Nine Signs You Need a Rest Day

Of all the things you need to build muscle, get stronger, burn fat, or get fit, consistency is arguably the most important.

It doesn’t matter how carefully you plan your training or how balanced your diet is; if you don’t keep punching the clock and doing what needs to be done, your progress will be slow or even non-existent.

Ultimately, your body only responds to what you ask it to do. This is the fitness law of specificity. If you train hard and often, your body will adapt by getting fitter, stronger, and more muscular.

But, if you skip more workouts than you complete, your body has less reason to adapt and grow.

The bottom line is that consistency is often more important than finding the perfect workout or diet. Even the “wrong” program can produce great results if you do it often enough and with sufficient intensity.

That said, consistency can be a double-edged sword, and sometimes taking an unplanned day off may actually do you good. However, you need to be able to differentiate between feeling lazy and actually needing an extra rest day or two.  

We reveal the top nine signs that you need a rest day.

The Top Nine Signs You Need a Rest Day

While sticking to your training schedule is usually a good thing, there are several signs that suggest the last thing you need is another punishing workout.

Intense exercise takes a lot out of your body, and it needs time to repair, recover and adapt after your workouts. There is a fine line between training hard enough to maximize gains and working so hard that you cannot recover.

Plowing on despite needing more rest can lead to overtraining syndrome, which is a chronic condition that can take many weeks or even months to overcome.

However, taking an unplanned rest day can help you avoid the overtraining trap and keep your training and gaining for the foreseeable future.  

The following signs may indicate you need to skip training and take an extra rest day.

1. Reduced grip strength

It can be hard to know you are still tired from your last workout before you start your next one. After all, it’s only when you start training that you realize you aren’t feeling as strong or energetic as you should.

While you could abort your workout and go home, most people will push on regardless, making the problem worse.

Testing your grip strength before a workout could save you an unnecessary trip to the gym. Your grip force is an excellent indicator of the condition of the rest of your body.

You can test your grip strength with a cheap, readily available hand grip dynamometer. Take readings every day for a week to establish your average grip strength. Then, if you notice your score is more than ten percent lower than average, this suggests an extra day off will probably do you good.

2. Increased resting heart rate

Fit, healthy individuals usually have a lower resting heart rate (RHR) than their non-exercising compatriots. It’s not uncommon for well-conditioned people to have an RHR of 60, 50, or even 40 beats per minute (BPM), compared to the population average of 72 BPM.  

However, if your RHR is 5-10 beats or ten percent higher than usual, it could indicate you are overtired and should take a rest day. A higher-than-usual RHR can also be an indicator that your body is fighting off the early stages of an illness, e.g., a cold.

Either way, if your RHR is higher than usual, take it as a sign that you may need an extra rest day.

The best time to take your resting heart rate is shortly after you wake up but before you get out of bed. Alternatively, you can use your smartwatch or fitness tracker to show trends in resting heart rate variance.

Related: Calculate Your Target Heart Rate

3. Even your warm-up feels hard

Warming up helps prepare your muscles and joints for what you are about to do. It may also lower your risk of injury. However, another lesser-known warm-up function is it allows you to assess your current condition and decide whether you are okay to train.

Typically, before doing their first heavy set, most lifters ramp up the weight over several warm-up sets, e.g.:

1. 20kg/45lbs x 10 (empty bar)
2. 40kg/90lbs x 8
3. 60kg/135lbs x 6
4. 80kg/175lbs x 3
5. 100kg/220lbs x 5 (first heavy work set)

Warming up in this fashion helps fire up your nervous system so that the first heavy set is less of a shock. While it probably won’t feel light, your first work set should feel manageable.

However, if even your warm-up sets feel heavy, you should take this as a sign that you are tired and probably need a rest day. Pushing yourself through your workout will only increase your fatigue and could even lead to injury.

4. Familiar exercises or skills feel awkward

Fatigue doesn’t only affect your muscles; it also affects your central nervous system, or CNS for short. Your CNS comprises your brain and spinal cord and controls your peripheral nervous system (PNS), which in turn controls your muscles.

CNS fatigue will not only lower your potential for force production, making you weaker, but will also affect neurological fitness components such as balance and coordination.

So, if familiar movements feel awkward or more challenging than usual, e.g., standing on one leg, it’s a good indicator you need more rest and not a workout.

5. You are dreading your next workout

We all have days when we’d rather drink coffee and watch TV than sweat it out in the gym. But, once you’re actually there, you’ll be glad you went and feel terrific afterward. Giving in to your impulse to skip training would be an act of laziness.

However, if you are physically dreading your workout, you are probably suffering from fatigue and need a rest day. Not wanting to work out is a strong indicator that you are tired, and pushing yourself to train will potentially do more harm than good.

That said, you must be able to differentiate between laziness and really needing a rest day. Laziness is almost entirely psychological, whereas needing a rest day is more physical. 

6. You’re craving high-energy foods

Your body is incredibly intuitive and is constantly sending you signals about what’s going on inside. Thirst tells you that you could be dehydrated and need more water while yawning lets you know you could probably do with a nap!

Uncharacteristic cravings for high-energy foods could be an indicator that your body is feeling low on energy and is after a fast-acting boost. However, simply eating something sugary probably won’t be enough to offset fatigue, so you should skip the candy bar and have an extra rest day instead.

7. You are sleepier than normal

Most adults need between 7-9 hours of sleep per night. This should leave you feeling refreshed, energized, and ready to face the day, including your workouts. However, despite sleeping well, if you wake up feeling tired or find yourself craving a nap, it could suggest that you need a day off more than you need a workout.

Disrupted sleep is also a common symptom of overtraining, so if you’re tired but still unable to sleep, you definitely need to back-off your workouts.

8. Your joints are achy

Muscle soreness is NOT a good indicator of fatigue. Muscles can feel sore just because you’ve done a new exercise or used an unfamiliar training method. Most lifters experience muscle soreness on a regular basis, and while it’s not an indicator of a successful workout, nor does it mean you’ve overdone it and need extra rest.

In contrast, achy joints are a better indicator that you need some extra rest. We’re talking non-specific joint pain here and not the pain you get from injury.

Non-specific joint pain is often caused by systemic inflammation and made worse by fatigue. So, if your knees, hips, lower back, shoulders, or elbows are uncharacteristically achy or stiff, you will probably benefit from an unplanned day off.

9. You feel unwell

Training while ill may win you a bravery medal from the gym bros, but it’s often a sign you need to take a day off.

When you are unwell, your body must divert vital resources to your immune system to help you get better. But, if you also exercise, those resources will be more thinly spread, and you could end up being ill for longer.

Also, training while sick means your body will have less energy for recovery and repair, making your workout less productive.

This makes training when you’re sick a lose-lose scenario.

In most cases, it’s better to rest when you feel unwell so you recover faster and avoid unproductive workouts. Return to the gym when you feel better, and your body can cope with the demands of your training.

Related: The Hierarchy of Successful Hypertrophy Training

How to Avoid Needing Unplanned Rest Days

Unplanned and extra rest days are sometimes unavoidable. We all have days where, for inexplicable reasons, our energy levels are low, and a workout will only make things worse. Taking a day off is sometimes the smart thing to do!

However, if you often feel the need to skip training, something in your workout schedule, diet, or lifestyle is probably out of whack. Fixing any problems could mean needing fewer unplanned rest days, making your training more productive in the process.

Reduce your need to take extra rest days with the following tips and strategies:

1. Include planned rest days in your program

You can’t expect to work out every day and not become fatigued. And yet, many people can be found in the gym seven days a week. Training every day is NOT a sign of commitment or toughness. Instead, it’s an indicator that you don’t understand how exercise affects your body, and how it needs to rest and recover to adapt.

Avoid this problem by programming rest days into your schedule. Two or three rest days per week should suffice.

You don’t have to be sedentary on your rest days; light physical movement, e.g., easy walking or stretching, can be very restorative. However, you should avoid doing tiring activities.

2. Periodize your training

The best workouts build up to a performance/volume/intensity peak and then ease off for a while before building back up again. This is called periodization. In contrast, many exercisers train with 100% intensity all the time and then wonder why they burn out!

Plan your workouts in blocks, called macrocycles in periodization. Each block builds on the one that preceded it. Then, after a few weeks of very intense training, enjoy a brief deload (detailed below) and then ramp up again.

This three-steps-forward-one-step-back approach to training can help ward off overtraining and minimize the need for unplanned days off.

3. Deload from time to time

Deloads are planned periods of low-intensity or low-duration training. They typically follow a training peak, where intensity and volume were very high.

A deload allows you to rest and recover while maintaining your current fitness and strength. In fact, you may even see improvements in performance during a deload as any residual fatigue disappears.

Structured strength training programs often include deloads, such as one easy week in four. The main concept behind deloading is to take time off voluntarily before you are forced to. In almost every case, regular short deloads are better than training without a break and being forced to take a long time off because of overtraining or overuse injuries.

4. Make sleep a priority

While recovery starts the moment your workout finishes, things really speed up when you are asleep. With nothing much else to do, your body can put more energy into tissue repair and muscle growth while you’re pushing out the zzzs.

While you can survive on less than 7-9 hours of sleep per night, chronic under sleeping can significantly impact your energy and motivation for exercise.

Getting the optimal amount of sleep means your mental and physical batteries will always be fully charged. Prioritize getting enough sleep, and you won’t need to take so many unplanned rest days.

Related: 10 Best Natural Aids for Better Sleep

5. Consume more nutritious food

Food contains energy, which is measured in calories. However, your body needs more than calories to function at its best; it also needs vitamins, minerals, and a host of other nutrients that are only present in clean, natural foods, such as fruits, vegetables, and whole grains.

Many lifters like the If It Fits Your Macros (IIFYM) or flexible diet, which means they can eat almost anything provided it helps them hit their calorie, protein, carbs, and fat targets for the day.

However, eating a lot of junk food means your diet will be nutritionally poor, which can affect energy and your ability to recover between workouts.

Reduce your need for extra days off by building your meals and snacks around nutritious whole foods. You can still enjoy nutritionally-poor treats from time to time, but consuming more healthy foods will, in turn, make you healthier. After all, you are what you eat!

6. Understand the impact of psychological stress on your energy levels

It’s not only physical exercise that can drain your energy levels – psychological stress does, too. Arguments with your boss, an unpleasant working environment, financial worries, and familial conflicts can all leave you feeling frazzled.

Piling a long or intense workout onto all this stress can make things worse, driving you ever closer to needing to take unplanned days off training.

If you feel emotionally burnt out, dial back on your workouts to give yourself more chance to recover. Exercise IS an excellent stress buster, but too much can make matters worse.

Respect the effect of psychological stress on your energy levels and make allowances in your workouts.

FAQs

Do you have a question about rest days or recovery in general? That’s okay because we’ve got the answers!

1. If I’m tired, can’t I just take a pre-workout or an espresso to rev myself up for training?

Caffeine and the energizing ingredients in pre-workouts do a great job of increasing your short-term energy and focus. However, they don’t address the cause of fatigue, which is usually too much training and too little recovery. In fact, they can make things worse by allowing you to train when you should probably be resting, thus deepening your “energy debt.”

The occasional use of caffeine and pre-workouts is seldom harmful. But, if you use them to power you through a workout when your body is telling you to take a day off, they could cause more harm than good. In many cases, a rest day will do more for your progress than a workout.

2. How can I tell if I really need a day off or if I’m being lazy?

Just because you don’t feel like training doesn’t mean you should take a rest day. Taking time off when you really should be in the gym is a sign of laziness.

If you feel you need a day off, don’t just rely on your emotions. Instead, consider things that you can see or measure.

For example, biomarkers like your resting heart rate and grip strength provide quantifiable indicators that you may benefit from a rest day. They are directly influenced by your condition and level of fatigue. Or, you could start your workout and see how you feel. Poor performance early on is a good indicator that you should take it easy or take the day off.

We all have days when we don’t feel like training, but, in some cases, this has nothing to do with our physical state and is purely mental. In these cases, you’ll probably feel better after a workout.

3. What can I do at the gym if I’m having an off day?

One of the downsides of using your warm-up or workout to determine if you need a rest day is they involve going to the gym and training! So, what should you do if you realize that you’re having an off day?

Here are a few ideas:

• Stretch instead of lift.
• Do some easy (zone two) cardio.
• Use less weight, and do fewer sets and reps.
• Learn some new exercises.
• Have a sauna or steam bath.
• Go for an easy swim.
• Pack up and go home!

4. Can you cure overtraining with more food and sleep?

While sleep and good nutrition can go a long way to preventing overtraining, it is still possible to outpace your ability to recover and end up plateauing or regressing.

Advancing age, training too hard and too often, emotional stress, activities outside of the gym, your job, and numerous other factors can make it harder to fully recover from exercise, even if you sleep and eat well.

Sleep and food will go a long way toward preventing overtraining, but they are just two factors you need to consider.

5. What’s the best way to measure my resting heart rate?

There are several ways to measure your resting heart rate or RHR. Arguably the easiest is to use a smartwatch with an infrared sensor. Next easiest would be to use a chest strap heart rate monitor. Both of these give you a live heart rate reading.

However, if you don’t have access to these tools, you can just take your pulse.

There are several pulse sites throughout the body, but two of the most accessible are the radial pulse on the outside/underside of your wrist, just below your thumb, and your carotid pulse on the side of your neck, just below your jaw.

Place your first two fingers on either of these points and press gently. Then, when you can feel your pulse, count the number of beats in 60 seconds. Relax and breathe normally to get the most accurate reading.

Compare your result to your average RHR. If it is 5-10 beats or 10% higher than your usual resting heart rate, you may benefit from a rest day.

Closing Thoughts

Needing an unplanned rest day is not a sign of laziness. In fact, you might need an extra rest day because you’ve been very un-lazy lately and have trained harder or longer than usual. Training through fatigue invariably makes matters worse and could even lead to overtraining. In many cases, you can nip problems in the bud by taking an unscheduled rest day.

However, this doesn’t give you a license to take days off whenever you want. Missing more workouts than you complete will severely hamper your progress. Remember, the most important factor for training success is and always will be consistency. Consistency IS king!

That said, sometimes, the best way to win a war is by retreating and regrouping so you can come back stronger. Use the information in this article to determine if you really need a rest day or if you are just being lazy.