One of the most influential factors of our training is rest. We all know that rest is essential to physical and mental performance but we often ignore this crucial part of the whole. A day off is critical for all athletes for a variety of reasons. Physically, rest is necessary for muscles to be built, repaired, and strengthened. Mentally, rest helps us relieve ourselves of the stresses that we may encounter from our everyday schedules and consistent training.

Joint health is an essential reason for traceurs to have rest days. These joints are pounded repetitively throughout our running, crawling, and climbing. Although the repetitive nature of our training strengthens the ankles, knees, hips, shoulders, elbows, and wrists, allowing a day of rest throughout training will give the joints the needed rest they need to heal from stress. It's important to realize that traceurs improve on rest days as opposed to training days. During training days, working out breaks down the muscles while rest allows the muscles to have time to strengthen and repair. Endurance, strength, and agility are improved on these days of rest. The joints may regularly become sore or inflamed without rest. For example, knee and ankle problems are very common injuries that result from under or overtraining. It can be very difficult to overcome these injuries once they occur. Energy is also replenished on rest days, without this time, your body will continue to break down that energy you may need outside of parkour.

Rest days not only help traceurs recover, but also help allow them to improve. There are several ways that you can incorporate rest into your training. You can take a day or two off a week of a couple of days after two weeks in which no physical activity is done. Some traceurs take a week or two off to allow the body to recover from a small injury or stress. Another option is to participate in only low impact exercises, such swimming, a few times monthly.

If an injury does occur, it is VERY IMPORTANT that you rest. There is nothing more harmful to your body than to continue your regular training schedule. Stop almost all strenuous physical activity immediately, determine the problem, and focus on the solution towards a healthy recovery. With injuries, rest is always advised because it is THE most important factor to your recovery. Take the precautions necessary to avoid stressing the area of injury. Does that mean you cannot physically workout? No, you can always do something to physically workout other than practicing parkour such as push-ups, squats, etc.

Sources:
The Runner's Guide

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