After 100+ days of consistent exercise, Bobby crashes and burns. Sit down with Roland and Bobby as they discuss the need for, the definition of, and the importance of rest and recovery.

Rest days allow your body and your mind time to recover from workouts. They stop you burning out and losing your momentum and ensure you're ready and able to give your next session your all.

In short, if you want to enjoy sustained progress, you're going to need to stop and read a good book every now and then. How many rest days should you take, what are the benefits, and do you need to spend all day on the sofa with the remote?

Here are 4 good reasons why you should take a rest day:

1. They help you get stronger While you may think fitness gains are only made when you're beasting yourself during a sweat session, rest is just as important if you want to hit your workout goals. When you rest, your muscles start to heal and grow back stronger, meaning you'll be able to do the same workout with less effort in the future.

2. They help you avoid injury If you skip rest days, it could lead to injury. Working out when your body and mind are tired means you're more likely to have bad form, trip or stumble. You're also at risk of overuse injuries as you constantly stress and strain the body and don't allow it the necessary time to repair itself. So, if you want to avoid weeks or even months of being unable to train, make sure you give yourself sufficient time to rest.

3. They help you make fitness progress Train too much without resting and you could see your fitness progress grind to a halt or even go into reverse. Exercise releases stress hormones and, just as working long hours with no days off can negatively impact your health, too much exercise without enough rest can lead to burnout.

4. They help you build long-term habits.

A survey of over 2,000 people found that 33 per cent who don't exercise say it's because they don't have the time. While we all know how easy it is to fit an exercise session into your daily routine, that becomes much harder, logistically and psychologically, if you're trying to do it every day of the week.

Rest days help make your schedule more flexible, leaving you to build workouts around your life rather than vice versa. Having that flexibility can also make your workout regime more sustainable - if you are unable to work out one day, then you can swap it for your rest day and complete your workout later in the week without compromising your training. This helps you build healthy habits you can keep up.

Rest also greatly affects our health in that it decreases the risk of diabetes, headaches, heart disease, depression, obesity, and high blood pressure. Rest is key and an integral part of holistic wellness.

But remember, a day of rest should follow a few days of exercise, so get up, get dressed and get to work!