Why You Should Stop Skipping Rest Days, According to Fitness Pros

There’s nothing wrong with wanting to stay consistent, especially when it comes to working out. In fact, building good habits is key when it comes to meeting your fitness goals. That said, rest days are an important part of any well-rounded, sustainable training program – even though they tend to get overlooked. While taking time off from your workouts can feel like you’re slowing down, the reality is that rest days are crucial for muscle growth and injury prevention (and you never need to feel guilty for taking one).

Sometimes we make fitness an “all-or-nothing” thing, says NASM-certified personal trainer Allison Tibbs. We feel we have to keep going, going, going or else we’ll lose our progress. In her experience working with clients, Tibbs says that some people view rest days negatively; they associate these “off” periods of training with guilt. Rest, though, is an important part of the equation because our bodies need to recover from the strain we’re putting on them. Read on to learn more about why rest days matter, according to experts.

Experts Featured in This Article:

Allison Tibbs is a NASM-certified personal trainer and wellness coach who specializes in fitness, nutrition, and stress management.
Guychard Codio is a fitness instructor and the co-founder of New York City Personal Training.
Alex Harrison, PhD, CSCS, is the founder of Saturday Inc, and a sport performance consultant for Renaissance Periodization.

Why We Need Rest Days

Rest days aren’t just an arbitrary part of training – they can have a real effect on your progress. Taking rest days can also be beneficial for your overall health. “I have some clients I train at 6 a.m., and I tell them, ‘This training session’s almost a waste of time because you are so exhausted,” Tibbs says. “‘You basically took a shot of espresso at 5:45 a.m. and ran into the gym. Your cortisol levels are up. I can’t put you under a squat rack.'” (Studies show that cortisol levels seem to increase due to factors like stress and sleep deprivation.) “I think we have to be honest and listen to our bodies and be proactive with scheduling rest days,” Tibbs says. According to UCLA Health, some additional rest day benefits include:

• Less soreness: Rest days help reduce lactic acid buildup (as do certain stretches), which can help muscles feel less sore after a tough workout.
• Injury prevention: Taking a rest day gives your body the necessary time to recover, preventing overexertion, strain, and potential injury.
• Mental health: Not only are rest days good for your physical health – they can give your mental health a boost as well. Taking time to rest helps us build more consistent habits, allowing for well-rounded and sustainable fitness routines.
• Muscle growth: When we strength train, we create tiny tears in our muscles, which allows them to grow back stronger. Taking a rest day gives these muscles more time to heal, which can actually facilitate better muscle growth.

What Happens When We Don’t Rest

“Slamming” our bodies with stress on a daily basis isn’t healthy, Tibbs says. “The body’s main objective at that point is to try to get us back to homeostasis,” she says, explaining what happens when we don’t take enough rest days. “It’s trying to get the body to be in a healthier state. So, all its focus is going on stress reduction. It really doesn’t care about your abs at that point.”

To combat rest day-related guilt, we need to get rid of the misconception that all progress will be lost if we take rest days. In reality, “a lot of our progress and results can be made with proper rest and regeneration, proper sleep habits, and stress reduction,” Tibbs says. As NASM-certified personal trainer Guychard Codio previously told PS, you can actually get more out of your workout after a rest day. Not taking rest days, he said, is similar to tanning post-sunburn. “You can’t just go back out into the sun to get a better tan,” he said. “You have to let your body heal first.” Likewise, if you’re working out hard every single day, you won’t be able to physically give 100 percent because your body hasn’t healed.

As Alex Harrison, PhD, CSCS, previously explained to PS, even if you did decide to spend a longer chunk of time away from the gym, it still wouldn’t be impossible to regain your progress. Why? It has to do with satellite cells, or muscle stem cells, which play a significant role in muscle repair and regeneration. When you build muscle, satellite cells donate their nuclei into the muscle cells “to allow them to grow further,” Dr. Harrison explained. “That donation of nuclei into the muscle cells is permanent.” This means that “even if you lose all your muscle size, you take 10 years off from training, have a family, all of that, those muscle cells still have those nuclei,” so you’ll actually be able to pick up where you left off, and build muscle much faster than someone who has never trained before.

Rest Day Tips

To feel less guilty about your rest days, Tibbs suggests starting small. “Be a bit more intuitive and listen to your body,” she says. “Don’t normalize aches and pains.” It might also help to deliberately schedule a few rest days into your routine instead of waiting until you absolutely need one. On the days you’re resting, nourish yourself with lots of water and a balanced diet. Take time to foam roll, go for a walk, or take an active recovery day with a quick yoga flow. If you feel like you can’t manage to take an active rest day, don’t be afraid to take a full rest day. Recovery is a part of training, and it’s about time we treated it as such.

– Additional reporting by Chandler Plante

Samantha Brodsky is a former assistant editor at PS. She uses her gymnast background to inform her sports and fitness coverage, powering through Peloton videos in her free time.