how much fitness do you loose?

after a week off the bike in september, i been 100% committed to training, riding 6 days a week since oct1st. i even stopped my 3 weeks on 1 week off. some new training for me..its all just winter time base miles an hour a day mon-thurs, fri off with sat being my hard 20 minute intervals day. a few of those as hard as i can do them, then a few 4 minute intervals as hard as i can go. sun is 2 hours. ez. so since oct 1st, , all done on the trainer, 7-8 hours with only 1 hasrd day.. its 3.5 months now and i wanna take a break. a week of ez every other day riding . maybe get in 1.5 hours this week. about how much fitness do you loose in a down ez week. then next monday start up the training again with FINALLY some outside weekend longer rides, building up to my normal 10-12 hours a week. do you loose alot with an ez down week? thanks alot

 

The effects of detraining are variable and specific to you and the type of training you do. Some physiological adaptations are lost within days while other in weeks-months. In general performance can be enhanced with reduced training volume after a heavy training load. This is commonly referred to as super compensation. Again an adequate load that elicits adaptations without pushing you overboard, as well as the amount of rest needed to help you recover, is specific to you. It takes some trial and error to figure this combination out.

It's always good to err on the side of conservatism i.e more rest. If you find you are taking more rest than you need, you have the advantage of picking up the intensity because your legs will be fresh. On the other end of spectrum if you go to long without breaks you start digging yourself a hole that you're not aware of. Your performance will eventually decline and at this point the amount of rest you will need to recover will more than likely result in detraining/loss of fitness. A good rule of thumb is to take a break before you need/want one and let your body dictate when you're ready to take on another training block.