I am coming into the last (easy) week of SSB Mid Vol 1 and I find that on my rest days, I am quite fidgety and I really want to train, but I have to resist in order to keep to my prescribed TSS and plan as I do not want to overdo it and over train.
I know rest and recovery is incredibly important and I do not want to mess this up, but what can I do on these off days to keep me “busy” ? I find that I get very grumpy if I do not train, and this makes my wife especially grumpy!
I used to have that, but a few injuries have taught me that rest days are a good thing and that not being able to train for a longer period is worse than chilling out one day.
Keeping myself busy on rest days like getting stuff done around the house (i.e. not doing those stuff on days that I train) or scheduling social activities on those days help with that.
You could also do your meal planning/prep on rest days, that way you get the feeling that you are taking your training serious even though you are resting.
Do some mechanical work on your bike to keep it in good shape and gain some additional skills.
I used to struggle with rest, but now I really look forward to it.
Partly what @GPx describes with learning the harm of overtraining and potential injuries and partly, for me anyway, internalizing the lesson that you don’t get stronger training, you get stronger resting. The rest is every bit as important as the interval targets
If you need to keep busy on training related activities to calm your mind, use rest days for bike maintenance, laundry and otherwise organizing your training gear and environment Actually put an hour on your training calendar for this if you need that crutch. It is both productive work which needs to get done anyway and it lets you have the satisfaction of doing something that is directly related to your training while resting.
I’ll also add that if you don’t WANT a rest day and look forward to it, you might not be training hard enough. I’ve had to opportunity to be around and train with some pretty high end athletes earlier in my life and not one of them ever passed on a rest day. The “must work out every day” guys I ran into later in life, frankly, just don’t get how this is supposed to work. Working out every single day is a cool thing and I have the utmost respect for guys who have worked out X million days in a row. But it is not training.
Great point! I’m desperate for the recovery weeks when they come. I just finished week 6 of SSBII and it wasn’t until the Friday ride that the recovery rides started to feel even a little bit easy and my legs didn’t stop burning walking up a flight of stairs until Saturday or Sunday
Very true, I don’t think that I am not training hard enough, I mean I struggle to finish the Threshold workouts and on the long SweetSpot Intervals I am begging for them to end! I am truly done when they finally end and my legs are pretty wobbly!
My office is on the 1st floor and our warehouse on the ground floor and I make many many trips up and down that flight of stairs every day and my legs hurt every time I go up and down them…but I quite like that burning in my legs, it shows me that I am working on the bike!
I think on rest days I am going to try and do some different kind of stuff, like core work and more stretching type of things…
Remind yourself that fitness happens during recovery! We can’t continually break the body down with training and expect good long term results.
I just finished 10 days of swim/bike. On about day 9, I was recognizing that I hadn’t been sleeping well. I looked at my calendar and saw that I hadn’t had a day off. Took Friday off and my sleep is better! Also, it gives me time to focus on the training ahead.
I have the same issue . . . but I also know my motivation waxes and wanes. So some parts of the year I’m basically begging for rest days. I find it is more of a psychological phenomenon for me than a physiological one. If I’m in a training groove my body can be terribly sore, but I’m dying to do more work. Other times, I can feel completely fresh but the trainer seems like death.
Couple more thoughts:
I’m sure this is antithetical to everything a knowledgeable coach would say, but go have a light jog on some of your rest days. Not all running is created equal, nor does all running have to be terribly stressful. Find your “tempo” pace (i/e whatever feels like a sub-sweet spot effort) and go knock out 20-25 minutes of jogging. It will help with weight loss (if you’re trying to lose weight), it will take the edge of your antsy-ness for sure, and I don’t find (n=1) that it stresses my cycling muscles to the extent that I don’t recover.
If you went out for a run and hit it hard at something like a 5k race pace, then I’m sure it would be destructive – but let a jog be a jog, and I think you’ll be ok. If you’ve never really run before, then I’d run 3 mins / walk 3 mins to start to avoid injury for your first 4-5 times. Also – if you are a 40+ male (like me) weight bearing exercises, like running, are really good and really necessary for cyclists for bone density.
Also – and I’m kind of obsessed with this, but opinions here vary – do 20 to 30 minutes of body weight resistance work and core work. For instance: do 1 set of pull-ups, 1 set of push-ups, 1 set of planks . . . repeat and do that 3/4 times. You’ll feel like you had a workout for sure. This regimen doesn’t use any legs at all (or negligibly so) and it will make you way, WAY better on the bike from a posture/comfort/endurance perspective.
Yes, and I REALLY struggle on the rest week between phases or blocks. But remember, dosing ourselves with stress is only half (or maybe even a third) of the battle. We also need to dose ourselves with the appropriate rest so that our bodies can make those hard fought adaptations. If you’re doing mid-volume, you’re doin’ enough man. Go polish your machine, it’s still bike time
I find that I’ll commonly be motivated to train on days when I’m scheduled to rest. And then I’ll let the rest day go by because I’m supposed to, but then struggle to find motivation to train when I’m scheduled to do so. I’ve not found a good solution to that yet.
Yup! I also hate not having the extra calories to consume! As far as the restlessness goes, I find participating in another sport on those days that doesn’t have much TSS helps with the mental energy. For me it’s rock climbing, but I think anything that uses different muscles and not much aerobic would be good. Also, going for a recovery pace ride with a friend or partner who is a non-cyclist is great, and may help bring someone into this awesome sport. And of course as others have stated, bicycle cleaning and maintenance/ clean or upgrade the pain cave. I still haven’t found a solution to the calorie issue. I really like being able to eat so much on training days.
Swimming will get you fitness and not kill your legs.