exercise Sport is important for your health and keeps you fit. But regular training is also strenuous. There are clear warning signals that your body uses to tell you that it needs a break. Finally, you are training regularly – you go running , to the gym or to the sports field several times a week. You are very proud of the sometimes hard-earned exercise routine.
You really feel like you’re in the flow. And even if you lack motivation, you still keep going – just so that you don’t jeopardize your training success in any way. Thoughts like these are persistent, especially among fitness beginners.
But if you take breaks from training sensibly and consciously, they will not jeopardize the desired end result, but will even improve it.
Without training breaks, no progress
Whether you’re a competitive athlete or a hobby athlete, rest days are just as important to your training plan as training days. Only then can your muscles regenerate and have time to grow sustainably. If you don’t give yourself these breaks, you may even end up overtraining .
Overtraining means training too often and making your body worse. This increases the risk of injury, worsens your performance and makes you feel permanently weak and tired – even your immune system can suffer. To prevent this, you should take regular breaks from training, which can be planned or unplanned, active or inactive.
So on a rest day you don’t necessarily have to lie on the couch all day if you don’t want to. You can also engage in relaxing activities such as taking a long walk , going to the sauna or having a stretching yoga session. Listen to your body, do what feels good to you. Training plans and rest days are always individual. However, the following signs can be an indication that you should take one or more rest days.
If you experience these symptoms, you should take a break
1. Sore muscles
Feeling a little tired or having a little muscle soreness after a successful workout is normal to a certain extent. It primarily shows that you have performed exercises that your body is not used to.
However, if the muscle soreness lasts longer than a few days after training or is particularly painful, you may have injured yourself and need more than one rest day.
2. No desire to train at all
If every thought rebels against training, or you have already started your session but are still completely demotivated after an extensive warm-up , you should consider whether this basic attitude leads to effective training.
Sure, sometimes you just can’t resist and you just don’t feel like training. But sometimes your body, mind or emotions tell you that you should rest today.
And before you become so unfocused due to demotivation that you might even injure yourself, you should listen to this basic feeling.
3. Cold or pain during training
Headache? Sore throat? Runny nose? If you have cold symptoms, you should stay in bed, not on the treadmill . Otherwise, your immune system will be doubly stressed, by the illness and the exertion of training.
This can even lead to being sick for longer, says Dr. Axel Preßler, senior physician at the Center for Preventive and Rehabilitative Sports Medicine at the Technical University of Munich:
“Both of these things cause stress hormones, such as cortisol , to be released. These, in turn, suppress the immune responses that the body needs to fight viruses or bacteria.”
In addition, for the sake of others, you should not go to the gym when you have a cold .
4. Muscle cramps
Some people may have experienced it before: You are sleeping soundly, but are woken up in the middle of the night by a cramping foot or another cramping part of your body.
These cramps can also occur when doing light exercise or climbing stairs, for example. This is uncomfortable and can be a sign of over-training.
Especially if these random muscle cramps occur more often, you may have put too much strain on your body.
5. Normally effortless exercises are difficult for you
You can usually do ten push-ups easily , but today you’re lying on the floor after four or five. Or you need significantly more time for your usual running distance, which isn’t really a problem otherwise — these can also be signs that you need to rest.
Therefore, even if you experience a sudden drop in performance, you should stop and take a break before you perform exercises improperly and exceed your own limits.
6. Inner compulsion to train
A day without training is no longer imaginable? Whether you’re injured or not, you’re drawn to the gym because you feel guilty otherwise? Do you cancel appointments because you “have to” exercise?
Not every regular workout indicates a so-called sports addiction ; physical exercise is right and important.
But as soon as training becomes a compulsion and you accept the risk of injuries or social tensions, it might be worth considering approaching training with a more relaxed mindset or perhaps even getting help.
More is not necessarily better. This is true in many areas of life, but certainly in sports.
Important note: The information in this article contains only general information. To clarify a health problem, we recommend that you visit a qualified and recognized doctor.
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