How much time does our body need to recover between exercise?

August 31, 2020

Health & Fitness Trainer

Pragya is one of the best Fitness Speakers at Zeal who has a unique artistic vision and always has a lot to share with her clients.

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Rest days are indeed an easy way to keep your pace, but they're not the only way.

It is often recommended to relax a day between workouts when you are just starting up with a fitness routine Couch to 5K tells starting runners to relax every other day, as well as programs like Starting Strength and Stronglifts 5x5

For beginners, this is a smart technique primarily because it reduces the number of rough days of preparation. First, every training day is a rough day and this means you get a decent blend of hard work and taking it easy.

Yet, you would be able to do more than no work on your off-days after a couple of months of training. Experienced runners still don't dream about running a light sprint every day, much as we all have a simple exercise level (standing around at work, walking the dog) that our body barely notices.

This also holds true for Weight-lifting. The best way is to switch days with the upper and lower body so that you're not working twice in a row for the same body part. Yet if you do, you will work your entire body every day.

In general, the key is to keep in mind- how much work you are asking your body to do. If you lift 5-6 days a week, the strength will vary. Strong deadlifts, for example, are the hardest to heal from, so it's a better practice to only do those once a week. To me, most exercises are full-body, but medium strength, and sometimes at least one day is a "fun" day where I'm going to do lighter training:(light running, cycling or technique practice to name a few) that doesn't make me feel too exhausted.

The idea is the same as for an endurance athlete and casual one, only the schedule may look different. For instance, a runner could do speedwork or strength training on Wednesday during marathon season, and a long run on Saturday. The remaining weekdays will be short and easy workouts. At some stage in your training you might want to run a 15-mile, but you would become tired if we wanted to do a 15-miler daily.

Changing the duration and strength of exercises throughout the week will maintain the body's overall needs to acceptable amounts. That is why it helps to follow a training schedule prepared by a coach or other specialist, who gives you a sense of when to go hard and when to go soft. "Couch to 5k" and Beginning Strength do that for beginners; the concept is the same when you are a beginner and when you are more experienced, what changes is the fitness schedule, which keeps you motivated.

It’s Okay if You Build-up Fatigue

Here’s an interesting question:When you're new to training, or if you're adding new routines your exercises, you may find, you can't do as much as you did on the first day. You work harder and still, your training's efficiency is decreasing. What's the possible reason behind it? What's it up to?

Although it can seem rational to believe that you've done so much and should get back off, maintaining balance is crucial. When you're always getting drained of energy, or if you've just doubled your workload from week to week, then well, you're just going too fast too soon.

Yet minor variations between one exercise and another aren't a big deal. When you can do 20 crunches on Monday but then you can barely get to 15 on Wednesday and Friday, that's fine. This is natural. Keep working on it, and soon the fifteens will be eighteen, and the eighteen will be twenties, and you'll be able to smash on 20 on a day you're well-rested before you even realize it.

When Your Body Recovers Completely, You’ll be a Beast

Though doing workout makes us exhausted for some time, the fact is, doing any type of exercise makes us stronger in the long run. Unless you wait until you completely recover before you enter the gym again, you would hardly exercise at all and won't make any progress.

If you take a few days off before a workout, chances are, you’ll get a lot more reps than you ever did the first time around.

If you're practicing for something like a sprint or a powerlifting championship,where success matters, the preparation will get harder and harder, up to a level. It's a great strategy to ease up shortly before the competition just enough to let your muscles recover.

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