Are Rest Days Really Necessary?

You either love having them or you hate having them, thats right folks today we are talking rest days. Do you need rest days? how many rest days should you have? Are there benefits to a certain amount of rest days? What the heck should you do on a rest day? Tons of things to talk about so lets get to it.

I think the first question people have is are rest days needed to make progress? First off there is many ways to accomplish your fitness and physique goals but also there are ways to accomplish them and then there are better ways to get to your goals. I Find in new lifters it is very common to see them train all the time in the beginning and never take dedicated rest days. I for one used to do this.... These are also the people you later don’t see much of in the gym anymore because they simply get burned out or worse - injured. The most advanced lifters know the importance of rest days and these are the people you see year after year always coming back and continuing to make progress, they are also the ones where it seems like they never get burnt out. As you can see i am big time for rest days and i always recommend them. So in short yes they are needed to make long term gains in this strength/physique sport.

Confused at types of cardio? Check out this article where i break down the different types and whats better.

 

This is a great motto to live by because if you follow this simple concept you will grow eventually without question. So many people think that you grow when your at the gym and while it sounds like it makes sense because i get it you lift a lot of weight you get the “pump” going on and you feel big and you feel like your growing but surprising tho thats not what is happening when your at the gym. When you train you are believe it or not breaking down muscle not growing it! WHAT Blasphemy you say? Well sorry to burst your bubble but its true. At the gym you are causing muscle break down and stimulating your muscle for growth when you finally give it the nutrients it needs to grow and the recover it needs. This is why too much frequency in my opinion can be just as bad as not enough frequency. If your training chest 4 times a week its only getting 3 dedicated days of recovery. Does that make much sense then to train chest more often then let it recover and grow? I think not. A good rule to follow for natural lifters is hit every muscle group two times a week with the exception of a lagging body part which you can hit up to 3 times a week. I personally do this with shoulders and arms, I personally add side laterals to every upper day i do and i also train arms every upper day as those are two body parts for myself that need more frequency/volume to improve on. Remember this tho. In order for you to actually grow on your rest days you have to have trained hard enough and racked up enough volume to cause temporary breakdown and adaptation. Now many people will read that and train till they are dead in the face but thats also not the best way to go about long term progress. Something i found to work for myself is to really use the RPE System when i train and allow myself to train around an RPE 8-9. Most Days never allowing me to completely reach failure unless it is maybe the last set of an exercise that i just feel like taking to failure, use your best judgement. Failure is a tool but that tool should not be abused. Training the majority of your time in an RPE 8 will allow yourself to rack up a good amount of volume but not push so hard that your absolutely destroyed all the time. Trust me i used to train like that.... Monday thru Friday i would just train till i was dead pretty much then take it easy on the weekends. While it worked to a degree it caused burn out way to often. So use failure training accordingly when it feels appropriate, just don’t abuse it.

So your probably wondering what i recommend for calories while taking rest days and to be honest i have changed a lot from what i used to do. I use to be a huge fan of carb cycling on rest days around 100 grams less in carbs and around 200-300 calories less and while it worked to remain lean. It did not help me however make any solid gains. After a lot of trial and error i found that keeping my calories the same through the week allowed me better recovery, better gains, better overall strength and energy for when i came back to training and just overall better long term results. So while calorie cycling may make sense i no longer recommend it for most people. The only time i recommend it anymore is if your at the end of a cut and trying to really get to your leanest or on possibly a mini cut, not something you do year round. So for just rest days i say keep calories the same. Now a de-load week tho i actually do recommend dropping 200-300 calories because that week you don’t need as much food to get through your routines as you do on a normal training week. Pretty much if your de-load workouts suck that means your training too hard for a de-load week. Simply put on a de-load week it should feel as tho you could do these workouts not hyped up and not even needing to feel good. Learn about de-loading properly here.

 

Determine How Many Rest Days You Need.

Depending on your goals i have different recommendations for how much rest you need. Follow this guide to determine the amount of rest days you need but remember this is just a recommendation, you know your body best.

Do you have an active lifestyle outside of the gym?

• If so i recommend training 3-4 days a week and having 3 rest days.

Are you a hard gainer?

• If so i recommend you try a 5 days a week split with 2 recovery days, i myself follow this and i think it works really well.

• Do you gain weight easily?

Then i recommend 6 days of training with 1-2 rest days.

• Do you sit at a desk all day?

I know how you feel i myself do that as well. For those people i recommend training 5-6  days a week depending on if your a hard gainer or not, hard gainers train less. I also recommend taking multiple 10-20 minutes walks throughout your day.

• Construction worker?

Pick 3 days a week that work best for your schedule and train.

Those are just some examples but you can see a trend here, pretty much I'm recommending a 5 day a week split on average for most people. 5 days a week is also what i train and i find it has worked the best for me and a lot of my clients as well.

 

Best split?

this is all personal preference but for me i found 3 on, 1 off, 2 on, 1 off works amazingly well.

So today after reading this i hope i have convinced you the importance of rest days in your training. To sum this up

- Train Hard But Train Smart.

- Balance your weekly training days with the amount of rest days.

- Experiment with different amount of training and rest days to find what works for you.

- Typically speaking 3-5 days of training and 2-3 rest days a week is what generally works best for most people.

- Spend you rest days doing something you love, i play a lot of video games and catch up on Netflix shows.

- Stretching and taking a walk is also a great thing for a rest day.

- Don’t worry about reducing calories on rest days.

There you have it. If you enjoyed this blog please give it a share on your social media as i greatly appreciate it. Till Next week...

 

Stay Strong,

Shawn Fausey

 

• Shawn Fausey is the Founder and CEO of Fausey's Fitness. With Over 6 years experience in Bodybuilding, Powerlifting and Nutrition. Shawn offers services of online fitness coaching, programing and consulting. Shawn is also a Graphic Designer and can be reached for graphic services on www.rev-graphics.com
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