Should you take a rest day?

Welcome to walking as fitness. This is a podcast of action providing a little extra motivation to help you keep that fitness promise you made to yourself.

Hi, I'm Dave. I started walking for fitness in 2013. Still take an intentional fitness walk every single day.

I'm walking right now and I would love to have you join me for the next 10 minutes.

This walk is a little bit of a risk for me.

I left the house, checked my weather app, and it said that rain may start within the next 30 minutes.

The little rain bars look like if it does come, it's going to be light rain, not this heavy, heavy downpour.

A drenching rain doesn't look like that.

It looks like it might start with a brief shower.

Brief shower might float overhead as we are walking together.

Anyhow, I left my umbrella at home.

But we'll see. We'll see.

Before I dive into today's topic, I need to mention I'm not a doctor.

I'm not a licensed personal trainer.

This podcast is for education and entertainment purposes only, and it's entirely possible.

But I may be drifting out of my lane into a lane I really

shouldn't be in, but I'll give it a shot.

This idea of rest, the question of rest, how important is rest when it comes to exercise?

Well, everything I've read, all the experts say that rest is an important component,

in fact a necessary component of exercise. I do some strength training, and I don't do that every day.

The experts say I should not do it every day, that the muscles that I'm tearing down, that I'm breaking as I'm lifting the weights, they need the day of rest to rebuild.

But there is a distinction. The experts do make a distinction between what they call light cardio and moderate or vigorous cardio.

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