{"id":679,"date":"2022-07-15T14:30:00","date_gmt":"2022-07-15T14:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ecrunproject.com\/blog\/?p=679"},"modified":"2022-06-30T19:30:43","modified_gmt":"2022-06-30T19:30:43","slug":"5-reasons-to-love-rest-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ecrunproject.com\/blog\/5-reasons-to-love-rest-day\/","title":{"rendered":"5 Reasons to Love Rest Day"},"content":{"rendered":"

Running is hard.\u00a0 Regular training can leave it beat up.\u00a0 It’s called progressive overload and it’s the process of constantly challenging our bodies in new ways to perform better on race day.\u00a0 To reap the benefits of that hard work, however, we need to recover.\u00a0 That’s where the ever needed rest day comes in.\u00a0 Included in any quality training plan<\/a>, here are five reasons to give yourself a day off.<\/p>\n

Reflect<\/strong>.\u00a0 Taking a rest day gives you an opportunity to review your block of training.\u00a0 You can \"restdecide if you liked something, didn’t like it, did it well or had an ugly workout.\u00a0 Knowing what made each session great or not-so-great will help you adjust your plan.\u00a0 Then you can adjust and move forward in a positive way.<\/p>\n

Recover<\/strong>.\u00a0 Pushing yourself during workouts is necessary for improved performance.\u00a0 Easy days are a must<\/a>, too.\u00a0 Each workout creates micro tears in muscle fibers that need to be repaired and along with those beat up muscles go tendons and bones.\u00a0 Blood flow to tendons is a lot less than to muscle and they take longer to recover.\u00a0 Bones likewise get damaged and need to rebuild from being landed on thousands of times.\u00a0 A day off can be a big boon for avoiding tendonitis, stress fractures and any other over use injury.<\/p>\n

Balance<\/strong>.\u00a0 Every workout produces a stress hormone called cortisol.\u00a0 Too much is a bad thing.\u00a0 Rest days, or even just a nap, can help get cortisol levels back in balance so you feel fresh for the next session.<\/p>\n

Adaptation<\/strong>.\u00a0 Not only does a rest day let your muscles repair damage, it repairs them better than they were before.\u00a0 Allowing your body to heal is when it builds those more powerful muscles, stronger bones and tougher tendons.<\/p>\n

Learning to listen<\/strong>.\u00a0 Do you feel good after your rest day?\u00a0 Experience a boost in performance?\u00a0 Great!\u00a0 You nailed it.\u00a0 On the other hand, if you still feel tired or unreasonably sore after one rest day, take another. Listen to your body.\u00a0 An extra rest day will never derail your entire training cycle.\u00a0 It’s better to be 10% under trained than 1% over trained.<\/p>\n

Train smarter, not harder.<\/p>\n

Coach Meredith<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Running is hard.\u00a0 Regular training can leave it beat up.\u00a0 It’s called progressive overload and it’s the process of constantly challenging our bodies in new ways to perform better on race day.\u00a0 To reap the benefits of that hard work, however, we need to recover.\u00a0 That’s where the ever needed rest day comes in.\u00a0 Included […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"\n5 Reasons to Love Rest Day - East Coast Run Project<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Training for a race is hard work. 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