Should you ever take more rest and recovery than one day off a week?

Definitely! It's so important to listen to your body and watch for signs of overtraining.

Absolutely! I explain overtraining to my clients like this: Imagine a bucket with a hole in the bottom. Think of exercise like water, and think of the water draining out of the bottom as the recovery period. It only makes sense that your body takes longer to recover from exercise than it takes TO exercise (same concept with an injury); otherwise we'd have a lot more olympic athletes! If you put water into the bucket so fast that it doesn't have time to drain out, you're just kidding yourself. You have to give yourself and your clients proper rest or else the benefits are diminished, and you never get anywhere. Rest intervals depend largely on the amount/intensity of training and the overall level of fitness.

Self care is so important in our industry. As my body feels the need to rest, I generally take it. It's the same thing I encourage my clients to do.

I let them know that if I don't take care of myself, I am not in a good position to assist them and they understand.

There are many variables to consider when answering this question. There is not ONE answer without understanding other components of the training program you are referring to. Rest/Recovery are highly dependent on the intensity at which one is training. Also, if your a integrating split muscle training groups there are ways to avoid overtraining certain muscle groups while still being able to train more frequently.

Fuel the Movement,

JM

I almost forget - Nutrition plays a VERY VERY VERY large component in recovery of muscle tissue. In order for the muscle to recovery properly and grow - adequate nutrition is required!

Fuel the Movement,
JM

What do you consider rest and recovery? My rest and recovery month (this month) is harder than what most consider their workouts to be. I prefer to take active rest time off, it is better to stay moving even if the intensity is too low for any gains.

All the time. Recovery can be the most important aspect of enhancing the effectiveness of your training. You take what your body needs.

Having just returned from IDEA World, I better take more than one day off after having tried all that fun stuff and feeling thoroughly beaten up :-)

But I hear your concern: for some people it becomes a 'slippery slope'. When we look at health club statistics, once people begin to grop off in attendance, it may only be a small step toward reverting back to a lifestyle that does not include exercise.

A concept of 'active rest' may help. Of course the client should listen to her body, but taking a walk or doing something of a restorative nature may well be part of such a rest and recovery period. It keeps the idea of exercise as part of everyday life current.

Recovery, phyiologically, describes the biochemical and structural processes that occur following exercise. Of course the extent is directly related to the intensity, type, and duration of the effort. Following glycogen depletion effort, for example, cycling 50 miles to exhaustion, it may take 2-3 days for the targeted muscles to fully repack their glycogen stores, that's assuming adequate carbohydrate and water intake. Following maximal power effort to temporary muscle fatigue (like with a maximal effort, major muscle, free weight workout, (8-12 RM), it may take at least 2-3 days for the streaming of the contractile protein actin/myosin/tropomyosin/troponin complex in skeletal muscle cells to return to normal structure.

The point is that rest and recovery (including hydration and sensible eating) are a critical part of the conditioning process, for both fitness and performance. Taking "at least" a day off can be the best advice.

Take care.

There are definitely times when more than one day is needed. That is going to depend on how you were training. Another is if you have been over training and then you should definitely take a few days off. Another common reason for taking more than one rest day is following the completion of a competition or middle to long distance race (half marathons and longer). By the way, it took me almost 2 weeks to recover from one half marathon!