Are you someone who finds it hard to give yourself a break and have a rest day? While we here at Fitness in Abu Dhabi admire your dedication to your fitness, skipping your recovery day is doing more damage than you may think!
Have a rest day is just as important for your body as going to the gym and exercising. So, what exactly happens to your body when you exercise everyday with no rest days?
- Glycogen stores are depleted. Glycogen is where your body stores its energy and this is not something you want to deplete! Ultimately this can lead to your muscles fatiguing faster making your workouts less efficient and intense.
- Corticosteroids increase. Elevated levels of cortisone and cortisol, the stress hormones, are not good for weight loss and even ad to belly fat retention!
- Your heart goes into overdrive. Both resting heart rate and submaximal exercise heart rate are increased.
- Your performance suffers. When you do not have sufficient rest in your exercise program your ability to perform plateaus or declines. This is because your muscles literally do not have enough time to recover and regenerate.
- You’ll lose muscle mass. Think of the above point, your muscles are breaking down and do not have enough time to recover and regenerate so say goodbye to your hard-earned muscles. That’s the opposite of what you’re trying to do, right?
- You’ll feel AWFUL. The tiny tears in your muscles cannot heal, which results in inflammation, swelling, and tenderness. This will leave you feeling physically exhausted all of the time!
Do yourself a favour. Make sure you schedule rest days in to your programs to ensure your body and muscles have time to recover!
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