When you are training hard, working hard, and just generally busy you body needs rest. There are 2 types of rest/recovery in my book. Both of them being important in their own way.
#1 Active Rest
This is the type of activities that you do to enjoy life. You’re moving your body, but not “training”. This includes leisure walks, easy bike rides, social dancing, easy hiking, gentle yoga, foam rolling, stretching. Anything you do to move your body and recover from your harder training sessions counts!
This type of recovery helps toward your overall health. It can help you maintain the goal of 10,000+ steps a day. All active recovery helps pump blood through you body and can even help alleviate the muscle soreness that can come from training schedule.
You do want to make sure that this active rest is still REST! That is going to look different for each individual. A 10 mile easy bike ride might be recovery for me, and hard work for someone who is not an avid cyclist. A short hike might be a perfect recovery for someone who is used to training at high intensity levels, but it may count as a workout for those who are still training at lower intensities and length.
To determine if your activity is active rest you must listen to your body. If you feel better after the activity it counts as recovery. If you body feels more tired, more sore, or worse after the activity than it was probably a bit too much activity for recovery.
Side Note: Foam rolling does count as active recovery even though it kinda hurts in it’s very own unique way. Releasing the muscles in this fashion does not feel awesome at the exact time of rolling, but it should feel better when you finish. You should gain a bit of mobility and fell better after your rolling session. If you think you’re feeling worse it probably means you need a softer roller to start with and more rolling sessions overall.
#2 Horizontal Rest
This is the feet up, napping, movie watching, book reading, horizontal kind of rest. This is where you’re really relaxing your body and mind. This sort of relaxation is also important to recovery. If your rest is always active you are still at risk of over working your body. Not a fan of sitting? Try a massage or a relaxing pool day. Think vacation when you think of horizontal rest. It is a vacation for your muscles (mental and physical.)
Too much horizontal rest and you may be walking, groggy, zombie. Too little rest and you may be a bit wired, but tired. Make sure you get your REST rest in.
Sleep is a great way to rest as well. I am a HUGE fan of napping! Many times our weekends can become social, and shift our schedules a bit leaving us with less sleep than desired. This is the perfect scenario to nap. Taking a mid day siesta can help you not be completely drained by Monday.
Don’t feel guilty about getting the rest you need, when you need it. Recovery is very important, especially in our go-go-go world. Give yourself the break you deserve! Take a breath, stop to smell the roses, and find the time to rest and recover!