Rest days can be a psychological or physiological break from training or exercise engagement. And no you will not lose all your gains from resting. But if you keep pushing hard every day non stop without structure or intention — ya might.

While yes you could technically be active every day of the week and it be fine if you’re programming your training correctly most people are taking 1-2 rest days a week or every 10-14 days.

Our fatigue and damage from training builds across time and also takes time to recover. This may not happen in just *one* day (see @chester_soko recent post on rest days).

I may get slack for this but if you’re not really following a structured training plan and just moving for health or only formally exercising 2-3 days a week you probably don’t need “rest days”. You’re likely inactive enough in your day to day life you should prioritize some movement as much as possible.

For my friends with more hyper specific goals or higher training volumes the goal is to manage the impact of your training both during training& prioritizing recovering from it not ONLY on rest days.

However, if you are taking 1-2 days off per week the biggest thing is moving in a way that won’t dig deeper into your recovery. Such as our desire to do a formal workout and call it “active recovery”.

If you’re going to do active recovery I recommend staying in zone 1 for endurance or doing light skill work or yoga or similar. NOT further put stress on your body or muscles or self to recover from. Since recovery is a multi day process this could stall this.

Again, if you’re not a super competitive person or care and want to do a massive hike or crazy workout or whatever on your day off go for it. But assume you may have to draw back volume the following week

And as always, if needed — being a couch potato is allowed too. 😂💅🏻🌟

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