Am i the only one who feels like this? Yeah, I know think of long term,but i just enjoy tough workouts and seeing improvements.
The only way I get through them is making that week a week of coffee rides with friends.
How detrimental is it to do like 4-5 days recovery instead of a full week? I usually last until the weekend before it gets de railed
Not just you. I struggle even with rest days to be honest, something that has been to the detriment of my progress I feel!
Same here, i did 2 years without 1 day off bike. But forcing myself since i started base 5 weeks ago that monday is 100% rest day.
I think the worst part of it all is to eat less than I’m used to (1000-1250kcal used to be my easiest days).
But after taking monday as rest instead of 1,5hour of Endurance i now hate fridays Endurance so much since it’s my only easy day in SSBHV
My rest week starts on monday which im quite exited about, but i know it’s a long boring week.
I used to be the same; in the past two years though I cant wait for easy weeks. By the time they come around, I’m more than ready.
Wait until you become an old fart like some of us, you’ll long for the rest days, weeks, months. Years?
Rest weeks are the best. I don’t touch my road bike or a power meter during those weeks.
I just get outside on my mountain bike or gravel bike and enjoy the scenery. I just do some easy casual rides keeping my heart rate somewhere between 120-130.
Really, the rest weeks are kind of the way I wish I could ride all the time!
I’m really struggling with motivation for the rest week. Waking up at 4:30 to smash yourself seems productive, waking up at 4:30 to noodle for an hr results in me snoozing my alarm.
A couple of Podcasts back, the TR team discussed this topic.
Coach Chad said that the rest weeks weren’t enforced. Some people only need a couple of days to recover from a training block and that’s key to you knowing your body and the signs of fatigue. If you’re good, you’re good.
Personally I hated the recovery workouts but I’ve learnt to adapt them. I’ll add standing drills and low cadence work to spice things up.
No, but for different reasons - I don’t think there is enough time off the bike in recovery weeks.
See, that’s where I struggle. Even thinking I’ll commute a couple of days, and end up racing, or getting caught late and under childcare pressure, or headwind home etc.
I’ve always done MV at most, but also would through in Lazy Mountain or Pettit on the off days. Or run!!?! There was a thread on here a few weeks ago that touched on exercise addiction, and I think I was heading that way, tied in with eating (after losing a substantial amount of weight)
It’s one of my big goals to trust the plan this season, base season especially. I actually brought forward the start of SSB1 so that the first rest week was going to be a period I wouldn’t get to train, would take a couple of days completely off, eating and drinking too much,
There was a fairly recent podcast where someone asked if it was ok to swap a recovery ride for a shorter, harder workout (eg sweet spot) of similar tss, and the answer was yes.
I think the idea of the recovery week is to reduce the load and give your body (and mind) a bit of time to chill. How you do that is secondary.
A midweek recovery is what I nearly always do, other than when I’ve timed a recovery week for when I’m on holiday. Do my usual weekend of hard riding, take Monday-Friday as easy or rest days, then hit the weekend again. Maybe do a ramp test on Thursday or Friday, though I’m tending to tweak FTP manually rather than testing much at the moment, I get enough feedback on where my FTP is from races and how hard workouts feel without needing to test.
Works fine for me, 5 days recovery is plenty.
I usually do something similar as well.
I still try to make sure i hit around 55% of normal TSS of the week.
1 Day off 1 easy day (38TSS) so far for me.
Day 3 will be 50-70 TSS Z2
Day 4 Truuli with some Z2
Day 5 40-50 TSS Z2
Day 6 back in training with a semi hard vo2max workout and added 65-75%
Day 7 100 TSS of 65-75%
Rest weeks and recovery rides as a concept in general are something that as a relative noob I have struggled with.
The benificial adaptations we train for occur only during rest and obviously the more training or harder the workout the more rest you will need to let your body and mind repair.
I’m probably wrong but recovery rides to me, at least most of the time, seem silly. If it’s rest your body needs then rest - simple. You’re not 100% resting or even close to it if you’re pedalling a bike in any way. Go spend that time with your family or read a book or something.
As for rest weeks within plans, yes I have found them to be a struggle every time. Recently I hit my scheduled rest week during a sustained power build plan. I was loving the plan at that point and I was improving every day. I hit rest week and while I didn’t stick exactly to the plan I cycled super easy all week with maybe one sweet spot workout in the middle of the week to keep my sanity. The following week getting back into the hard workouts of the plan I felt like I was hitting a brick wall. One week I was buzzing with energy and purpose, the next I was demoralised.
I’ll never religiously adhere to plan-scheduled recovery weeks ever again, instead I’ll keep doing what I’m doing until my own body, or mind, or performance tells me to stop.
I think it’s very much n=1. But part of what I’m trying to address is a static FTP. Not following the plan as closely as I could was, I believe, part of the issue - recovery days and weeks are me trying to change things up.
Having said that, I’ll be doing the ramp test on the Friday of my recovery weeks (my “Saturday” as per the traditional schedule), as that’s where it fits best in with my schedule and doing it on the smart trainer rather than hybrid rollers.
That’s one of the reasons i take out slower bikes. If I set out on my mountain bike I just know I’m gonna average a pretty slow pace so I don’t even try. I’ll then occupy myself with doing things like riding wheelies, practicing manuals, bunny hopping things, riding down (or up) stairs, practicing cornering, etc.
This happens to me pretty much every rest week. Not sure I’ve ever managed a mid week rest week workout.
Usually rest weeks are some combination of non cycling stuff that I tried to slot into that week, or increased depression & guilt.
I have just completed 6 weeks Triathlon OD Base Mid Volume.
and feel a bit stressed and tired.
Before I go into the next Training block, I want to have a sound recovery week.
Where do I find appropriate prepared sessions inside the TR world?
Or is it up to me, to choose individual Workouts, i.e. for Zone 2?
Thx a lot for your help.
The simplest thing would be to just copy the rest week. Or just take workouts from it and sprinkle them into the week how you want to.
Most zone 2 workouts of a given duration are going to be pretty similar.