When to Take a Day Off From Working Out

One of the most asked questions I get is when to take time off from training. People either want to know when to schedule off days or when to take an extended break from all those grueling workouts. It’s a great question. We all can get a little too obsessed with training believing that we should never stop if we want real results. I for one have abused my love for training by refusing to take days off and running my recovery (or lack of it) into the ground.

So a few years ago I forced rest days into my programs. My rule of thumb goes like this: I workout every day of the week except Thursdays and Sundays. No matter what program I’m on, those days are scheduled off days. When it comes to flexibility, that’s built-in too. I can move my midweek rest day around wherever it needs to go due to family or work obligations. The weekend rest day works the same way.

Life will inevitably throw you off so it’s good to have some breathing room in your program.

How rest days fit into a program

Again, this can be individualized, but I’ll tell you what I do and what’s worked for me all these years through a lot of trials and a ton of errors.

My overall view is to take a day off after I’ve completed one entire rotation of my program. Normally, I do a three-day split, so I’ll go three days before a day off.

Two weeks may look like this:

Monday: Chest/back
Tuesday: Shoulders/arms
Wednesday: Legs
Thursday: Rest
Friday: Chest/back
Saturday: Shoulders/arms
Sunday: Rest
Monday: Legs
Tuesday: Chest/back
Wednesday: Shoulders/arms
Thursday: Rest
Friday: Legs
Saturday: Chest/back
Sunday: Rest

Everything gets trained just under twice per week. I used to be extremely strict about training the entire body twice per week (six days in a row) but I found my schedule is sometimes unpredictable (family/work) and over time I would need an extra day to recover for whatever reason. By installing some required rest days which are easily adjusted weekly I quickly eliminated the frustration of adhering to such a strict schedule with no wiggle room.

What are extended breaks?

I categorize extended breaks separately. Extended breaks aren’t built-in, they are more intermittent and circumstantial. They include any time taken outside of your scheduled rest days. They can be several days to several weeks away from your regularly scheduled training.

With that said, the main idea here is: Do not schedule your extended rest days.

Why? Because life will provide them for you. For example, you get sick, your job requires a few days of extended time, you travel without the use of a gym, and your children require extra attention for school events or anything else that comes up. Allow life to determine extended breaks. And trust me, it will.

If not, things can get a little out of hand. For example, if you decide to take a week away from the gym out of the blue, more than likely (and usually my luck) something will come up after the week is over that will force you to extend that break. After your week off you’ll be so ready to hit the weights again then you get sick or something comes out of left field and throws a wrench in your plan. You end up taking even more time off.

Something will come up, it always will.

When to take days off from working out

So, how do you know when to take a day off? You can follow my rule above (two days scheduled into the week) or you can schedule around your own personal life obligations. If you want your weekends free go with training on Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays. You’ll have Wednesdays off for breathing room and the weekends off for family stuff. Or, you could train Mondays through Fridays and use the weekend as your buffer. It’s all up to you.

Just be sure to train most days of the week to see significant results and don’t be afraid to take some well-thought-out rest days so you can keep coming back stronger and better than before.

How do you take days off from training? Let me know in the comments.

Happy lifting!

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