The New York Times discusses how active recovery, which falls somewhere between a full rest day and a workout, can help your body bounce back more quickly.

Recovery days — both active ones and full rest days — allow your body to repair your muscles and replenish its stores of energy, said Kate Baird, MA, ACSM-CEP, CSCS, exercise physiologist at HSS. Active recovery can provide some pain relief by reducing soreness, she added, and promote better mobility and range of motion.

As a general rule, Baird recommends placing an active recovery day after the most intense, high-quality workouts of your week. But it’s also important to take a bigger-picture view: Consider your long-term exercise routine to make sure you are balancing heavier weeks with lighter ones. If you’re coming off a few weeks of more intense exercise, you may need a period of lower-intensity workouts with more active recovery days built in.

“We can’t just look at a workout as a workout for the day and not consider it in the context of your week or your month or your year,” Baird said. “All of these things are cumulative, and that cumulative effect can either promote improvement or it can promote deterioration in your improvement.”

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