Rest Is Not Lazy
Last week, I explained why rest alone is not rehab. This week, I want to address the other side of that conversation: resting isn’t being lazy. While we often feel the need to be actively doing something throughout our entire rehab, rest can be a valuable tool when used appropriately. Rest isn’t the opposite of rehab, but rather a part of it.
Inflammation: Helpful Until It Isn’t
Rest is most important in the first few days following an acute injury. This phase, known as the inflammatory stage of healing, is an immune response that helps clean up the injured area and set the stage for recovery. Inflammation isn’t a bad thing — it’s necessary. However, it’s also typically the most painful phase, which serves as a reminder that the tissue is vulnerable. Ignoring this phase can lead to further injury or a larger inflammatory response, both of which can slow recovery. Gentle range-of-motion movements are often appropriate here, but rest at this stage is about respecting the healing process, not pushing through it.
Stress Builds, Rest Rebuilds
When we train in the gym, we don’t usually work the same muscle group hard on consecutive days. The time in between allows the body to recover and adapt. Rehab works the same way. Rehab exercises provide the stimulus, but the body responds and heals during rest. Without enough time to recover, even well-designed rehab exercises can become another stressor rather than a benefit.
Progress Loves Patience
Many injuries are related to doing too much, too soon, or too often without enough recovery. Overuse injuries aren’t usually caused by a single mistake, but by a gradual mismatch between training demands and recovery. Building rest into your training helps manage this. Setbacks or flare-ups aren’t failures — they’re often just load miscalculations that signal the body wasn’t fully prepared for the demands placed on it.
More Than Just the Tissue
Injury is never just a physical issue. The same biopsychosocial factors that influence injury also influence pain and recovery. Your body is constantly balancing training, work stress, sleep, nutrition, and social pressures. When rest is consistently ignored, fatigue builds and tolerance for both activity and healing drops. Strategic rest helps calm the system as a whole and not just the injured tissue.
The goal of rest isn’t to slow you down — it’s to set you up for future training. Rest is when the body repairs itself after you’ve given it a reason to adapt. Smart rehab is knowing when to push and when to pause. Rest alone isn’t rehab, but rehab without rest doesn’t work either.
