I currently ride 5 days a week with about 12-13 hours and debating moving to 6 days and get to a consistent 15 hours. Extra day would be strict mid Z2 (no more than 60-65% FTP) and sit between my 2 intensity days which I usually take a rest day in between. Is the juice worth the squeeze in others’ experience? I feel like I’m recovering OK from current volume but not sure if the extra Z2 ride is worth it or not.
For context, I have some long endurance events coming late summer which is why I’m considering adding a bit more volume as I build towards my main event.
Add the extra day, see how you feel about it in a month. Take notes on your rides. If you find yourself needing to cut it because another maximal gain (sleep, stress, diet, etc) is suffering, then cut it sooner.
A few years ago the big gain for me was going 6 to 5 days but maintaining the same volume.
I suspected that is the answer, but helpful to hear your anecdote. Was the challenge for you recovery on 6 days? I’ve been thinking about stretching my weekend rides to hit the 15 hours but it starts to be a very delicate balance because I need to wake up early to be ready for AM kids activities.
I am guilty of this trap all the time, but not every week needs to follow the same exact structure. For instance, if you are following a common 3 weeks on, 1 week recovery structure, you could try adding that 6th day on week 1 when you are fresher, skipping it on week 2, and add again on week 3 cause you know you have some recovery coming and just need to push through.
+1 on this. My approach for this kind of day is to get on the bike and go at a pace that feels pretty easy for 60-120 minutes. I basically let my rpe dictate the pace rather than planned watts. I always start easy and just let the legs take me to where they want to go. Sometimes that means it’s true Z1 recovery and I’ll stop at an hour. Sometimes, I’ll be 40 minutes in and I find wattage gradually increasing even as RPE is decreasing and I’ll knock out a couple hours at high Z2 (and fighting to keep wattage down).
Guilty as well, it’s great to be consistent but I’m trying to experiment this year by mixing things up a bit. It’s so hard when you’re a creature of routine and habit. One thing I’m going to try is stacking my interval days back to back (once ever month) rather than always having an easy day in between them. Will lose a little freshness for the intervals, but hopefully create some additional productive/unique stress.
I would add the extra day but keep it z1 /under 120 BPM for 60 mins.
You could start at 45 mins then increase to 60 if you’re worried.
That’s what I did years ago. Still do it to this day. Every Monday is super easy.
So a couple of points to consider, is more always better? How will you know either way before race day? Sounds like you’re doing a lot of strict z2 already.
Second, how much are you gaining from this rest day currently? Hard to say, but I’d suggest starting with 45mins z1 for the first four weeks or something.
The answer is usually “it depends” for stuff like this. No graph in TrainingPeaks or fancy AI engine is going to give you the answer, but they can help inform. I find it’s something you learn over time and experience. Even then, it’s hard to really know what parts of your training are hurting or helping even when it’s trending in the right direction.
For me, I generally find that more is better as long as I’m nailing my harder days and not running into signs of overextending myself. A lot of that is feel, but also tracking sleep quality, mood, RHR, HRV, etc. What I’ve found is that I can really pile it on and respond well during base season with very minimal rest, but when I get into more intense intervals I need to back off a little on the easy days to recover better. As far as performing when it’s time to race, ideally you are shedding fatigue in the weeks leading up to an important race.
It’s hard to argue against volume being a top driver of aerobic fitness. If I look at the top ~10 people in our club’s Strava rankings every week based on volume, they are more or less the strongest riders. There are always outliers, but that’s a very clear trend I see. I’d argue that very few amateurs ever get to a point where overall volume is putting them into an overtraining state. When I see amateurs struggling with fatigue or not seeing results with more hours, it’s typically the riders that are going out and pushing “kind of hard” all the time and have no discipline in their training.
Are you following a TR plan or doing self guided à la carte workouts? If following a plan (and trust the system) changing the plan to 6 days a week should adapt appropriately.
These are important questions. I think from a pure fitness perspective, more volume is better. Obviously that assumes you can recover from it but most well trained people can recover from 15 hours with 2 interval days.
For me, the biggest issue with eliminating rest days is the life stress it adds. When you’ve got a job, family, chores, sleep, etc etc to also fit in to your schedule then sometimes the extra day of training starts to take away more than it adds and I’m just overall more stressed and I don’t find it worth it.
As long as you’re recovering I see no harm doing an extra ~2hr easy ride. Try it for month or two and see how you feel!
Perhaps the biggest drawback can be the mental fatigue - if riding your bike starts to feel like a burden and affect the actual workouts then it’s a net negative. I personally train 6 times a week but try to mix in other activities at least once or twice per week just to avoid boredom and burnout.
From 20-ish years of coaching cross country I can tell you that the kids who come to practice every day and run more (many often do doubles) are better than those that don’t. (To a point and with the exception of a lazy super talent of course).
In college we all ran 6-7 days a week with doubles. But we had one very talented teammate who whenever he topped 35 mph we got hurt. So that’s where he stayed and took an extra day off a week. He wasn’t going to be better by doing more… he would be worse.
So more… in general is good… but not always. Add in that most here are probably not young 20’s with unlimited time. I guess what I am trying to say is, more is always more… til it isn’t. Gotta figure out what works best for you, physiologically, mental, and life stress. But like others have said, give it a try, you can always drop back to 5 if it doesn’t work out.
I wouldn’t increase your volume and frequency just yet, given when your long events are. I’d wait till sometime in late May or early June, and then make the move to more frequency and volume.
If you do go to 6 days a week, make your recovery week stick at 5 days. That’s what I do. I typically sit at maximum 15 hour weeks for about 2 months of the year leading up to my A event.
