By Lauren Steele, Men's Journal
With the constant stream of workout
“motivation” mantras that preach “no days off” and “every damn day,”
it’s easy to guilt yourself into always going the extra mile. But when
you continuously push yourself, that extra mile stops being extra and
eventually becomes routine. That’s when injuries tend to happen.
[post_ads]Regardless of what T-shirts and Instagram posts tell you,
science says that rest days are important — and in more ways than one.
According to new research presented
at the American Physiological Society’s annual meeting, proper recovery
from workouts is good for your bone health and density.Scientists
from Brock University in Canada studied 15 elite female heavyweight
rowers during their pre-Olympic training sessions to discern what
combination of workout and rest was most beneficial to recovery.
The
researchers gathered blood samples from each of the athletes during
their most intense weeks of training and again during recovery weeks,
and what they found was what we already know — recovery is just as
important as high-volume training when it comes to maximizing your
workouts.
The Olympic rowers who participated in the study had
more inflammation and lower levels of the bone-building protein
osteoprotegerin (OPG) in their blood during high-volume training weeks
with no rest days when compared to recovery weeks that included days
off. Additionally, the athletes also had higher levels of sclerostin
(SOST) — a protein that hinders new bone formation — during the high
intensity weeks, proving that not only does training “every damn day”
keep your body from building new bone mass, but also prevents it from
repairing the bone mass you already have.
Documenting the
fluctuating levels in necessary rebuilding proteins proves that training
without adequate recovery leads to repetitive-use injuries (such as
stress fractures and arthritis) or bone loss, according to the study
authors from Brock. And it doesn’t matter if you’re refueling properly
with food if you aren’t taking a rest day here and there, your body
can’t recover without nutrition and time.
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“We are learning that
regardless of whether you eat well or not, the systemic inflammation of
intense training, unless you bring it down from time to time, creates an
issue for bone cells and all kinds of tissue,” says co-author Panagiota
Klentrou, professor and associate dean in the department of kinesiology
at Brock in a report from Time. “When you’re at peak training volume, you also have to incorporate time for the body to recover.”
It’s
all about finding the right balance, especially since regular exercise —
especially weight training and high-impact exercise — has been proven to actually promote good bone health.
So if giving your mind and your muscles isn’t a good enough reason for you to take a rest day once a week, do it for your bones.
