Active Versus Passive Recovery  A long while back I wrote an
article titled The Importance of Rest pointing out that most
people train too hard too often and would benefit from more
recovery, both in an acute (day to day) and long-term sense.  In
that article, in the context of a typical weekly schedule, I
suggested that most people would benefit from at least one day
completely off per week with perhaps 1-2 others dedicated to
what is usually called active recovery or active rest.  In that
context, a question I have gotten enough times to make it worth
addressing is whether active rest or passive rest is ‘better’. 
That is, is it fundamentally better to do something for active
recovery or better to just take the day completely off?  Not
surprisingly, not even coaches and top athletes can agree on
this so today I want to look at both the concept of active and
passive rest as well as some potential benefits and drawbacks to
each.   Defining Terms  First some definitions.  Passive rest
should be pretty easy to