The 11 Best Ways To Spend Active Recovery Days

Flexibility Training Using your active recovery days to work on becoming more flexible will not only help you work through any soreness or stiffness you feel from your more intense workouts, but it'll also help you increase your range of motion, avoid muscle imbalances that can lead to injury, help you relax, and improve your posture, according to the American Council on Exercise . The best way to improve your flexibility is through active (holding moves for 1-2 seconds instead of 30 seconds or so) or dynamic stretching . Here are moves you can do at home . Or, you could sign up for an active stretching class at your gym or a studio dedicated to flexibility training, which seem to be popping up *everywhere* as of late. Keep in eye out! Scarlet Rodrguez / EyeEm - Getty Images

Yoga Whether it's hot or not, yoga is one of the best activities to do on your active recovery days because it combines flexibility training with low-intensity, total-body strength training, allowing you to keep blood flowing from head to toe without overtaxing your system. It's also relaxing and stress-relieving, so you really can't go wrong with rolling out your mat . Tom Werner - Getty Images

Pilates Like yoga, Pilates is an excellent workout to do on active recovery days because it involves both stretching and low-intensity strength exercises. It'll keep your blood circulating without revving your heart rate and allow you to work on your flexibility and mobility too. Yoshiyoshi Hirokawa - Getty Images

Walking As Winslow noted, taking Fido out for some fresh air totally counts as an active recovery activityyou don't even have to put on leggings (though, why TBH, why would you not want to?) Westend61 - Getty Images

Jogging Going for a nice, easy jog (sometimes referred to by runners as a "shake out") will get your blood pumpingand oxygen flowing to all your muscles in order to aide with their recovery. The key here, though, is to keep your pace conversational, as in, you should be able to talk easily the entire time. Save the sprints and hill drills for your next hard workout. Cavan Images - Getty Images

Rowing Going a few meters on a rowing machine can really rev your heart rategod knows plenty of trainers like adding them to their circuits for this reason. But when performed at a steady state (i.e. a 4 or 5 out of 10 in terms of effort), rowing is a really great active recover activity for similar reasons to jogging. This is especially true if you add it after an intense lower-body workout, as it'll give you a chance to get your legs a rest while strengthening your upper body and improving your endurance. Cavan Images - Getty Images

Cycling Like jogging, brisk walking, and rowing, riding a bikestationary or otherwisecan be a low-impact, low-intensity form of exercise that allows you to work on your muscle endurance, get in some steady-state cardio, and give your body a break in between harder training sessions. Just be sure to maintain a leisurely to moderate paceno tapping it back, okay? Westend61 - Getty Images

Swimming Getting in the water isn't just good for your circulation, it's a light form of resistance training that's easy on your joints too. Try one of these swimming workouts as an active recovery activity at a low intensity pace. Trevor Williams - Getty Images

Water Aerobics Don't know how to swim or just aren't a big fan of the backstroke? Why not give water aerobics a try. The water serves a a form of light-resistance training, its buoyancy makes it a low impact form of cardio-strength training. Arm floaties are, of course, optional. bluecinema - Getty Images

Hiking Hitting the trails is an opportunity to decompressing, soak up some fresh air, and give your muscles a chance to recover while still keeping them engaged. Think of it as a moving meditation. Maria Fuchs - Getty Images

Rock Climbing Like Winslow said, finding fun things to do with your down time is a great way to spend an active recovery day, and heading to your nearest climbing wall to scale a vertical obstacle course definitely counts! John Fedele - Getty Images