lets talk recovery

kiwiboy

In my training I have 3-4 weeks that are hard on the body.
I then unload my training so to say with an easy week that may be 40-50% of what I have been doing.

I find I am wasted and struggle in the week.
I hate these easy weeks they make me feel crap.

Often happends in a taper as well.

Any ideas etc

Cheers

bigW

this is how I feel when I go into an easy week or into a taper as well, everyone else I speak to also feels the same way, I am not sure if there is a scientific reason for it but perhaps its just your body taking the time to properly repair and replenish itself ???

zaskar

i feel the same way,im not gonna do recovery rides anymore
rather take day off, they make me feel slower on my
hard days and out of shape. im wondering once your fit
and dont have lactic acid the next day are recovery rides worth it, TDF riders dont do them do they??? they race
everday for a month and they dont get slower.

byron27

all cyclist, even the pros, have recovery rides, days or weeks. Granted, riders do the TDF for 3 weeks with only two rest days, but we are talking about a race that is supposed to test the boundaries of human endurance! You can be assured that all the riders who took part in the tour included recovery into their training regime. I do a recovery ride every afternoon to get the blood flowing and assist in the removal of lactic acid and it helps.
I have learnt the hard way, as i worked as a bike messenger for years, day in, day out and never took a rest, thinking that that was the slack approach, and it is better to always go hard, and initially it was fine but one day my body just said" thats enough" and my form suffered immensely. I now force myself to keep my intensity down and i am stronger than i ever was before.
Your body needs to rest and build and while i also hated my recovery weeks and thought "whats the point", i really enjoy it now. It lets me get out on the bike and just enjoy the sun and outdoors, which remind me why i got on the bike in the first place.

also, you will always get lactic acid in your legs. It doesnt matter how fit you are.

__________________
A turn of the crank,
is all that it takes to start,
a revolution

Markster

I feel crap during the first few days of recovery weeks too. If you still feel bad at the end then maybe you're training too hard in the preceeding weeks? if i've fully recovered then I'm itching to get back into it by the end of the rest period, and am running up stairs and stuff without realising it.

m.

TTer

Again, I support what Markster says. Last year I was recovering quite well in the 'easy' weeks, but as training went on and I pushed harder it took until further into the 'easy' week to recover. During my intense 3-week training period I was pushing far too close to the edge and only felt good on the last day of a recovery week.

If you're not feeling fresh by the middle of the easy week you are pushing far too hard and wasting a lot of your training efforts IMHO.

Aztec

I don't get this at all. You feel poorly on RECOVERY weeks? How would you have felt if you had kept going at your previous non-recovery pace???? Worse?

tomdavis80

Ok, to put it very simply, I know how you guys feel. I feel the same way sometimes but when I see my performance suffer and I know it, I take that as a strong sign that I need a day off.

I know the feeling of burning that you get when you know you're working hard and it continues for the whole day or whole week or so afterwards and it's addictive and all, but it builds up and eventually it'll kill your performance and you'll crash with either a flu or some illness of some kind or you'll feel like **** for the longest time not to mention that your form may take a beating since you're riding more and more fatigued.

The whole concept of recovery for the muscles is thoroughly documented and proven with the advanced training techniques we have available, not to mention that the world's best weightlifting trainers and endurance trainers say that you HAVE to have recovery time.

Also, I noticed that one message above mentioned that you ride hard for a month then go easy for a month, the problem is that you may not be giving yourself ANY recovery time during the hard month and of course, you're gonna feel like **** the resting month because you've essentially murdered your immune system.

During the hard month, do some resting rides 3 times a week or so to give your muscles time to recuperate and improve. Don't ride hard 6 or 7 days a week without giving your body time to rest. That's a recipe for overtraining.

As for the Tour de France riders, you have to realize that by now, they don't always ride hard every single day, they pick their battles and win the battles that matter rather than murdering themselves in the first week. Lance Armstrong couldn't finish his first few Tour de France and that's the hard part, finishing it, the problem is that he had to acclimate his body to riding 6 days out of 7 and be able to pick the ones he can win. Also, you'll notice that Lance and the best riders tend to get better and stronger as the Tour goes on rather than weaken which would happen to most and that's because their bodies are capable of adapting to the stresses that they endure quicker than the average human can.

Thomas Davis

Markster

Fully agree - I remember seeing data from a pro riding a flattish stage of a major tour, and he managed to keep his average power well below 200W (I think about 175W) by hiding in the pack and using his brains. To a highly trained pro able to TT at 400W+ and ride a 7hr classic littered with nasty climbs that would be a relatively easy day, allowing him to recover and adapt a little for the stages to come.

- personally I can't imagine a 130mile stage ever being easy!

m.