#Rest day benefits full#

That will improve performance on the trails due to the importance of sex hormones for adaptation and health. Rest days could improve sex-hormone balance over time, particularly when combined with adequate fueling. Our brains might be like “I consider myself a voracious sexual beast.” And the chemicals in our nervous system might be like “Umm … I regret to inform you … but no.” This point gets back to that brain-body offset. A 2019 article in the International Journal of Sport Nutrition and Exercise Metabolism reviewed the literature on low energy availability from training, finding that it could suppress sex hormones in female athletes. A 2018 Letter to the Editor in the journal Hormones found that men who trained seven hours or more a week had an approximate 30-percent reduction in testosterone levels after five years of training, after which testosterone leveled off. A 2017 article in the Medicine & Science in Sport & Exercise journal found men with higher levels of chronic intense exercise and greater durations of endurance exercise had lower libido. Here’s something that won’t be on a running magazine masthead: hard training can hurt your sexual drive and performance. With that extra energy, the body can adapt to the work that was done. Rest days give athletes plenty of time to fill up the tank. Glycogen burns rapidly but refills at a drip, so constant training makes any slip-ups in fueling (even just for a few hours) prohibitively risky. That can reduce or reverse subsequent adaptations.Īvoiding low energy availability is absolutely essential for long-term growth. And while training in a glycogen depleted state may enhance some adaptations (see this article in the Nutrition & Metabolism journal), doing it chronically increases stress (see this article in the Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise journal). As glycogen levels go down, there is some evidence that top-end performance decreases even before the tank is fully depleted. The physiology is complex and debated, but here is a basic summary of eight points to think about: Glycogen RepletionĬonsistent training puts the body under relatively constant strain to refill depleted glycogen stores. Rest days are by far the most important days of the week. Rest days are about shooting your shot and going all in on your potential. Rest days are not about being cautious and playing it safe.

This article is about reframing rest days for that pesky brain that considers empty spaces lost opportunities.

#Rest day benefits full#

Full rest is often essential for strength, speed, endurance and almost everything else that goes into athletic performance. But what I have seen in athletes is that rest days are by far the most important days of the week. That is time to be working! The competition is getting stronger while I’m sitting on my ass! Why are you treating me like an injury-prone baby?! So it makes sense that motivated athletes hate rest days. Even when the brain feels ready to go, the body is working on a different timeline. Meanwhile, the physical stress of the workout has an exponentially longer tail. That workout is ancient history in the prefrontal cortex. It varies, but among some athletes, their brains would be ready again in 30 minutes or less. How long do you think it takes for them to be mentally ready to go again? As they take off their shoes, they are exhausted. A motivated athlete finishes a workout, let’s say 10 x 3 minutes fast with 2 minutes easy recovery in the context of a 12-mile trail run.

And all too often, that can lead to stagnation, regression and injury from overdoing it. Workouts? Like that rap song, the brain can work hard every day-ay-ay-ayyyy. Distance? The brain can run 100 miles a week without a problem.

That gap is a major problem for motivated athletes. Outside of our brains, the processes of stress, recovery and adaptation are playing by much less lofty rules. Grey matter often seems to act like a sponge, but when it should be saturated and can’t absorb another drop, you just get more sponges to play with.īones and gristle don’t work that way. Our brains can expand to encompass the universe. For athletes, a lot of that difficulty lies in how our brains and bodies develop in different ways. Heading out the door? Read this article on the new Outside+ app available now on iOS devices for members!