No rest for the wicked



bikefuego

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Feb 4, 2006
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I've noticed that some of the coaches and knowledgable riders on this forum often hint that they don't believe in prescibing rest weeks. For anyone fitting into this category, could you explain your thought process on this?
 
It's not very scientific, but here's my thought process:
1) life throws enough breaks into my training plan that actually planning additional rest would be counter-productive.
2) using TSS, it's possible to manage the workload at a level which can be sustained for weeks on end without fear of overtraining.
3) At less than ~12 hrs/wk, I don't really have enough training time to overtrain in the first place, so there's no need for planned rest.
4) See #1 again.
 
It's also worth bearing in mind that a rest day (or 2 or 3..) may be inicated when you can not get into the prescribed power zone for the day and as such need not be planned in advance.

In many cases athletes may end up taking a planned rest week when it is not indicated and hence missing a good opportunity to increase fitness. Vice versa one may need a rest day/days before the planned week for whatever reason.

Careful monitoring of day to day performance and TSS means we can be more accurate in taking rest.
 
If I could be the contrarian, tracking TSS and watching test outputs helps some KNOW when rest is needed, and when after that rest peak performances occur.

A rest 'week' might be 3 days off and 2 days easy before a weekend stage race. It might also be 2 weeks of unstructured training after a large accumulation of stress.

IMHO, if you don't need a recovery period (3 days, 1 week, whatever) you probably aren't training hard enough.
 
Spunout said:
If I could be the contrarian, tracking TSS and watching test outputs helps some KNOW when rest is needed, and when after that rest peak performances occur.

A rest 'week' might be 3 days off and 2 days easy before a weekend stage race. It might also be 2 weeks of unstructured training after a large accumulation of stress.

IMHO, if you don't need a recovery period (3 days, 1 week, whatever) you probably aren't training hard enough.

I disagree.. it has been shown that 100TSS / day is tolerable for most people and this represents (when you add a longer weeknd ride followed by a rest day) a pretty good weekly TSS.

What you describe is a "taper" and not a rest week - it is planned to allow recovery and then peak and not "required" due to excess fatigue.

My point is that a planned rest week is hit and miss as it is very difficult to anticipate how you respond to the cumulative training load - and indeed not many people track this metric at present. It is also to consider recovery rate - does everyone need a week or maybe a day or two ?
 
bikefuego said:
I've noticed that some of the coaches and knowledgable riders on this forum often hint that they don't believe in prescibing rest weeks. For anyone fitting into this category, could you explain your thought process on this?

I coach and prescribe plenty of rest. My riders always have rest weeks or months after major events and when the riding bug bites them they zip back into it.

With the new performance manager in Cycling Peaks I will be able to illustrate to those how a rest week will benefit them physically. Pity it can't tap into the mental energy that is far more difficult to manage!

Hamish Ferguson
Cycling Coach
 
bikefuego said:
I've noticed that some of the coaches and knowledgable riders on this forum often hint that they don't believe in prescibing rest weeks. For anyone fitting into this category, could you explain your thought process on this?
First, rest week is a concept that is not well understood. I don't think its definition, and its usefullness is described the same way from rider to rider.

In my opinion, this trend will change with the release of Performance Manager system. Cause for the first time, power people will be able to monitor chronical improvement, accumulated fatigue, and Form over longer periods. I wouldn't be surprised that in a year from now, people will be posting questions on how to compose a mesocycle, as often as they are currently posting questions on how to compose a session.

Finally I agree with Frenchyge that the age group riders may instead match their rest week with (family, social and alike) obligations that would keep them away from their bike anyway.
 
Does anyone out there have an opposing opinion on this? Last year (off season) was the first year that I incorporated rest weeks during base and build cycles (really 5 days of a combination of complete rest and active recovery days followed by a testing day and then another active recovery day before starting the next training week) and I saw huge gains in my FTP (55w). Soon after the race season started, I ceased my rest weeks (but had plenty of taper weeks) and my forward progression at FTP quickly slowed and eventually stopped moving forward. I may have had some improvements through the rest of the season but nothing like I did when I was doing 3 week builds followed by a rest week. I'm not sure if I should attribute this to the rest or to the fact that my training focus switched from L2-4 to L4-7. What do you guys think?
 
A lot depends on what you mean by 'rest week.' Did you not touch the bike at all? Only do easy, active recovery-paced rides? etc.

I currently take a rest week every 4-6 weeks. This sometimes is more of a taper, but usually consists of reduced volume (-10-15%) and easier, less-structured rides (fewer or no intervals.) I find this helps mentally as well as physically. (fwiw, I train between 12-16 hrs/week, race most weekends, and *rarely* miss workouts. I've completed >95% of scheduled workouts since November.)

Personally, I also made significant FT gains in the transition/ winter season, roughly double what I have made since the race season began in February. One simple reason may be that I am reaching my genetic ceiling and FT progress is slower. (although I'd be quite happy to make similar gains in the upcoming transition season ;) )
 
peterpen said:
A lot depends on what you mean by 'rest week.' Did you not touch the bike at all? Only do easy, active recovery-paced rides? etc.

I currently take a rest week every 4-6 weeks. This sometimes is more of a taper, but usually consists of reduced volume (-10-15%) and easier, less-structured rides (fewer or no intervals.) I find this helps mentally as well as physically. (fwiw, I train between 12-16 hrs/week, race most weekends, and *rarely* miss workouts. I've completed >95% of scheduled workouts since November.)

Personally, I also made significant FT gains in the transition/ winter season, roughly double what I have made since the race season began in February. One simple reason may be that I am reaching my genetic ceiling and FT progress is slower. (although I'd be quite happy to make similar gains in the upcoming transition season ;) )
I tried to describe the rest week above, but I may not have laid it out in a way that was easy to see/understand, but I basically use:

Mon off
Tues L1 1 hr
Wed L1/L2 1.5 hr
Thurs off or L1 1 hr
Fri L1 1hr
Sat Testing 1.5 hrs
Sun L1 or L2 2 hrs

My TSS will usually drop significantly from 750-950 down to about 300 for the rest week.
It sounds like we have had similar experience in terms of most improvement in the non-racing part of the season. My rest weeks during the season appear similar to yours as well as my training volume and race frequency with my gains decreasing in improvement starting in February.
 
bikefuego said:
Does anyone out there have an opposing opinion on this? Last year (off season) was the first year that I incorporated rest weeks during base and build cycles (really 5 days of a combination of complete rest and active recovery days followed by a testing day and then another active recovery day before starting the next training week) and I saw huge gains in my FTP (55w). Soon after the race season started, I ceased my rest weeks (but had plenty of taper weeks) and my forward progression at FTP quickly slowed and eventually stopped moving forward. I may have had some improvements through the rest of the season but nothing like I did when I was doing 3 week builds followed by a rest week. I'm not sure if I should attribute this to the rest or to the fact that my training focus switched from L2-4 to L4-7. What do you guys think?

It is always going to be hard to increase fitness once race season starts - if you play with one of the spreadhseets predicting TSB you can demonstrate this. If you are trying to avoid racing with a heavily negative TSB then a few days rest may be necessary prior to the race (or a fuller taper if important) and as such CTL will level off (hence so will FTP growth)

Don't get me wrong - rest is key, I am just advocating the principle that it need not be pre planned (although with PM it is easier to plan it to a degree now) and it need not be a "week" every time.
 
bikefuego said:
I may have had some improvements through the rest of the season but nothing like I did when I was doing 3 week builds followed by a rest week.
If you're planning to get the new version of WKO+, how about plugging those months into the PM chart and telling us what you CTL was doing during that time. Were you still able to maintain a rising CTL week-on-week with a 3-on / 1-off routine, or did CTL flatten out during that period?
 
frenchyge said:
If you're planning to get the new version of WKO+, how about plugging those months into the PM chart and telling us what you CTL was doing during that time. Were you still able to maintain a rising CTL week-on-week with a 3-on / 1-off routine, or did CTL flatten out during that period?
I may do that eventually, but I still haven't purchased the new software and I'm using an older PC without internet hookup or easily transferable files (my main computer is an Apple without Virtual PC). Currently, for off-season training I'm just tracking TSS, miles, kJ and hours on a weekly bar chart so I can see an increase for 3-4 weeks followed by a rest week. I'd love to see data from anyone else who's tracking their CTL as you've described, though.
 
bikefuego said:
I may do that eventually, but I still haven't purchased the new software and I'm using an older PC without internet hookup or easily transferable files (my main computer is an Apple without Virtual PC). Currently, for off-season training I'm just tracking TSS, miles, kJ and hours on a weekly bar chart so I can see an increase for 3-4 weeks followed by a rest week. I'd love to see data from anyone else who's tracking their CTL as you've described, though.

PM me with your e-mail addres and Ill gladly send you my data.
 
I know Hunter doesn't usually chime in except to talk about software, but I'd be curious to hear his take on this since he prescibes rest weeks similar to the one I've described above (minus the testing) in his workouts.
 
bikefuego said:
I've noticed that some of the coaches and knowledgable riders on this forum often hint that they don't believe in prescibing rest weeks. For anyone fitting into this category, could you explain your thought process on this?

Planned rest weeks? Virtually all of mine are in September and October-during the transition from racing season to beginning the next season of training.

Rest weeks with only a minimum of stress tends towards detraining, or loss of the sharpness that is ready for more stress. Similar to the way we benefit from doing some small efforts of a certain type to prepare ourselves for hard efforts of a certain type on the following day.

Understand the needed rest periods for each of the many types of training stress you undertake-they are not all the same. Using this you can keep the strain/stress of each type of training within limits that you can tolerate for many, many consecutive weeks.

For example, if you do a very hard session of some type of training stimulus that typically needs 5-8 days for supercompensation, and you do that training more frequently than that period, you will likely accumulate too much stress in that area and you'll need some extra time (more rest) to recover well enough to be ready for more of that type of stimulus.

Even though you might need a few extra days to recover from that one type of stimulus you can probably still do some hard training with a different type of stimulus.
 
I saw on another thead that one of the coaches on this board prescibes about 100 TSS per day for his riders and says that is the normal level most riders can continually handle. Out of curiosity, I went back and looked at my long term TSS and low and behold, if I divide my total, whether it be by month or several months, it's always around 100 per day no matter when or how I combine training and rest. For example, my last five weeks were 690, 740, 855, 930 and 350, averaging (drum roll please...) 713/ week or 102 per day. My total days of using my powertap is 182 with a total TSS of 18,012 = 99 per day.
 
fergie said:
With the new performance manager in Cycling Peaks I will be able to illustrate to those how a rest week will benefit them physically.

Actually, I think it will illustrate the opposite (unless you're talking about a taper from a high CTL to bump up TSB).

I think that rest weeks are something thrown in ( in pre Performance Manager days) to keep TSB from going too far negative and to keep the CTL ramp rate under control.

I also think that the top coaches who use PerfMan and still prescribe rest weeks do so more for mental reasons rather than anything physical.

With PerfMan, it's now possible for even us nitwits to see where we are and keep plogging along with no rest weeks without risk of severe over reaching.
 
beerco said:
Actually, I think it will illustrate the opposite (unless you're talking about a taper from a high CTL to bump up TSB).

I think that rest weeks are something thrown in ( in pre Performance Manager days) to keep TSB from going too far negative and to keep the CTL ramp rate under control.

I also think that the top coaches who use PerfMan and still prescribe rest weeks do so more for mental reasons rather than anything physical.

With PerfMan, it's now possible for even us nitwits to see where we are and keep plogging along with no rest weeks without risk of severe over reaching.
I have always thought that the point of rest weeks (days, minutes) was to allow you to go harder the other weeks than you could with all weeks equal. - TF
 

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