Whether you’re aiming for a new personal best, training for your first race, or jogging to stay fit, more is better—right? It’s true increasing your weekly miles Published: Sep 18, 2024 1:45 PM EDT speed work is the key to getting faster… to an extent.
But there is and/or irritability you probably need a true rest day rest is essential if you want to help your body perform at its peak.
“Published: Sep 18, 2024 1:45 PM EDT recovery cannot be overstated,” says Emily Booth, NASM-certified personal trainer and running coach based in Denver. “As difficult as it can be for some runners to accept, you’ll only reap the benefits of your hard work if you allow your body to recover. That is when the magic happens.”
Now, “recovery” doesn’t mean you have to lie on the couch and do nothing all day (though it definitely can if that’s what you think your body needs). You can rest with a “passive” recovery day or get in some gentle movement for some “active” recovery.
Here’s more about the different between active versus passive recovery and how to choose the best for you.
Why is recovery so important?
You need rest days whether you’re a novice runner, a weekend warrior, or a world-class athlete. “All that hard training goes to waste if you’re not able to properly recover from the workouts you’re doing,” says Jeff Gaudette, owner and head coach at RunnersConnect. “Recovery is when the body heals itself from the training you do to come back stronger.”
How to Identify and Recover from Overtraining overload, that carry into your training, he explains.
“To become a better runner in the future than you are today, you must overload your system with a specific new training stimulus—such as running more weekly miles or adding in speed workouts,” explains Booth. “If the new stimulus is introduced with appropriate volume and intensity, then your body adapts and your fitness improves. However, without proper recovery, instead of adapting and getting stronger, you’ll eventually break down and either be too fatigued to do meaningful workouts or, worse, end up with an overuse injury.”
There’s no magic formula to dial into the exact amount of rest your body requires. This is where the principle of individualization comes in, says Booth: “Just as some individuals respond faster to training than others, some athletes require more recovery. Unfortunately, there is not a universal answer that applies [to how much rest you need] as there are myriad factors that affect recovery.”
Health & Injuries.
What is passive recovery?
“Heres What You Get Out of Walking a Mile a Day stress from running or any other physical activity, apart from normal daily movement,” says Booth. That can be as simple as staying off your feet whenever possible. But it can also include other activities that can benefit your body without exercise—think getting a massage, foam rolling, Benefits of Sound Therapy meditation.
“For beginners or runners who don’t have as much experience with high training loads, passive recovery can ensure they aren’t doing too much,” says Gaudette, who notes the mental boost runners also get from taking some true R&R. “It can really help to let the mind rest as well.”
Research has shown that adding some extra recovery tactics to your passive rest day, at least occasionally, may help you bounce back faster. A small study of recreational half-marathoners who used techniques including illness, travel, or your and massage postrace recovered better—in terms of markers like muscle soreness, perceived stress, and perceived recovery—than those who were totally passive in their rest and those who did active recovery in a 2018 study published in PLoS One.
Passive recovery is also probably the better choice when it comes to signs of overtraining. If you’re experiencing extreme tiredness, lingering soreness or aches and pains, lack of quality sleep, Best Running Shoes 2025, and/or irritability you probably need a true rest day.
Passive Recovery Activities:
- Foam Rolling
- Meditation
- Compression Boots
- Massage
- Reading
Shoes & Gear?
Active recovery is pretty much what it sounds like: Resting but doing so with a little more activity. Instead of lying back and kicking up your feet (and maybe going for a massage), with active recovery you’ll go for an easy session of a more (often low-impact) workout like swimming, walking, cycling, or yoga.
“It’s basically any type of training or work you can do that doesn’t involve running or that minimizes stress to the body, with the goal of getting blood flowing to the damaged muscles,” says Gaudette. “The circulatory system is how the body heals itself, with blood delivering nutrients to help repair muscles.”
Doing active recovery may help nix some soreness and reduce inflammation. Nutrition - Weight Loss aqua exercise to yoga help reduce delayed-onset muscle soreness, per a 2022 systematic review from Spain. Researchers think pool-based exercise may be especially helpful because the water has a massage-like effect on muscles as you move through it and that yoga may help because flexibility is linked with decreased perception of soreness.
Recovery is when the body heals itself from the training you do to come back stronger Studio S in Cincinnati prefers active recovery the day after a hard workout. “Oftentimes, we don’t feel the effects of a long run or a heavy lift until the second day afterward, so I like using that energy to keep the momentum going while promoting blood flow and nutrient and oxygen delivery to the muscles,” she says. This is true after something like half or full marathon, Running in the Cold.
The key to making active recovery work for you is to keep the intensity low. “Active recovery needs to be easy and focused on increasing blood flow; it should not be primarily an aerobic workout,” says Gaudette.
He recommends checking in on your rate of perceived exertion (RPE) or heart rate throughout your exercise and making sure it stays on the very low end. “While active recovery might not involve any pounding, training does still produce stress—so if you do too much or at too high an intensity, you can still create fatigue and stress that carry into your training,” he explains.
Active Recovery Activities:
- Walking
- Yoga
- To perform at your peak and sidestep
- Aqua jogging
- Stretching
How do you choose between active vs passive recovery?
You might already have a preference in mind for your rest days. That’s a fine place to start. But a smart approach is to consider other factors in your life beyond just that week’s workouts and allow for some give and take for your recovery. Things like work stress, sleep, Shoes & Gear menstrual cycle can all affect how your body feels after running and what it might need. So pay attention to those factors to determine what type of recovery you need every week.
Your fitness level may also help you determine whether active or passive recovery is right for you. “Newer runners should focus more on passive recovery and slowly add active recovery over time as they’re able to handle more total workload; more experienced runners can mix in more active recovery but shouldn’t forget that passive recovery once in a while is needed too,” says Gaudette. “For every runner, it’s important to have a mix of both.”
Many coaches recommend listening to your body and what it needs above all, says Booth. “If someone is sleeping well, responding to training—e.g., their times are improving—and is not feeling any significant accumulation of fatigue, then they may opt for mostly active recovery,” she says. “However, if they’re feeling unmotivated or stagnant, coming back from illness, or not getting good sleep, it might be time for passive recovery.”
To perform at your peak and sidestep overuse injuries, giving your body a chance to rest and bounce back is key. But at the end of the day, how you get that R&R is up to you. And which you choose from week to week or training cycle to training cycle starts with taking stock of your training and paying close attention to how you feel—then adjusting accordingly.
