels to balance the demands of your workouts. If you’re using running as active recovery, keep the duration and intensity easy.

When should you incorporate rest vs recovery?

The easiest way to tell when you need a rest day is to listen to your body for signs. Signs of overtraining include an elevated resting heart rate because your body is under more stress, poor sleep patterns, dark colored urine because your body is struggling to stay hydrated, increased irritability, a general feeling of sickness or constant injury.

Regardless of your exercise schedule, it's important to listen to your body. It will tell you if it needs a rest day, even if it's a day where you are supposed to be working out instead. It is essential to help your muscles rebuild and recover from training.

It is recommended by the American Council on Exercise (ACE) that, you should schedule a rest day every seven to 10 days if you engage in high-intensity physical activity. The number of rest days you need will vary based on the type and intensity of your exercise.

As long as you’re not feeling any signs of over training for a needed rest day, allow yourself to take an active recovery day, which can include cross-training activities or an easy run.

In the day or two following a workout, movement will help repair the tiny tears you’ve made in your muscle fiber. Make sure you’re doing an activity at about 60 percent to 70 percent effort. Recovery days are not meant to push your limits or test your strength. Consider going for a walk, taking a yoga session, cycling or a water aerobics class.

  Buy Photo

Isabela Joyce is a certified personal trainer and nutritionist at The M.A.C. She can be reached at IJoyce@the-mac.net.