5 BAD Things Will Happen When You Skip Rest Days
We all love working out, but too much of anything is never good for you. Rest days – when you avoid the gym and any heavy exercise – are essential to take, even when you think you have enough in you to carry on. You shouldn’t skip rest days!
Missing your rest days can be incredibly damaging to your progress, and could even result in physical and psychological damage.
Want to know more? Then read on to find out what can happen when you miss your recovery day – and make sure you stick to a sensible schedule from now on.
What Happens If You Skip Rest Days?
You should never skip rest days. But if you do, here’s what might happen:
1. Poor Quality Sleep
Train well, and your sleeping patterns will improve. Overtrain, however, and it can have the opposite effect.
When you are working too hard, your body becomes overstressed, which means you will struggle to fall asleep. And even if you do manage it, you may struggle to find the deep REM sleep you need to repair and grow your muscles, which leaves you open to poor performance and injury. Speaking of which…
2. More Likelihood Of Injury
As we explained in the previous point, tired minds and bodies tend to be more open to injury.
When you overuse your muscles, ligaments, and tendons all the time, you will suffer from a constant state of inflammation, lack strength, and mobility. The result is that you will increase the likelihood of causing damage.
3. Depression And Self-criticism
When you get a tremendous buzz from working out, you can miss it on rest days. But the trouble is, your low mood could turn into depression or self-critical thinking if you do a workout, and start overtraining.
And once those depressive thoughts start to appear, they will start affecting your energy levels and performance. And before you know it, you will be back to square one.
You can combat the feelings of missing out on workouts in a few different ways. Try stretching out your tired muscles, use a foam roller, or have a massage. A light walk or yoga is also a good idea – you can still be active without a workout or a visit to the gym.
4. Less Efficient Immune System
People that overtrain often complain that they can’t shake illnesses such as colds, coughs, and the flu. And it’s no surprise. Your muscles need time to recover from workouts and hardcore exercise – and so does your immune system.
In fact, your immune and central nervous systems take even longer to recover than your muscles, which are relatively quick to repair themselves.
Eating the right food and taking supplements can help, of course, but ultimately you need that rest day to allow your body to work its magic naturally.
5. Lose Motivation
Finally, if you overwork your body, you will end up not being able to perform your exercise routines. Eventually, your workouts will lack impact, and you will find yourself losing motivation because you just aren’t making progress.
If you want to get super fit, super healthy, and be in the best shape of your life, you don’t have to skip rest days – it’s as simple as that.
