Planned Rest
There is a huge spectrum of individual abilities in training frequency tolerance from person to person.
It doesn’t matter if you are an olympian athlete or just someone working 8-5. EVERYONE should have a minimum of 1-2 planned rest days a week.
The purpose of planned rest is to include absolutely no structured training activities. So stay away from the gym or avoid anything related to your training.
Following a structured training program or playing a specific sport is physical and physiological stressful, even when it doesnt feel like it. The best benefit of planned rest is the reduction in physiological fatigue management.
It doesn’t matter if you are the most motivated person in the gym. Constantly worrying about meals and exercise can trigger stress and slowly wear you down.
When taking one or two days off a week, you are giving time for your glycogen stores to refill and damaged tissues more opportunity to heal from the accumulated fatigue.
Training age will always play a factor when determining how many days you should take off. Someone younger and just starting will need less time to recover and could probably get away without rest days for longer.
Intermediate and advanced athletes generate large amounts of disruption during their training sessions. And require 1-2 planned rest days a week.
Retail Supplement Stores have it made because I feel like everyone is ingrained that we must buy Protein shakes, BCAA, and Pre-workout.
Instead, focusing on the more powerful and natural resources to improve muscle development and performance like;
- sleeping
- relaxation
- stress management
- and taking planned rest days
Active Recovery
Active recovery is modifying training when fatigue is high and knowing when it needs to be relieved to increase the effect of long-term gains.
Active recovery strategies allow you to continue training while at the same time supporting recovery.
Active recovery is usually a week in duration, while planned rest is one to two days of your week.
When fatigue is high, taking multiple active rest days throughout the week can be more effective for recovering than resting for the entire week.
After overreaching training, you will see better results by including a deload week rather than taking a week off from the gym altogether.
That is why we include a deload week once every six weeks.
Light Days
Light Days is a training session where all volumes are reduced to at least half of normal training.
Even though light days cut the volume in half, training specificity should reflect the same exercises during the program but at a reduced total volume.
There are two ways to include light days,
- Reducing volume while keeping the load heavy
- Taking an entire light day or session
Even though fatigue is high, light days simulate muscles enough to redirect blood flow into them. This creates an enhanced amount of nutrient uptake and removes product waste. And will make increase insulin sensitivity and glucose activity.
Including light days while hitting your daily calorie requirements will allow glycogen store to refill without causing further disruption to the muscle that comes with normal training days.
Having a pre-planned light day can be a physiological reward. Knowing that a quick and easy workout is coming up can be very motivating and relieve the mental stress related to training.
In some cases, a light session can have a more positive effect on simulating recovery than taking a planned rest day.
How To Apply A Light Day
A light session is about 50 percent of normal overload volume training. Related to weight lifting that would be half of sets and reps.
The intensity of this session should match the same as last week’s training before taking a light day.
If the training frequency is four or fewer times per week, a light day wouldn’t be required. However, for someone training five or more days a week. The light session can be a beneficial tool with fatigue on the rise.
When adding light sessions, having one every once in a while is recommended, but dont exceed two light days per week.
Light sessions should be scheduled after a hard training week with five or more training sessions when fatigue levels are high.
Another way to include light sessions is with heavy/ light splits. Your priority muscles are still at overload training. Meanwhile, the secondary and third muscle groups drop to half the training load and volume.
Give your second and third muscle groups a chance to recover while you continue to develop your primary muscles.
Another way of looking at this is that slow twitch fibers heal faster, allowing you to train them more often.
And faster twitch fibers heal slower, forcing you to train them less. The larger the muscle (slow twitch) is your primary muscles, and your smaller muscles (faster twitch) are your secondary muscles.
Light training shouldn’t exceed 3-4 sets per session. If you choose to do a heavy load, low volume split. All heavy overload training should be completed first prior to any light lifting.
Only take a light day when fatigue is high! If you wake up one morning with a lack of motivation and decide to take a light day randomly. It will have no benefits and be full of nothing but junk volume that creates no additional improvement for adaptation or recovery.
To learn more on recovery modalities check out our Rookie Camp online weight lifting program!
Our Rookie Camp is the first online workout program built around RECOVERY strategies so you never experience OTS! Our scientific-based training will slingshot your performance when you need it the most. The Highest amount of adaptation is when our bodies are recovering, and RSF does an amazing job of showing you how.
Our Rookie Camp is a three-phase program that you can customize to suit your personal goals.
Getting started with only 3-Days a week, we slowly increase the intensity and quantity of your workouts. In the duration of this program, you can expect to see improvements in your,
- Muscle Strength
- Muscle Growth
- Muscle Endurance
Our Rookie Camp is designed for all levels, from starting out to someone more advanced. The formula we came up with includes the principles of progressive overload with recovery methods like resensitization phases, light days, and active and nonactive rest days.
Conclusion
EVERYONE should have a minimum of 1-2 planned rest days a week.
The purpose of planned rest is to include absolutely no structured training activities. So stay away from the gym or avoid anything related to your training.
Focus on the more powerful and natural resources to improve muscle development and performance like;
- sleeping
- relaxation
- stress management
- and taking planned rest days
Active recovery is usually a week in duration, while planned rest is one to two days of your week.
Active recovery strategies allow you to continue training while at the same time supporting recovery.
Even though light days cut the volume in half, training specificity should reflect the same exercises during the program but at a reduced total volume.