Fitness & Warmup

Recovery & Rest Days

Rest is where improvement actually happens.

Why it matters

Improvement happens between sessions, not during them. Throwing every day without recovery produces fatigue, worse form and eventually an injury — and because the decline is gradual it is easy to mistake for a technique problem and to respond by throwing more.

How to do it

Schedule rest days deliberately rather than taking them when you feel wrecked.
Prioritise sleep, which is where most physical recovery actually happens.
Stay hydrated, particularly across a hot tournament day where a round is several hours outdoors.
Use light mobility on off days — gentle movement helps more than complete stillness.
Treat an unusually bad session as possible fatigue rather than as a sudden loss of ability.

Common mistakes

Responding to a bad session by practising more.Check your rest first. Fatigue and a form fault look identical from the inside and have opposite cures.

Taking rest days only when something hurts.By then it is late. Plan them in, the same way you plan sessions.

Treating a rest day as complete inactivity.Light mobility or a walk is better than nothing at all. Rest from throwing, not from moving.

Key points

Schedule rest days into your week.
Sleep and hydration drive recovery.
Light mobility on off days keeps you loose.

The drill

Drill · Two planned rest days — 2 scheduled rest days per week for 4 weeks. Put two rest days in the week before the week starts, and keep them even when you feel fine — especially then. Note your practice numbers across the month. Most people find they go up, which is a difficult thing to believe until you have the numbers.

Watch: Avoiding Injuries - It’s NOT only stretching and warm up — Scott Stokely