The Answer? Rest One or Two Days Per Week. For the best performance and to reach your goals in the safest and most effective way possible, plan for one to two rest days per week. Olenick recommended spacing these out—take one rest day mid-week and the other at the weekend, or in between bigger workouts.
Rest is a critical part of any fitness plan. Deciding how many rest days a week you should take depends on your fitness level and exercise intensity. But most people should aim for 1 to 3 rest days per week. You can use your rest days to support recovery by doing light exercise and working on mobility.
Training six days a week is not too much, but can lead to overtraining. Overtraining occurs when the body doesn't get enough time to recover and build muscle. To prevent overtraining, it's best to train four or five days per week with at least one day of rest in between each workout.
Summary. In summary, it is generally recommended that 2-3 rest days a week is optimum. This varies slightly depending on your training age and objectives, but sticking to this advice will help reduce the chance of injury, help you recover adequately and help support long term gains.
Rest One or Two Days Per Week. For the best performance and to reach your goals in the safest and most effective way possible, plan for one to two rest days per week. Olenick recommended spacing these out — take one rest day mid-week and the other on the weekend, or in between bigger workouts.
Working out five days a week is typically ideal for health and fitness. Just be sure to keep your workouts varied so that you use different muscles and apply different stresses to your body.
Taking two to three days off from intense exercise each week while engaging in some form of active recovery will allow you to get your blood flowing to help facilitate muscle repair.
With just three workouts per week, your body will have plenty of time to recover in between sessions, so you can safely work all of your muscle groups each time. A common three-day routine is Monday-Wednesday-Friday, but any other combination can work as long as you get adequate rest in between workouts.
According to their research, funded by the National Institutes of Health, the optimal length of exercise per week is: minimum of 5 to 10 hours of moderate physical activity (42 minutes to an hour and 25 minutes daily) minimum 2 hours and 30 minutes to 5 hours of vigorous physical activity (21-42 minutes daily)
“Overexercising is typically encountered in people who go from not exercising at all to trying too aggressively to get into shape or lose weight,” Slabaugh says. It not necessarily about the total quantity of exercise you're doing — it's upping the intensity too quickly.
Increased muscle fuel also adds a little weight
When you exercise regularly, your body stores more glycogen to fuel that exercise. Stored in water, glycogen has to bind with water as part of the process to fuel the muscle. That water adds a small amount of weight, too.
Look at it this way: If you're sleep deprived your body isn't performing as highly as it could be. Exercising when you're running on empty also increases your risk of injury. So if you're exhausted, the best thing you can do for your body is to get a good night of rest and get back in the gym the next day.
If you continue your usual exercise regimen even when you're sore, you're not giving your muscles enough time to heal. In fact, pushing yourself during a bout of soreness can eventually lead to an overuse injury. Overall, you're at risk of causing harm to your body by not resting.
In healing, your muscles become stronger. As your body heals from this damage, your muscles might feel sore. This process is often known as Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness (DOMS). Muscle soreness is related to muscle damage, which can promote, but is not required for, muscle growth.
Although intuitively you might think you don't need as much food on your rest days, it's important to eat as you normally would between workouts to replenish your glycogen stores for energy, promote muscle recovery and growth, and support your body's essential daily functions.
Protein is essential for supporting muscle recovery on rest days. It's important to consume high-quality protein sources on non-workout days to optimize recovery. One high-quality protein source to include on both active and rest days is protein shakes.
You're not varying your workouts
You're body needs new stimuli and progressive training if you want to see results. A more developed cardiovascular system will also increase your ability to recover faster. Both HIIT and steady-state cardio are essential even if your main goal is to build muscle and strength.
If you workout for 2 hours straight at a very high intensity, then do it again every day, you could very well be overtraining. For most people exercising roughly 45 minutes to an hour a day, 4 to 5 days per week is the sweet spot which will prevent overtraining regardless of how intense your workouts are.
Gaining weight after working out is likely due to muscle fiber inflammation, muscle glycogen and water weight gain, and over time, muscle mass gain. If weight loss is your goal, seeing an increase on the scale when you've been making an effort to exercise can be frustrating.
Essentially, this means your body is burning a lot of fuel after training to repair the tissue. With your body working that hard behind the scenes, it's no surprise you may feel a little knackered. But that's particularly true if you are eating less on rest days, as is pretty common for gym-goers.
Cardio can't directly cause you to gain weight or fat. According to Mayoclinic, how you eat and drink in addition to your physical activity level are things that ultimately determine your weight. This is also impacted by your metabolism — the process by which your body converts what you eat and drink into energy.