As guys’ seasons start coming to an end, the conversation in every locker room is the same. How much time are you taking off?
Most of us already know what our summer looks like. Build strength early, shift toward speed and explosiveness as it goes, get back on the ice throughout, and tighten things up before camp. That progression is pretty dialled in. The part we don’t talk about honestly is the very beginning. The rest window.
Some guys take a real break. A few weeks of nothing. No gym, no ice. Friends, summer, sleep. Others take a week off and start feeling guilty when they see guys around them making their way back into the gym. The break never fully happens.
I’ve always been a big advocate for a solid break. But by the end of it, I still feel that guilt. Seeing guys around me starting to get back at it while I’m out with friends. Wondering if I should be in there too. So I went looking for what the research actually says.
WHAT THE STUDIES SHOW
Detraining, what happens to your body when you stop training. It has been studied for decades, here’s what I found.
In the first 2 to 4 weeks of complete rest, you lose almost nothing. VO2max drops around 6 to 7 percent and comes back fast once you start training again. After the four-week mark, the losses start to climb. Strength holds for 3 to 4 weeks essentially unchanged. The muscle you think you’re losing in the first two weeks is mostly water weight — it returns as soon as you train again. A month off doesn’t undo years of work. That’s the guilt talking, not the science.
What the fitness numbers miss is what the rest is actually doing under the surface. A full hockey season puts stress on your tendons, ligaments, and joints that doesn’t fully heal while you’re still playing. Tendons have limited blood supply. They repair slowly. The wear from a season of contact, skating load, and repetitive movement builds up, and the off-season is the only window those tissues actually get to catch up.
The mental side matters just as much. A 2025 study tracked 38 pro hockey players daily — sleep, mental detachment, mental fatigue. When guys actually got their head away from hockey, not just their body, they slept better. And when they slept better, the mental fatigue from the season started to clear. The guys who never mentally step away carry that fatigue throughout summer and into the next season.
The last one changed how I think about this. In 2024, researchers followed a competitive triathlete through 12 weeks of complete rest and then 12 weeks of structured retraining. His VO2max dropped 7 percent during the break, which is expected. But after retraining, it came back 5 percent higher than where he started. Not back to baseline. Above it. His muscles had shifted toward more fast-twitch fibers during rest, and his energy production came back stronger than it was before he stopped. His body used the downtime to make changes that nonstop training was actually blocking.
That’s the part that sticks with me. Rest isn’t just about not losing anything. It’s where your body does work it literally can’t do while you’re training.
WHERE I’VE LANDED
I’m taking a month. No gym, no ice, no schedule. Probably more drinks than I should. The research says I’m not going to undo a year of work in four weeks, and I believe it.
Then the build starts. That’s when the summer is about getting better.
Some guys feel their best grinding straight through. If that’s what works for you, keep going. But if you’re the kind of athlete who knows you need a real break and you’ve been feeling guilty about taking one, this is me telling you the science backs you. The rest is part of the work.
Relax, see you in two weeks!
— Ethan Edwards
Natural Athlete Co.