All professional cyclists take a short ride of 1 to 2hours as a part of their active recovery. Nevertheless, I guess 87% of all non-professionals would perform better without recovery rides. Eliminating recovery rides might be your key to more success.
Recovery training for cyclists
Recovery rides are often described as low intensity rides with <60% maximum heart rate using small gears only. These training sessions typical last 1to 2hours.
Welltrained cyclists should consider a low intensity recovery ride the day after a hard race instead of a complete day without cycling. These rides does not require much recovery themselves and might actually improve your recovery from previous training sessions or races. That’s interesting, but we don’t know exactly how recovery rides impact on each individual. Some riders think it works, other riders don’t.
An important issue: How good is your fitness? If you are in good condition, you are more likely to be among the riders who can benefit from these rides.
Back to the heading: How can eliminating recovery rides improve performance? Let’s turn this question around and consider the following:
What will happen if you skip recovery rides?
Better recovery (maybe) – A common problem is that recovery rides are too long and intensive compared to actual fitness. Many riders will be surprised that recovery rides actually not help them the way they think/hope it helps them.
Thus, skipping recovery rides may actually improve recovery process and make you more fit for the next training session.
Better focus – Instead of training each and every day, having days off the bike is good for your motivation and helps you to maintain focus at your important training and race days.
Better performance – When your legs are fresh and your brain is focused, you can train harder and deliver a higher performance. This will help you to achieve a higher level of performance and make you win more races.
Remember, just because professionals and elite riders can benefit from 1 to 2hours training with low intensity doesn’t guarentee that the you can do the same. There is only one way to find out what works best for you. Trial and error.
Questions to the readers
What works best for you? Recovery rides or not? Post a comment and share your experiences with the rest of us.
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{ 13 comments… read them below or add one }
I think I do better with a recovery ride, a real recovery ride though, 14 mph < 150 watts around 1 hour or less. I like to do them on the trainer so I don't get tempted to go to hard up hills or get enticed into chasing someone down. I've been to some team "recovery" rides where if I go back to them I will have to taper and go into fresh.
hey.
I agree with you statements and think that “regular” (non-professional) cyclists like most people do not benefit from recovery rides with a duration of 1 – 2 hours.
Some training goods recommend such recovery sessions for a maximum of 20min in the evening after hard trainings as well and I can say that this methode does not work with me and I do not feel as good the next day as I would have spent those 20min on the sofa watching TV.
However I think that such recoery rides of let´s say 1 hour with an intensity of less than 60 % are worth and good for you between two days of hard intervalls. As an example I state your 12 week winter program: Hard intervalls are on tuesday and thursday with a GA1 (duration increases with time) ride on wednesday. I do better with a lower intensity on wednesday (less than 60 %) or even with that day off than performing 1 hour with an intensity within the GA1 area.
I found out that quality and intensity is worth more than time spent on the bike. Therefore, focosing on the 2 days with intervalls and performing this rides with great focus makes me faster even with less time spent on the bike.
Excited to hear more about that.
Greetings from vienna.
Stefan
Very inspiring post. I guess I’m in the group who train too hard on recovery days.
Maybe a reduction in time would help?
My belief, supported by my experience and the experience of those I coach, is that most riders go too hard on their “easy” days, meaning recovery days, and therefore use vital energy that prevents them from the quality they might otherwise do on their hard days.
I have found that limiting my recovery days to 30-60 mins, at a higher cadence and lower resistance, has allowed me to perform more work of a higher quality on my hard days. As for heart rate, I stay below Zone 1 and usually will do recovery rides alone to avoid being tempted to go harder than I choose.
can you tell me is it good to train in rain or not and should in hours or train distance with is better thank you dave
With regard to training in the rain: If you will be racing in the rain you will benefit by training in the rain, because you will learn some of the differences between the two conditions, and will develop the confidence and mental advantage to be less affected by the rain when you race.
That being said, if you train in the rain, I recommend you ensure that you keep your core warm and especially protect your legs and knees. I strongly recommend having your knees covered in temps below 20 deg C.
when i,m training should i do my training to hours trained or to distance trained thank you dave
When training, the use of distance is not a very good indicator. For example, if I ride a long descent for say 30 minutes, perhaps pedaling not too hard, I might easily cover 25 km. If I turn around after the 25 km descent and ride back to the start it will take be much longer, therefore using distance can be misleading. The same occurs with wind conditions or terrain.
Time is a better measure for training, but still lacks unless the time also speaks to intensity. And intensity can be misleading as 50 km that contains say 5 intervals of 6-8 minutes, with full recovery between each, is a much different training load than 50 km of steady state endurance.
Perhaps the optimum is a combination of time, intensity, and volume of work. If you train with power you might for instance do an endurance workout of say two hours at 200W with an average heart equal to 70% of threshold heart rate, and do 1500 kJoules of work (approximately).
But back to your question of distance vs time-time is a more valuable metric.
thank you for your help in my coment to you and how quick you wear getting back to me thanks dave
Could you point me to the relevant peer-reviewed studies that showed 87% of all non-professional riders would perform better by taking the time off the bike instead of doing recovery rides?
Jim
@Jim
Thanks for commenting. It’s just a guess and the number is taken out of the blue. It was meant to be a discussion starter but for some reasons you are the first to ask that highly relevant question: Where did that number come from?
It was not my intention to make people believe it was a result from a scientific study. I’ve added a ‘I guess’ to the article.
Best regards,
Jesper
Jesper,
I ride with power and have coached several people with power for the past few years. One trend that I have noticed is that the athletes that have less time to train, and train harder to get the fitness level needed to attain their goals to compensate, can not hold the peak fitness as long as the athletes that have a lower overall intensity for the season. I completely understand about needing to make the most of available time and we all have limited time. However, when one trains hard all the time and does not do any easy rides, I believe they start to experience something I like to call the “Whipped Dog” syndrome. You know, this is where every time you call a dog, you smack him in the nose with a paper? How often do you think he will keep coming when called? I think that pushing the pedals every time you throw a leg over the bike causes this type of reaction, as well. From what I have experienced, the higher intensity riding with no easy rides will create more mental fatigue in the long run, which will have an impact on how long one will be able to train at a high enough level to keep a decent level of fitness. Obviously, everyone has to find the right mix of intensity and volume to suit their needs.
Jim
Jim,
I agree that those with limited time often try to optimize their performance by making a great % of their training higher intensity. I too that this can result in mental fatigue and everyone has to find the right “mix”.
My feeling is that more intensity can be handled physically and mentally if a proper base is created. The concept of periodization does allow for some intensity year round, but I don’t believe there is a great deal of support by coaches for having a considerable amount of intensity all year long.
Further to this are the discussions regarding recovery, which is even more important if the training program is predominantly intensity rather than a balance of volume and intensity. I believe that if an athlete is committed to a regimen of high intensity year round. recovery becomes critical.