According to personal trainer Kurt Dunn of Body By Kurt, eating, sleeping and exercising are generally the three ingredients to a healthy lifestyle. Although some men are aware of this, he told the Jamaica Observer that they tend to eat and exercise, but neglect rest. Dunn said this is especially true for men who are working towards specific fitness goals – whether it is gaining muscles or losing weight.

Dunn said though that unless men allow their bodies to recover, they may never achieve their desired results.

In an interview with Your Health Your Wealth, Dunn explained that there are two types of muscle discomfort and soreness – both of which speak to the importance of having rest days. One type is acute muscle soreness while the other is delayed onset muscle soreness. He explained that acute muscle soreness is felt during workouts while delayed onset muscle soreness sets in between 24 and 48 hours post-exercise.

He told Your Health Your Wealth that during workouts, muscles go through physical stress.

“So if a man is working out, he should definitely rest because that is the only way he is going to repair his tissues,” Dunn insisted.

He said exercising without resting is paramount to overtraining.

“Overtraining occurs when performance decreases, even with continuous training,” Dunn explained. “In the mixture of that, we find that you have emotional issues, that is why rest is very important.”

The personal trainer said when people overtrain there is a decline in physical performance, loss of muscle strength, muscle tenderness and joint soreness, increase in the number of minor injuries which usually cause muscle strain, as well as disturbances in sleep pattern.

“During the exercise you generally tend to tear down the tissue and when you eat you repair them. When you sleep, that is when you recover to get stronger to repeat the procedure again,” Dunn shared.

He explained that of the seven days in the week, men might choose to exercise for three consecutive days before taking a rest day and then two more days, before another rest day.

“There is no rule that you have to rest on the third day or rest on the fourth day, just choose a day to rest,” he stressed. “What is not advisable is for him to work five days or seven days consecutively, without incorporating a rest day.”

He said, however, that an athlete or somebody more advanced can work for up to six days, but would have to ensure that they get at least one rest day.

Once the rest day is selected, Dunn said it should be used for just that – resting.

“You want to ensure that you eat for the tissues because you would have done some damage to it… You want to ensure that you fuel your body properly, which is ensuring that you get the seven nutrients that your body needs,” he advised.

The personal trainer said water, probiotics, minerals, vitamins, carbohydrates, and fat must be taken into the body, and not just protein.

“Some people believe in just having protein, which is going to repair the tissue. We all know that primarily, yes, that is what it does, but at the same time you have to ensure that you get all the essential nutrients for the body to repair itself,” he urged.

Rest is imperative to reaching fitness goals, he implored.