Instead of harming your running, rest days are critical in giving your body a chance to heel after a difficult few days of training. Runners who try to “tough it out” face an increased risk of injury.

A recent study looked at this very issue. The study analyzed the training and injury prevalence of over 500 athletes (including runners) during a twelve month period. The results of the study were interesting.

Athletes with less than 2 rest days per week during the training season had 5.2-fold risk for an overuse injury, and athletes who trained more than 700 hours during a year had 2.1-fold risk for an overuse injury compared to the others.

It is pretty remarkable that refusing to take a rest day can increase your injury risk by five times. But of course, too many rest days will shortchange your training. Therefore, the goal is to find a happy medium between taking rest and training hard.

The general rule of thumb for serious runners is to take one rest day per week, or at the least, one rest day every two weeks. The key exception to this rule is to take more rest days if you are feeling lingering soreness or tiredness.

Listen closely to your body – it usually tells you all you need to know about rest. In my experience, those who listen to their bodies, and take a rest day even when they don’t want to, are more courageous than those who try to tough it out and ignore their body’s signals.

[Europepmc.org]

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