Why do I feel so bad after a day off?

I don’t know but it’s the same for me, so I don’t take days off.

runboy wrote:

I usually don´t take a day off but once in a while i feel like I have to. The day after the day off I always feel like garbage. My legs are super heavy and lethargic and my running just doesn´t feel normal. Why is this so? Shouldnt I feel better and more recovered after a day off?

This used to happen to me all the time back in my bike racing days; I'd have a long Sunday ride or race and feel fantastic afterwards, take Monday off and feel like dog crap Tuesday. What I learned was that my body (and many people's bodies) respond very poorly to just doing nothing; now as a cross country ski racer in my late 50's I seldom if ever have a day where I just do 'nothing', and then only if life dictates. Easy days for me are always active rest, say doing technique drills on skis, going for a good brisk walk instead of skiing, or yoga at home, whatever. Anything to keep the body moving, get outside, while still providing a mental and physical break from my primary sport. In the case of a runner, maybe hit the pool for an easy swim, go for an easy bike ride, do some yoga and go for a good walk, something similar.

To get ready for a race I do something similar; my easiest day before a race will be on a Thursday as I know I'm not at my best the day after an easy day. Friday I will actually do some light intervals, but enough to open up the pipes and get everything moving. Physiology is an odd thing and it takes experimentation; I ski big weekends in Wisconsin at the Birkie trail (over 100K of some of the hilliest and best XC trails on the planet) and I will frequently have my best day on Sunday when Saturday might have been a nearly 50K outing. Our bodies are meant to move and while we do need our easy days for a variety of reasons, a day doing 'nothing' is really not that good for us in my opinion. YMMV of course.

Same here

The other day I woke up early, went to work, and trained afterwards. Felt great!

Next day I took a day off, and felt like crap

Weird

Seems logical, but its a myth.

Even ONE day of rest will see:

- decrease in red blood cell volume

- decrease in enzyme activity

- decrease in blood volume

and so forth.

It is true that you will give your body time to increase glycogen content in cells, and maybe regenerate your muscoskeletal structure slightly. Your biomechanics also change due to increases in strength and ROM, which may give you a clunky feeling when you are running.

Sounds bad, but after a day or two you will be better off for it. Like other posters said maybe a light jog/some cross-training instead of no exercise whatsoever will suit better. Just never take a rest day before a race/hard workout (w/e).

runboy wrote:

I usually don´t take a day off but once in a while i feel like I have to. The day after the day off I always feel like garbage. My legs are super heavy and lethargic and my running just doesn´t feel normal. Why is this so? Shouldnt I feel better and more recovered after a day off?

Yeah, it's an odd feeling when our bodies are used to doing something. My off days from running always include a few miles of walking and usually another couple miles of hiking , it's super low impact and feels great. I love hiking bc you can keep your HR in the easy zone, still getting that blood flow but it's not as high impact and stressful to the body as running everyday. I do like doing some basic drills too. Very seldom do I find myself with a do nothing day, maybe the day after a race but then after that, it's active recovery for the next week.

It's probably a decrease in muscle tension that makes your legs feel heavy.

Days off are more for long-term progression within a "macrocycle" or season.

I used to find that the best was to go for a relaxed bike ride on a day off. This made the day even more of a recovery and kept the blood and lymph moving through the body.

runboy wrote:

Shouldnt I feel better and more recovered after a day off?

Yes, obviously.

Consider taking a day off more often and don't stress yourself about it.

You're probably on the way to overtrain, i've been there.

In order to avoid this kind of sluggishness, I try to get in at least one run on every day off.

what's a day off?

runboy wrote:

I usually don´t take a day off but once in a while i feel like I have to. The day after the day off I always feel like garbage. My legs are super heavy and lethargic and my running just doesn´t feel normal. Why is this so? Shouldnt I feel better and more recovered after a day off?

you are way overtrained. the body is sending a message not to move around and to recover.

if you wait to recover properly, you can build up the workload and mileage. how long do you wait?

until your legs feel fresh. it you're in a deep hole it could be months.

distance coaches and runners are quite moronic applying this simple concept.

an easy program - for a distance runner type - is the dorian yates method.

while body building principles are not perfectly catered to distance running, it is a way to become explosive and regain all round fitness.

once per week, you take each muscle group to failure, which means you can't really use the muscles for several hours after the workout. for examples, you do legs and walking down the steps from the gym should be very difficult.

but you take a full six days off before you hit it again. basically there are 4 gym days, 1 hour in duration, and you do 5 light cardio workouts. you eat a lot and rest a lot.

this is what every runner should do for a couple of months per year...

year after year, the muscle fibers degrade from doing the same type of exercise.

the pain you feel af first going to failure is maybe annoying, but you get used to it, then going to failure is fun when you know the results will be there, its only a few minutes pain, and you know you're going to have lots of rest time to recover.

one thing to note is that in warmup sets you make note that your muscles don't have any issues... if there are issues you skip that particular exercise... till next week, which means full recovery. but if you do it right, you'll seldom skip a workout, because you've allowed the tissue to repair and get stronger.

it also takes about 4 weeks of moderate work to build the muscles to the point where they can go to failure without risk of injury.

it's called building up....

longjack wrote:

an easy program - for a distance runner type - is the dorian yates method.

while body building principles are not perfectly catered to distance running, it is a way to become explosive and regain all round fitness.

once per week, you take each muscle group to failure, which means you can't really use the muscles for several hours after the workout. for examples, you do legs and walking down the steps from the gym should be very difficult.

but you take a full six days off before you hit it again. basically there are 4 gym days, 1 hour in duration, and you do 5 light cardio workouts. you eat a lot and rest a lot.

this is what every runner should do for a couple of months per year...

year after year, the muscle fibers degrade from doing the same type of exercise.

Thanks for the bro science, bro.

and then there are roids. where the muscles are overdeveloped compared to tendons, and in this case when you get really strong, eventually going to failure means catastrophic injury at some point.

then again if you are a muscle head, which most people are, the hero doesn't notice that a muscle is not right, which leads to catastrophe.

No, really. That's very interesting. Please go on.

longjack wrote:

you are way overtrained. the body is sending a message not to move around and to recover.

I don't know about this. If anything, I am undertraining at the moment, and I have the same issue as the OP. I usually only run 3 or 4 day per week these days (after being a collegiate runner not so long ago). Even on low mileage, I feel sluggish when I come back after a day off.

What’re ya’ll doing the day BEFORE your rest day? My guess is it’s a hard or long day, as most folks won’t take a rest after a true easy day. DOMS peaks at about 36 hours post-workout. Probably some of the reason you feel like garbage is because you’re at the low point of recovery from that hard day.

I used to feel this way too. After much trial and error i found that instead of resting the day after long or hard days, i will do an easy 2-4 mile shakeout. Then i will rest the next day. My point is that the day after hard workouts I believe you need to get the lactic build up out of there. An easy run or strides on a turf field for 30-45 minutes has worked wonders for me to feel recovered and not feel those heavy leg days after a rest day.