For as long as I can remember, I’ve taught that one ought to take a full rest week for every eight to twelve weeks of hard training.
A couple to a few weeks either side of that can be fine for certain individuals under certain circumstances, but eight to twelve weeks is what produces best results not only in terms of performance and aesthetics but also injury mitigation and continued enthusiasm for training, in my experience.
That said…
It’s also my experience that most misunderstand what a “rest week” actually is.
The confusion is so severe and carries such potentially disastrous consequences (more on those in a sec), I’m moving away from using the term “rest week” altogether.
Instead, I am now increasingly calling them “active recovery” weeks.
Here’s why:
All too often, people take a rest week as a licence to return to the “before times” (i.e. how they lived before they started training).
This typically means lots of sitting around not doing very much, eating plenty of food they know they shouldn’t be eating too much of, staying up late, taking long lie-ins, and so on, and so on.
Obviously you’ve really got to go some to do real, lasting damage in the span of a week, so the poor choices aren’t really a concern in and of themselves. It’s what happens when you return to normal that you should be worried about.
Specifically how hard it is to go from zero (or close to it) back to your usual routine and the obscenely high risk of:
* At best, having a few woefully unproductive weeks wherein you miss sessions, merely go through the motions, etc. And,
* At worst, tearing a muscle or mulching a joint (areas like the lower back, hips, hamstrings, and shoulders that stiffen up through lack of activity are especially vulnerable), torpedoing your ability to progress for many months and, potentially, permanently terminating your ability to train productively.
Much better to take an “active recovery” week where you continue training, albeit at much lower volume, intensity, and probably frequency as well to keep your head in the game, your muscles loose, and your joints mobile.
As of this writing, I’m most of the way through an active recovery week of my own which looks thusly:
M: 1.5 mile run
T: 1 hour stationary bike
W: Off
T: Bodyweight session (my usual work minus the weighted vest)
F: Weighted vest walk
S: Off
S: Light weightlifting (not sure exactly what I will do yet)
Anyway.
Due to the demands of Operation: Winnow (my system for those who need a way to get their weight back under control after it has crept up), active recovery weeks are mandatory.
So if you still yearn for how life was before you started training, it is categorically not for you for no other reason than you’ll likely wind up hurting yourself.
For everyone else though?
Do the following:
1) Listen to the audio at the below URL (contains valuable teachings),
2) Read the letter beneath it carefully (i.e. make an informed purchase),
3) Email me per the instructions at the bottom of the letter to join.
https://philtyreman.co.uk/winnow/
Thank you,
Phil Tyreman