Two hard days in a row

Trev The Rev

If you feel good the day after a hard day should you go ahead and have another hard day or stick to a recovery ride?

I know it is not black and white but I'm interested in peoples opinions.

danowat

Have done plenty of back to back hard days, quite normal to ride a 10 on the saturday and a 25 on the sunday, doesn't seem to have too much of an adverse affect, obviously not a good idea to do it all the time, you still need the recovery somewhere.

Lightning

What are you doing the following day? I sometimes do up to 3 hard days in a row (knowing I'll have a recovery day afterwards and that it will be enough to recover me for training the next day), but I wouldn't do this if the effort stopped me from training properly (or wasting too much time recovering).

In my opinion, just listen to your body and plan accordingly. You don't have to do a recovery ride just because you had a hard day yesterday if you feel fine today. And you don't need to kill yourself because you feel fine either. Training in a way that lets you keep training until your next rest day is what I'd do. If that has to be a recovery ride, so be it (and reschedule the rest day).

ShutUpLegs

Trev The Rev wrote:

If you feel good the day after a hard day should you go ahead and have another hard day or stick to a recovery ride?

You probably weren't working hard enough then

okgo

Depends how you feel I guess.

I've done a few TT's then races the next day. Not long ago I did a TT Saturday, then Sunday morning did a TT then a road race in the afternoon. My legs were pretty tired by the end but it was certainly possible.

bompington

You do realise that going out twice doubles your risk of being killed or seriously injured compared to going out once, don't you?

Trev The Rev

bompington wrote:

You do realise that going out twice doubles your risk of being killed or seriously injured compared to going out once, don't you?

Cycling is incredibly safe, so safe I never wear a helmet.

Tom Dean

Stick to the plan. (you have a plan, right? )

I would think anyone doing a decent amount of training would have to do back to back solid days sometimes. It depends how hard you mean by hard though I guess.

Trev The Rev

Tom Dean wrote:

Stick to the plan. (you have a plan, right? )

I would think anyone doing a decent amount of training would have to do back to back solid days sometimes. It depends how hard you mean by hard though I guess.

I'm interested in what others views are - in my opinion it depends on how the body has responded. I'm particularly interested in how people decide when it is best to only do a recovery ride.

jibberjim

Tom Dean wrote:

Stick to the plan. (you have a plan, right? )

Surely it makes much more sense to not stick to the plan, but to adapt your workout to current fatigue and fitness - sticking to a plan would either under train or over train you if it's not appropriate to your current level of fitness and fatigue.

Multiple hard days are very common for me, I respond positively to them (as in produce more power on the 4th day than I would've on the first...) obviously it will depend on what you mean by a hard day.

Trev The Rev

jibberjim wrote:

Tom Dean wrote:

Stick to the plan. (you have a plan, right? )

Surely it makes much more sense to not stick to the plan, but to adapt your workout to current fatigue and fitness - sticking to a plan would either under train or over train you if it's not appropriate to your current level of fitness and fatigue.

Multiple hard days are very common for me, I respond positively to them (as in produce more power on the 4th day than I would've on the first...) obviously it will depend on what you mean by a hard day.

If you produce more power on the 4th day on top of 3 hard days I think we need to draw Dave Brailsford's attention to you so he can get the boffins to work on you.

Tom Dean

jibberjim wrote:

Tom Dean wrote:

Stick to the plan. (you have a plan, right? )

Surely it makes much more sense to not stick to the plan, but to adapt your workout to current fatigue and fitness -

It depends how good your plan is! You should always be prepared to adapt your plan. If you can shove in another hard session and get away with it I would suggest the plan was too easy.

I would pay more attention to how my legs felt during workouts than how they felt when I got up in the morning. I don't know how reliable those sensations are.

Herbsman

Trev The Rev wrote:

If you feel good the day after a hard day should you go ahead and have another hard day or stick to a recovery ride?

What does your body tell you?

ShutUpLegs

Herbsman wrote:

Trev The Rev wrote:

If you feel good the day after a hard day should you go ahead and have another hard day or stick to a recovery ride?

What does your body tell you?

I suppose he said a hard day, not a very hard day or very very hard day.

ju5t1n

Because the majority of us work Monday to Friday, two hard days in a row is pretty common. It’s most weekends for me

bigpikle

no need to take an easy day unless you think you wont be able to effectively complete a high quality session that day, or it might leave you too fatigued for important sessions in the days following. Thats why its important to understand what your key priority sessions are in your plan and make sure you are sufficiently rested to be able to do those fully.

SBezza

Why do you think you would need a recovery day after 1 hard session? Are you normally so fatigued that you need a recovery day after 1 hard session?

FWIW I would do a few very hard days in a row from time to time, it really depends on what events are coming up, how I am feeling, how I am recovering etc. Training needs to overload the body for adaptions to take place, you might find 1 session will not likely overload the body much, and would need several days of progressive overload. You also need to can sessions if you are just too fatigued to complete them, and accept you might need a recovery day. A plan is just that, it may well need to be adjusted based on how you feel, lots of outside influences will affect your recovery from sessions, and these are not normally planned, so you need to be flexible.

Herbsman

In other words, listen to your body!

Alex_Simmons/RST

Trev The Rev wrote:

jibberjim wrote:

Tom Dean wrote:

Stick to the plan. (you have a plan, right? )

Surely it makes much more sense to not stick to the plan, but to adapt your workout to current fatigue and fitness - sticking to a plan would either under train or over train you if it's not appropriate to your current level of fitness and fatigue.

Multiple hard days are very common for me, I respond positively to them (as in produce more power on the 4th day than I would've on the first...) obviously it will depend on what you mean by a hard day.

If you produce more power on the 4th day on top of 3 hard days I think we need to draw Dave Brailsford's attention to you so he can get the boffins to work on you.

I have seen this before.

Indeed I have set PBs after multiple hard days.
Some people respond really well to a hard day before a race.

The are multiple factors at play however.

Whether or not you should have two hard days in a row depends on the the totality of your training plan and objectives.

One day does not a training plan make or break.

Trev The Rev

Interesting, what sort of events? I assume we are looking at longer events rather than shorter events.

jibberjim

Trev The Rev wrote:

Interesting, what sort of events? I assume we are looking at longer events rather than shorter events.

5 minute + durations for sure.

I have pretty low anaerobic capacity anyway (although the very short duration is good but that doesn't seem to vary much ever regardless of previous days efforts) so I think the boost that the Anaerobic gets from rest simply isn't sufficient to outweigh whatever positive gains I get from the recent days of aerobic efforts.

Trev The Rev

Personally I go entirely on 'feel'. I probably favour more rest & recovery than many, but that is allied to extremely hard sessions on hard days. I often do two very hard days back to back but find on the third day I have little left, (not just cycling, same with me in other sports), I have found that more progress is made with rest & full recovery before a second very hard day. Not just me but others I have worked with (not cycling though). In the long run you get in more very hard sessions. But, and a big but, it all depends on the available days.

I have a gut feeling many cyclists would improve more if they allowed adequate rest and recovery, which may seem to them like too much rest & recovery. The other side of my coin is going really very hard, probably harder than most on the hard days. But it does depend on the athlete.

I also feel many race too much which limits their progress.

okgo

Your theory's can be proved wrong on every level by many people. Not everyone is the same, I think its almost as simple as that. I couldn't ride for day after day hard like Jim, or another couple of guys we ride with (one did 50 miles of hills in the morning then pb'd a 25 in the afternoon in circa 54 mins), and likewise those people might find it hard to improve or stay in good fitness by having a slightly more rest rich routine like I do. Sure there will be a balance there which would ensure you were right at the very limit of your potential, but unless you're being paid to do it, its probably not worth losing too much sleep over it.

I think its important to try these things though, I did 2 weeks of riding with no rest day and I was done in by the end, but a few days off and I came back stronger I think, but I certainly couldn't ride another 5 hours a week more than I do now and hope to put in any kind of performance near the end of the week like some I ride with.

Trev The Rev

okgo wrote:

Your theory's can be proved wrong on every level by many people. Not everyone is the same, I think its almost as simple as that. I couldn't ride for day after day hard like Jim, or another couple of guys we ride with (one did 50 miles of hills in the morning then pb'd a 25 in the afternoon in circa 54 mins), and likewise those people might find it hard to improve or stay in good fitness by having a slightly more rest rich routine like I do. Sure there will be a balance there which would ensure you were right at the very limit of your potential, but unless you're being paid to do it, its probably not worth losing too much sleep over it.

I think its important to try these things though, I did 2 weeks of riding with no rest day and I was done in by the end, but a few days off and I came back stronger I think, but I certainly couldn't ride another 5 hours a week more than I do now and hope to put in any kind of performance near the end of the week like some I ride with.

I think we are all agreed it depends on the rider, how hard 'hard' is, their level of fitness, genetics, age, diet, general health, time of year, stress levels, so many factors.

I perhaps err towards more rest & recovery than most. I would argue that your mate would have gone quicker if he had not done 50 miles of hills but done only 20 minutes easy in the morning.

As I said I'm interested in what other people have found works for them.

SBezza

okgo wrote:

I think its important to try these things though, I did 2 weeks of riding with no rest day and I was done in by the end, but a few days off and I came back stronger I think, but I certainly couldn't ride another 5 hours a week more than I do now and hope to put in any kind of performance near the end of the week like some I ride with.

Thing is I could quite happily ride everyday for a month without too much worry, whether it is the best for me is a completely different story. You need to get rest to get the best adaptions and not just rest when you feel you can't go on, that is a surefire way to become overtrained and ill. Also at the end of the 2 weeks, you might have been doing training that was very substandard, and just tiring yourself out for very little gain. With additional rest days, you might have come back even stronger than you did, or been able to do better quality training after the rest. Fatigue from training comes in at least 2 forms, first is most obvious with you being tired and having legs that hurt/ache, the other is a more deep down tiredness, that will slowly creep up and then hit you, and it may not manifest itself with aching legs etc, you will just have substandard power for unknown reasons.

Doing very hard training a few days in a row is not an issue for a fit rider, but if you continued to do hard riding day in day out, you would likely stagnate very quickly, there is a fine line between sufficient overload and just overtraining. I guess it depends on what riding you were doing however, I ride virtually everyday but not all days are that hard and some days will be very easy potters to work and back.

You need to think about other stresses in life as well, these all affect the bodies ability to recover, lack of sleep, work related stress, family life stresses, poor diet etc all add a burden to your body that is not measurable. I have done superb races when I felt quite tired, but also shocking races when I have felt quite fresh so it can be a bit of a minefield to be honest.

Trev The Rev

SBezza wrote:

okgo wrote:

I think its important to try these things though, I did 2 weeks of riding with no rest day and I was done in by the end, but a few days off and I came back stronger I think, but I certainly couldn't ride another 5 hours a week more than I do now and hope to put in any kind of performance near the end of the week like some I ride with.

Thing is I could quite happily ride everyday for a month without too much worry, whether it is the best for me is a completely different story. You need to get rest to get the best adaptions and not just rest when you feel you can't go on, that is a surefire way to become overtrained and ill. Also at the end of the 2 weeks, you might have been doing training that was very substandard, and just tiring yourself out for very little gain. With additional rest days, you might have come back even stronger than you did, or been able to do better quality training after the rest. Fatigue from training comes in at least 2 forms, first is most obvious with you being tired and having legs that hurt/ache, the other is a more deep down tiredness, that will slowly creep up and then hit you, and it may not manifest itself with aching legs etc, you will just have substandard power for unknown reasons.

Doing very hard training a few days in a row is not an issue for a fit rider, but if you continued to do hard riding day in day out, you would likely stagnate very quickly, there is a fine line between sufficient overload and just overtraining. I guess it depends on what riding you were doing however, I ride virtually everyday but not all days are that hard and some days will be very easy potters to work and back.

You need to think about other stresses in life as well, these all affect the bodies ability to recover, lack of sleep, work related stress, family life stresses, poor diet etc all add a burden to your body that is not measurable. I have done superb races when I felt quite tired, but also shocking races when I have felt quite fresh so it can be a bit of a minefield to be honest.

Exactly. Very good post.

markos1963

I found this year that riding hard several days in a row before any rest or recovery had a big positive effect on me. My commute is 18 miles each way and I ride it as hard as I can, usually doing 15 miles of it at threashold. I then find I am able to race in the evening at a club10TT much better with little warm up and have managed to knock off 90s from my PB.

Trev The Rev

markos1963 wrote:

I found this year that riding hard several days in a row before any rest or recovery had a big positive effect on me. My commute is 18 miles each way and I ride it as hard as I can, usually doing 15 miles of it at threashold. I then find I am able to race in the evening at a club10TT much better with little warm up and have managed to knock off 90s from my PB.

Over on the other thread you said you need to make a real effort to make a breakthrough and get competitive. I don't know your background but on the miles you are doing you should be competitive already. Have you considered you might be going even better by interspersing more easy days / recovery days between the hard days but keeping up the volume of 'hard' efforts?

okgo

There are many people that ride 15+ miles each way to work and back every day who are not fit enough to be competitive (depending on your definition of that word) in races/tt's...

Yes agree with your post Steve, part of the reason I have to be mindful is that I commute around 30-35 mi per day maybe 4 times a week and even taking it super easy does still slow recovery hugely IMO. But I'm not willing to pay for the train so there we are

Trev The Rev

Trev The Rev wrote:

markos1963 wrote:

I found this year that riding hard several days in a row before any rest or recovery had a big positive effect on me. My commute is 18 miles each way and I ride it as hard as I can, usually doing 15 miles of it at threashold. I then find I am able to race in the evening at a club10TT much better with little warm up and have managed to knock off 90s from my PB.

Over on the other thread you said you need to make a real effort to make a breakthrough and get competitive. I don't know your background but on the miles you are doing you should be competitive already. Have you considered you might be going even better by interspersing more easy days / recovery days between the hard days but keeping up the volume of 'hard' efforts?

SBezza

okgo wrote:

I'm not willing to pay for the train so there we are

Totally agree there, I cycle to work because I don't want to travel on public transport.