I only do 7-8 hours of riding a bike a week, and i really think that taking all 7 days to recover seems like overkill. Why have this mentality to make it exactly a whole week?
I see some of you also do only maybe 5 days. Do you ever get burned out?
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It’s better to get a little too much recovery than it is to not get enough. We all have different needs, recovery-wise, and we all have areas of our recovery that we are questionable on (sleep, nutrition, work and family stresses, time, etc). I’ve been “taking it easy” (z1 and 2) for about 4 days in a row every 4th week for a couple years, with regular week being 7-11 hrs. In reality, that isn’t much change from my normal week where I do only z1 or 2 from M-Th, and then do intensity the other 3 days, but I take at least one more day completely off and do less volume during the rest week. But riding my bike is pretty much my only stressor, could do a little better on sleep, no job to worry about.
However, I’ve upped my plan hours/miles by 1 hour this year and I’m sensing that I’m walking a gray line the last couple weeks, and considering moving one of my intensity days to maybe Wed. I took 4 full days off last week for rest week, but really pushed myself on the weekend, should have taken it easier Sun (because I was feeling it from 5 hrs of mid z3 on Fr & Sat), but was having mtb fun with my friends and felt pretty good after warmup. Anyway, you have to be hyper-aware if you’re pushing your limits. I went through maybe a low level of overtraining in 2019/2020, and it took me close to 2 years to dig myself out of it, so I don’t want to go through that again, and I keep getting older.
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For me, as someone who usually does 5 day rest weeks, it’s almost never the training load that burns me out. If I was a pro, who was single, in the off season, with few other stresses or responsibilities then a 5 day rest week would be more than enough. And as it is, I can go months and months on a 5 day rest week every 4th week without any issues. But if I hit a period of the year/life/whenever where life stress ramps up then I add more rest. And I actually usually still keep the 5 day rest week but I’ll add more rest/reduce the work on the other weeks.
But also, my rest weeks aren’t set in stone and neither are my training weeks. If I’m coming up to a big saturday workout and I’m just feeling wrecked for whatever reason then maybe I just do an endurance ride, or I shorten it from 5 hours to 2.5, or I skip it and go walk around museums with my wife, do chores around the house, or whatever I feel I need to do.
IMO, if you’re getting burned out then (1) you’ve probably already pushed past some signs that you were doing too much and (2) you need to just stop where you are and take a small break. People get super hung up on missing a workout because they’ll get slower but completely ignore that you might get slower by doing the workout.
So TLDR, I do a 5 day rest week but I at any time I feel I need more rest, I rest more.
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Simply a period of time where I don’t do intensity. I’m usually in the 20 hour per week range between running and cycling, I just keep the effort low but try to do the same volume.
As a masters athlete, I really dial it down on recovery weeks. I do shorter recovery rides and dial back the strength training.
Question for the group: I’m in my recovery week and had to skip a couple days due to work. How would you adjust the rest of the week?
- Do nothing, enjoy the extra rest
- Adjust the remaining workouts to hit the original TSS for the week
- Something else
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voters
I’m not overly fatigued, so I was thinking simply do higher PL endurance workouts and shoot for the TSS I had originally planned, without going over Z2. What would you do?
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I’d been on a recovery week for the last 9 months. Just got back on the bike for the first time a few days ago.
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Large reduction in volume, one extra off day. Some intensity as I start to feel more fresh.
Hi Flamingo, I only just discovered this particular thread. 
I’m interested to know, what do these tank-emptiers typically look like for you?
It’ll depend on the weather for me. If it’s good its usually:
Mon - Rest
Tues - Short Bicycle Commute (less than 10miles round)
Wed - TR Endurance workout
Thu - TR Endurance workout
Fri - Short Bicycle Commute
Sat - Hard group ride
Sun - Easy to Moderate group
Depends on what block I’m doing
Base block it typically looks like
1 hour middle of zone 2
2nd hour low tempo
3rd hour high tempo
10 minutes at threshold but done off RPE not power
2 min all out
No breaks between that setup, then 3x30 sec sprints with 2 min of rest between.
During a build block:
20 min threshold intervals until power drops by 10%. I can generally get 3 reps. If I can get 3 sets without power dropping by 10%, I get 1 more week added to my block, but tss is chopped 25% from the avg of the 3 weeks prior
During specialty blocks:
6x3min all outs, 6 min recovery.
If power is consistently high, another week, less tss.
If i cant complete the minimum prescribed, then its on to the regular rest week. Like full rest. 4 glass crank rides and 1 2 hour “ride however you want and enjoy the bike” ride.