Hi everyone, I'm new here and looking forward to trying this out. I'm a little confused though.
Welcome to the Hive,
@NixieLake !
The plans all have built-in rest days each week,
If you take a closer look at the Plans, you will see that they advocate for doing a lighter workout or at least a stretching session on the so-called "rest" days.
but the programs seem to all be 7-days-per-week.
This is correct. They are.
Are we supposed to add our own rest days in when doing a program?
No.
A lot of us would have a lot of difficulty going from zero exercise to every single day for a month.
Doing
something every single day is the most effective way to realize training benefits. This is
especially true for new exercisers.
Even people with more advanced fitness won't always be able to work out every single day.
People who already have well-established fitness habits can more safely skip the odd workout here or there than can new exercisers. Those who are familiar with modern exercise science, however, generally choose not to do so.
I feel like there ought to be a bit of guidance on how to add rest days into a program. Like where to add them, after which workouts, or how many rest days is advisable per week.
The best guidance is:
Do not add rest days.
The whole "thou must take rest days" theory of exercise is old and out-of-date. Our bodies were made to move and can easily handle doing so
every single day.
Modern exercise science tells us working out every day is in fact the thing to do in order to achieve the greatest training benefits. This is especially true for new exercisers, in part because one of the most important benefits of regular training is a mental one: Working out every day helps you to build a habit of working out. Taking days off works to destroy that habit. If you work out today, you are more likely to work out tomorrow. If you work out several days in a row, this effect becomes cumulative. Just like brushing your teeth, working out becomes a habit. Once the habit is formed, you no longer think about whether or not to work out. You just do it. If you take days off, however--even one day off--that habit-building effect is broken.
The above being said, hyper-loading the same muscle groups on multiple consecutive days can lead to overtraining--especially if you are not getting adequate sleep between workouts. Working out at a very high intensity, working the same muscles to exhaustion day after day after day can result in those muscles not getting adequate recovery time between workouts and eventually lead to diminishing returns. To avoid this, all DAREBEE Programs include
active recovery days.
Active recovery means you still do a workout, but you do it at a lower intensity. It can also mean alternating between workouts that focus on different muscle groups. (For example: day 1 might be a workout that really pushes your legs to their limit but goes easy on your upper body. Day 2 would then be only a light workout for your legs but could work your upper body hard.)
DAREBEE's Programs are great, especially for beginners, because they take into account both your body's need for recovery and your body's and mind's needs to keep moving every day. The active recovery days are programmed in, so you don't need to add anything at all. Just load the next day's workout and do it.
For more info, see DAREBEE's Guides on
Rest Days and
Rest, Recovery, and Overtraining.
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