By that I mean for every recovery week scheduled, you just rested the whole seven days instead of doing the few endurance rides the plan schedules?
I am just interested really. This week is recovery week for me but it has timed with some catastrophic amounts of life and adulting chaos which has left me doing nothing since Monday. It’s fine, it’s just life and sometimes you have to prioritize very sick relatives, friends in hospital, chaotic work life, and dealing with a house sale…especially when they all come at once
However, it got me thinking, what if, every 4th week, I just didn’t ride for 7 days. How much impact would that have on fitness/AiFTP detection/plan adaptions?
I know there is the mental impact of not riding, that’s important, and I know that there is ‘keeping the habit’, but I am specifically interested in the physiology of not riding AT ALL for the 7 days on a repeating basis every 28 days.
i think you’ll stagnate and plateau much quicker. A full week off will result in detraining - primary a blood plasma volume decrease. Then maybe it takes another week to get back to where you were, then you do two weeks of good training, etc.
Riding easy endurance will maintain plasma volume while muscular fatigue sheds allowing you to get back into the swing of training very quickly.
But if life throws you a curve ball, then you just take that rest week and not worry about it.
This excerpt from “The science of detraining and retraining” suggests it might be better to do a few HIITs than those tedious recovery week endurance rides. “During the detraining period, if it’s possible to maintain strength sessions or short, high-intensity sessions, research shows that this significantly slows down the detraining process,”
You’ll have some detraining and might take a few workouts to feel back up to speed.
However, if you have a lot of life stress right now, it might still be a net positive to take a rest week—or it might be a net positive to get on the bike and reduce your stress. That’s a personal call.
While you would detrain a bit, I think looking just at strength/fitness is a mistake. If your livelihood doesn’t depend on you winning your next race, who cares if you lose a watt or two of power, or feel a bit sluggish on your first ride back? In the grand scheme of things, you’ll be fine.
I’ve unintentionally ended up doing something not far off of this for 3 different recovery weeks this year. Not complete rest, but missing up to 3 out of 5 sessions and sometimes having to replace one of the remaining ones with a run/hike due to work travel logistics.
So, for a less scientific and more anecdotal response - I end up starting my next loading block flat, often struggling with the first workout and/or finding the first week more fatiguing than it should be. It’s not that I feel less fit, just like all my body’s systems are still offline and I need to go through the motions again before my metabolism, glycogen stores, psychology, etc. are back to where I want them to be.
Metabolism, nutrition, and hydration seem to suffer the most from the break in routine (for me at least).
I’m still building fitness and improving body composition, but I’d guess that if I’d been able to remain consistent in all those recovery weeks, I’d be gettng AI FTP increases of 7w instead of 5w each time. That’s mostly a guess/instinct but is based on 4+ years of consistent training and a pretty good sense of how my body is responding to things.
So my take is that it’s a pretty minor setback, but it’s not nothing, and if you’re doing it for multiple blocks every season then the small gains left on the table can start to add up.
