Never mind recovery week. How about recovery days



kclw

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Mar 10, 2006
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First of all I believe recovery days are necessary. So if dissagree that is great but I am not going to change my mind.

My question is should a recovery day be active or passive?

Active recovery days are popular. Do they actually help with recovery or they something that was invented by bored pros?
 
kclw said:
First of all I believe recovery days are necessary. So if dissagree that is great but I am not going to change my mind.

My question is should a recovery day be active or passive?

Active recovery days are popular. Do they actually help with recovery or they something that was invented by bored pros?

I'm not scared....I'll jump in :D

I think it depends...as I've gotten older, I've found it to be better to do *something* on the bike on recovery days. Even if it's just pedaling 2 miles to the store and back.

If I don't do that, it's been my experience that the next day back into "real" training is almost wasted with my legs feeling like total **** unless I warm up for over an hour.

When I was younger, it didn't seem to matter as much. Then again, I could also stay out all night (almost) carousing and still recover by the next day to be basically functional :rolleyes:

I guess as you get older, you don't recover as fast...and maybe you don't "get back in the swing" as fast after taking time off either.

But, I'm not a coach or an exercise physiologist....YMMV
 
I do both.

The passive days mean a sleep-in for me and sleep is really important in recovery.
 
Lemond said that his coach Guimard said that you need to train the body to adapt to days completely off the bike ...so Guimard insisted his riders take one day off the bike each week...along with a least one recovery ride day each week.

Sounds kind of nutty but when you think about it I think there is truth there.

I do both and recommend both.

I do think active recovery can be best. Studies do say that active recovery can be best in some situations.
 
The problem I have seen regarding recovery days is that most cyclists have a very hard time riding slow and easy. If you can overcome this issue and ride easy a recovery ride is excellent. If you can't go easy then take the day off.
 
I think there is evidence that recovery rides do decrease recovery time. I know that personally I always feel better if I do one than if I don't ride at all. Having said that I still need to take a day completely off the bike at least every 2 weeks or so. For mental reasons if nothing else. Also, as someone else pointed out, depending on how busy I am, sometimes doing an hour recovery ride might mean sacrificing an hour of sleep. If this is the case, I think the extra sleep is more beneficial.

As for people who make their recovery rides too hard, this is something that I've never understood. Usually for me when a recovery day comes around, I feel crappy enough that I don't even remotely want to ride hard. My recovery rides are sometimes rediculously slow, like average power of 80 watts slow, and I've never once felt the desire to go harder during a recovery ride. Yet I've tried to do them with others before, and they always try to speed things up, or whine about how slow we're going when I try to lay down the law and force them to back off. This is for rides that were explicitly labeled beforehand as recovery rides. I just don't get it...
 
rr9876 said:
... I've tried to do them with others before, and they always try to speed things up, or whine about how slow we're going when I try to lay down the law and force them to back off. This is for rides that were explicitly labeled beforehand as recovery rides. I just don't get it...

We live in a society of more is better and no pain, no gain T shirts. Folks just don't get the concept that fitness actually comes during recovery, as a result of, but not during the hard workouts.

I used to train with a fast and dedicated group of racing cyclists and we'd agree on work days and active recovery rides. Trouble is we'd also get less fit folks along that got hammered and dropped on the fast days. Then a mutually agreed upon recovery day would come along and the off the back crowd always took this as their opportunity to get even or show their stuff by attacking. Given the competitive nature of cyclists, folks would respond and the easy day was out the window. I finally gave up and started riding alone on both the easy days and on hard days when I was targeting specific workouts. Group rides are fun, but large group rides rarely give you just what you need on either end of the intensity scale.
 
daveryanwyoming said:
We live in a society of more is better and no pain, no gain T shirts. Folks just don't get the concept that fitness actually comes during recovery, as a result of, but not during the hard workouts.

I used to train with a fast and dedicated group of racing cyclists and we'd agree on work days and active recovery rides. Trouble is we'd also get less fit folks along that got hammered and dropped on the fast days. Then a mutually agreed upon recovery day would come along and the off the back crowd always took this as their opportunity to get even or show their stuff by attacking. Given the competitive nature of cyclists, folks would respond and the easy day was out the window. I finally gave up and started riding alone on both the easy days and on hard days when I was targeting specific workouts. Group rides are fun, but large group rides rarely give you just what you need on either end of the intensity scale.
I take every Monday off the entire year and substitute a moderately paced 1-hr walk or so versus a very light spin on the bike. If nothing else gives certain 'areas' a break that they (in my case) often need :)

Sometimes I'll feel a little blocked on Tuesday but after a decent warmup I'm normally good to go.

But I will admit to hardly ever taking more than that single day off per week and a rest week only when the legs are continuously sore or work/illness intervenes.
 
Recovery days are great for catching up with the family, chores, bike cleaning & maintenance, sleep, reviewing training plans, marking the race calendar, etc. It'd be a horrible waste to be out taking my bike for a walk when I could be out walking with my family instead.
 
I have problems with winter recovery rides.

Doing a recovery ride in the summer when it is warm and nice is easy. But in the winter when you have to put on a dozen layer of clothes and head out in the dark, or worse hop on the trainner, I am inclined to skip the recovery rides.

I believe that recovery rides are nice but should be done only if they are easy and convient to do.
 
kclw said:
....I believe that recovery rides are nice but should be done only if they are easy and convient to do.
I agree with that philosophy, beyond physical recovery they should also provide mental recovery and as frenchyge points out a chance to catch up with the rest of life. If it's a daunting task to get all dressed up to go out into the cold I'd probably just skip it or go for an easy XC ski instead.

My work schedule has had me travelling more than I'd like this winter and I've found myself doing more block training as in 3 to 4 days on with 3 off. The off days usually coincide with business trips or travel days and I don't get on the bike at all. My FTP keeps climbing on this schedule so I'm pretty happy with it. Come summer and races I'll probably take more easy spin days but those can be fun when it's warm and sunny.
 
kclw said:
Active recovery days are popular. Do they actually help with recovery or they something that was invented by bored pros?
If I am sore, I am always better off recovering actively. It gets the legs moving and brings blood to hurting areas.

If I'm just mentally frapped but physically OK, I can go either way depending upon what I feel like and how pressed for time I am.
 
daveryanwyoming said:
I agree with that philosophy, beyond physical recovery they should also provide mental recovery and as frenchyge points out a chance to catch up with the rest of life. If it's a daunting task to get all dressed up to go out into the cold I'd probably just skip it or go for an easy XC ski instead.

My work schedule has had me travelling more than I'd like this winter and I've found myself doing more block training as in 3 to 4 days on with 3 off. The off days usually coincide with business trips or travel days and I don't get on the bike at all. My FTP keeps climbing on this schedule so I'm pretty happy with it. Come summer and races I'll probably take more easy spin days but those can be fun when it's warm and sunny.
"An easy XC ski" that is a phrase that is not part of my vocabulary. :)

My wife this year has gone from trainning 6 days a week to 5. Due to work she doesn't have time to do a recovery ride. She was initially quite concerned about this but has found the interval sessions after her off days go really well.

Like you she has seen quite an improvement in FTP, it has gone from 4.4 watts/kg to 4.9 watts/kg. Quite an improvement in a short period of time (although part of this improvement is due to some weight loss).
 
kclw said:
"An easy XC ski" that is a phrase that is not part of my vocabulary. :)
I can't skate ski and call it recovery, but some easy flat classic skiing, now that's relaxing, doesn't get my HR up and leaves my legs feeling better for the effort.

..she has seen quite an improvement in FTP, it has gone from 4.4 watts/kg to 4.9 watts/kg. Quite an improvement in a short period of time ....
Dang, that's impressive! At 4.9 watts/kg she must be rippin' it up! According to Andy and Hunter's table that puts her solidly into the domestic pros. Very nice!
 
daveryanwyoming said:
I can't skate ski and call it recovery, but some easy flat classic skiing, now that's relaxing, doesn't get my HR up and leaves my legs feeling better for the effort.

Dang, that's impressive! At 4.9 watts/kg she must be rippin' it up! According to Andy and Hunter's table that puts her solidly into the domestic pros. Very nice!
She is very fast, very few guys can climb with her. But remember absolute wattage does to a certain extent trump watts/kg. If you are 50kg and have a threshold of 250, you are going going to beat by a 70kg rider with a threshold of 330.