Add Rest Days to Your Workout Routine
June 2, 2020
Henry Ford Health System
Whether you're new to exercise or a seasoned enthusiast, it's tempting to adopt an all-go, no-quit attitude. This is especially common when you're are trying to achieve a fitness goal. Maybe you want to run a 5K, or maybe you have 10 pounds you want to shed before going on vacation.
"Whatever the driver, it's important to remember that scheduling time for rest and rejuvenation is a critical component of any workout regimen," says James Moeller, M.D., a sports medicine specialist at Henry Ford Health System.
Building in Rest Days
From high-intensity interval training (HIIT) and spin to barre and Zumba, popular workouts increasingly push exercisers to go faster, longer, stronger. This prolonged physical stress can lead to overuse injuries, such as stress fractures, muscle strains and joint pain. Excessive exercise can also lead to hormonal changes, disrupted sleep patterns, decreased immunity and mood swings.
“Working out, especially resistance training, breaks tissues down, causing microscopic damage,” Dr. Moeller says. "Rest days allow your muscles time to rebuild."
So how much rest do you really need? There isn't a one-size-fits-all prescription. Factors like your age, fitness level, the intensity of your workout and the amount of training you do weekly will impact the amount of recovery time you need. But there are some basic guidelines for rest days:
1. Go easy: Rest is a relative term. "It's not just sitting on the couch with an iced tea," says Dr. Moeller. "You may still be exercising on 'rest' days, but at a lower intensity." Maybe you go for a brisk walk or ride your bike to work. Take a yoga class or do some dynamic stretching. The key is to make sure you're not overworking the same body parts.
2. Get sufficient sleep: Sleep is a key component of muscle repair and rebuilding. During sleep, your body’s production of growth hormone increases. Not getting quality shuteye thwarts your body's production of growth hormone and can impact your performance.
3. Give overtaxed muscles a break: You don't need to skip the gym on specific days each week, but you do need to rotate which body parts you're working. The general rule is to give muscles 48 hours to recover after a workout. So it's a good idea to take two to three days off before working the same muscle groups again.
4. Stay hydrated: Make sure to restore lost fluids before, during and after a workout. Dehydration can lead to overheating, headaches and muscle fatigue, among other ailments. You don’t need a sports drink; water is best. "Sports drinks aren't required unless you're getting into very high intensity activity, or exercising for more than one hour at a time," Dr. Moeller says.
5. Pay attention to your body: A lot of people try to work out through pain and fatigue. If there's a heaviness to your movements, or if you feel like your muscles are not responding appropriately to the stress you're providing, take a time out. "It's really about learning to read your body's signals," says Dr. Moeller.
Health authorities and news headlines widely publicize the health benefits of exercise — and the consequences of inactivity. The American Heart Association recommends that adults get at least 150 minutes of moderate-intensity exercise per week, plus strength training two or three days per week. Less discussed are the negative effects of not allowing your body sufficient time to rest.
Getting sufficient rest between workouts is just as important as participating in regular exercise. "Both are part of the total process required to build strength, endurance and muscle mass," Dr. Moeller says.
Want to learn more? Henry Ford Health System sports medicine experts are treating the whole athlete, in a whole new way. From nutrition to neurology, and from injury prevention to treatment of sports-related conditions, they can give your athlete a unique game plan.
Visit henryford.com/sports or call (313) 972-4216 for an appointment within 24 business hours.
NFHS Voice: Find Answers at Youth Level
November 13, 2019
By Karissa Niehoff
NFHS Executive Director
Are there long-term solutions to increasing the number of participants in high school sports and improving parental behavior at high school contests? The answer to both questions might start at the youth sports level.
The NFHS hosted a first-ever meeting of about 25 leaders of National Governing Bodies and the U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Committee last week to discuss common concerns and opportunities to align and work together.
Within the youth areas of these organizations, the issues are familiar ones to high school leaders – decline in participation, parent behavior, coaches education and minimizing the injury risk. Clearly, however, reaching parents with appropriate educational messages on sportsmanship, injury risk and the values of participation is a top priority for leaders at all levels – youth, middle school and high school sports.
Recently, the NFHS formed a Middle School Committee in an effort to build interest in education-based sports at that level and to share the proper messages with parents before their kids reach high school. However, as we learned last week, middle school may even be too late!
Those educational messages will be enhanced if the process starts in out-of-school youth sports. If messages about the values of multi-sport participation, playing for the love of the game, and limiting contact in sports like football are consistently shared and demonstrated at the youth level, the education-based concept should be firmly in place by the time students reach high school.
Coaches education is another common concern. While the NFHS has created an outstanding online education program for interscholastic coaches through the NFHS Learning Center (www.NFHSLearn.com), there is no standard requirement to coach at the youth level. There should be some type of required certification for anyone to walk onto a field or court to coach. And while knowledge about teaching the proper tackling form in football or the proper defensive positioning in basketball is important, those are not the most important prerequisites for coaching.
Similar to the NFHS’ online Fundamentals of Coaching course, youth coaches should be required to take courses that help them learn how to coach the kids more so than the sport. And since many of the coaches at this level are parents of players on the team, these individuals – and all youth parents – should be presented materials similar to what is presented at preseason meetings at the high school level. This would include, among other things, the non-negotiable requirement to positively support their child while letting the coaches coach, and the officials officiate.
Lofty goals, for sure, without a collective governing organization over youth sports. However, these concepts can be endorsed and promoted within the youth areas of sport-specific NGBs. These fundamentals of education-based athletics are essential for the 2-3 percent who play sports beyond high school as well as the majority who apply the values learned in high school sports in their chosen careers.
The skills will eventually fade – even for those individuals who play sports beyond high school – but the values learned from playing sports, beginning at the youth sports level, will last a lifetime.
Dr. Karissa L. Niehoff is in her second year as executive director of the National Federation of State High School Associations (NFHS) in Indianapolis, Indiana. She is the first female to head the national leadership organization for high school athletics and performing arts activities and the sixth full-time executive director of the NFHS, which celebrated its 100th year of service during the 2018-19 school year. She previously was executive director of the Connecticut Association of Schools-Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Conference for seven years.