Do these rapid changes also include capillary adaptations (new capillaries, size increase), changes in mitochondria and heart muscle? Or do some other adaptations require more time?
1 Like
The signal for such changes (e.g., increase in VEGF) peaks within hours. If you want the resulting protein/structural changes to “stack”, you need to train on a regular basis. Even if you just want to maintain, you can’t take more than a couple of days off between workouts.
6 Likes
my follow-up question to this would be: does taking a day off help this process? or will it just happen in the background regardless?
I get that the signal for adaptation doesn’t last long. But how is it that it takes something like 3-6 weeks to get gains from example a hard training block?
I’d suggest that you are getting adaptations much earlier but measurable or noticeable gains would take the time it simply takes for the human body to repair, or stack gains, to that point. Biological process innit.
Coming back to the OP though it seems those recovery workouts are the minimum to keep progress or avert regression.
1 Like
Trying to split hairs is precisely that - science can only give you trends and averages. If you really want to find your optimal training, you will just have to experiment for yourself.
1 Like
1,000,000,000% everyone need days off.
Amateurs get this massively wrong.
What is leading to this ridiculous notion that any athlete needs to train every day?
This needs to die a death.
Go for a walk, see a movie, look at a cloud…
2 Likes
You’re not answering the correct question.
“Do you really need off days?” No, you don’t.
On the other hand, do you need to train every day? No, you don’t.
2 Likes
Simple: it doesn’t.
The initial improvements may be too small to notice, but they are happening. Furthermore, they are actually bigger than any subsequent improvements. It only seems like you have to grind away for a while to get anywhere because progress is slow, and the journey is long. This is why consistent application of the overload principle is so important, and why periods of missed training due to illness, injury, etc., are so costly. It is also why, e.g., the common habit of many cyclists of having a multi-month off-season of reduced volume and intensity of training limits their long-term progress
9 Likes
Correct!. It creates multi year plateaus. It’s interesting to know how much can one mitigate this by seriously training and competing in another sport. I’m considering Skimo for next year.
1 Like
Like other’s said it doesn’t. But to see a noticeable amount of improvement you probably have to train for ~3 weeks on something (though if you look closely you’re probably improving throughout the block). At which point you’re probably pretty tired so maybe the fatigue is masking the gains. So you then take a recovery week where you shed the fatigue and the gains make themselves visible.
But for example, in a VO2 block you should likely be seeing performance improvements from workout to workout (high power for same time or a bit longer at same power). Same with a threshold block. 40min at FTP might be your limit at the start but the next workout you get to 3x15m, then 4x12, and up and up.
But it might not be till after a rest week when you clear away the ‘fog of fatigue’ that you can clearly see the larger gains that you’ve stacked.
Indeed, one of my best seasons came after an unusually snowy winter, which allowed me to do a lot of Nordic skiing (the only valid reason for the existence of snow).
3 Likes
Any differences between men and woman or 20 year olds and 70 year old or people who go to work after their session compared to someone who waits around for you to take samples?
I’d have to do some reading to answer your question re. sex differences.
As we get older, the adaptive response to any form of training tends to become blunted. It certainly doesn’t become larger, or (more relevantly) last longer.
I realized that this (slightly tangentially) speaks to the original discussion. Geraint Thomas mentioned taking rest days here, so, contrary to some of what’s been said, elite cyclists do take rest days.
On the flip side, though, Thomas and his teammates weren’t making this particular rest day that restful. They didn’t actually climb the whole thing, it sounds like the just did the last 163m in what this article describes as a ‘difficult walk’.
lots of top runners take no days off, that has to be a lot harder on the body then cycling, also doing it everyday really creates a momentum that helps motivation,. no right or wrong answer imo do whats best for you.
They take every day off, in between the runs.
3 Likes
I follow a couple of master world class runners that run around 10 miles every day never a day off. another benefit of cycling every day is the mental well being it brings. Mental clarity and focus like nothing else can IMO
You clearly haven’t tried Fatbike on groomed mtb trails. Sometimes it’s faster than summer.
that was really the best answer.