I was talking to a buddy of mine yesterday whose kid has been working with us.  He had hoped to refer us a couple of his friends who had kids who needed to run faster, but both were doing some type of winter sport that was posing a conflict.  They just didn’t have enough time.  Practicing every day and on days when they weren’t practicing they were playing games.  I would probably have to agree with their parents that if they were doing our speed program, they probably wouldn’t get faster because they were burning the candle at both ends and not allowing the body to rest.

This got me thinking, how much rest should one take in order to allow his/her body to feel rejuvenated, fresh, and get them running faster?  Take me for example.  For the last 10 years, I’ve been planning strategic rest periods into my program to not burn me out and keep my body as fresh as possible.  My first rest period is usually when my family and I go on spring break and that is in the spring time, duh.  My second break is in August, when I take my fishing week off.  My third break is the last two weeks of the year that center around Christmas and New Years.  Usually, I will stop lifting, but go in to do some cardio and stretch.

I can already read your mind.  Yes, I just started back with my workout routine.  I always take the holidays off, since it is a busy time with family and friends.  And the answer to your second question if you are a client of mine, no I don’t ask you to take a week off from your training program.  Why?  Because you already have enough breaks as is between your vacations, final exams, this sports camp, etc., you get more than adequate rest time to rejuvenate your body.

So how will resting your body help you get faster?

First, you can’t workout and exercise 24/7.  Your body needs to have some unwinding time, to decondition from all the activity it has done.  Then once that happens after a week or two, you can start your next physical activity.  Otherwise, your body could start breaking down from overuse.

The second reason resting will help is to allow your body to heal.  You might have little aches and pains that could use a little rest and relaxation.  Allow your body to stop feeling the impact of plyometrics or lifting of heavy weights.  If you develop a pain and are constantly bothering it with your speed or strength program and not allowing it to heal, how will it get better.  You will run much faster by allowing it to heal and then you can run pain free thus improving your speed.

When should you implement this rest period?

The rest periods are implemented in what us strength professionals will call a transition period.  The most obvious example is at the end of a season.  Football just ended and we pick up a decent amount of football players to get faster in the winter time.  What I always recommend is give them a week or two to do nothing, relax, and let their body heal.  Once that has happened, then we can start to implement a speed training program and build them up when their body is now fresh.

What if you don’t play a sport?  Usually, I implement a rest break anywhere between 3 and 4 months of training.  This isn’t a hard rule, but around that time take a week off from lifting.  Then start at it again.  You will feel great when you start all over.  Yes, you will be sore for a few days, but at least you know that your body has deconditioned and ready to begin your next training which will hopefully be a little different than what you did last time.

There you have it.  The reason rest will make you faster is it will rejuvenate your body with its healing powers and alleviate the aches and pains that you have continued to work through.  Once those are healed and freeing the body from any limitations it may have caused then you might be able to run faster.  For most athletes, January probably isn’t the time to rest.  If you are a winter sports athlete, you are playing in the middle of your season.  If you are not a winter sports athlete, then you should have already taken your rest and either be in the middle or just started your training program.  Plan those rests into your training program when your season ends or right before your season begins (maybe shorten it to 3 or 4 days) and I guarantee your body will respond that much more when you start back up again.