The importance of active recovery

Exercising is a very strenuous process that often times leads people to enjoy their time off by lounging around in their houses and completely relaxing. While it's true that you need time off to repair your muscles and recover from intense exercise, I'm here to tell you that complete relaxation is not what you should be doing on (some of) your rest days.

Active Recovery workouts involve low intensity exercises on days following intense workouts. This is opposed to a passive rest day where you do the aforementioned lounging around and remain sedentary for the most part. Active Recovery exercises can include anything from walking, swimming or even playing a sport in a low intensity manner. I personally enjoy putting up a few shots on the basketball court or playing a match or two of low intensity badminton.

These low intensity workouts can aid the body's natural processes, in turn accelerating recovery from strenuous exercise. This is because these workouts increase blood flow to the muscles, reducing muscle soreness and promoting faster recovery. Intense exercise usually also leads to the build up of lactic acid in the muscles but Active Recovery increases circulation, facilitating the removal of lactic acid and other waste products. These lower intensity exercises between more intense ones also ensure the joints stay active and mobile which can help reduce the risk of injury in future workouts. It also provides a break mentally from the challenging high intensity workouts.

Not every rest day needs to be an active one but I hope I've shown how helpful they can be. They only have to be 20-30 minutes long and 1-2 active recovery days per week will already show a massive difference in the quality of rest your body gets.