I have been doing TR workouts since last November. Three workouts each week between November and March, and two workouts each week between April and now. I have been making steady progress during this 9-month period. Starting three weeks ago I started failing to complete a workout. I took a week off (no biking) and tried a workout today and again I failed to complete.
I am not a racer. Just a club rider trying to get faster. I am in my 60’s, and I wonder if 8 months of continuous training finally reels me in. One of the mistakes I realize is that I didn’t have any recovery weeks in this period. There is at least one interval every week in the last 9 months.
I suppose I need a break. What would be the process of knowing I am ready for training again?
If you have to ask this question then the answer is likely yes
Take a couple weeks off and restart with base training, when you build out a new season or training plan it will be helpful to include a target event, even if it’s fake, which will set you up to build and taper to a peak, which naturally leads to a break period
Have you been using plan builder and/or the training plan blocks to plan out your TR workouts? If so, there are endurance weeks built into them (which are meant to facilitate recovery). Those weeks don’t have interval workouts built into them, yet you mentioned EVERY week having at least one interval workout?
Have you been removing those weeks from your plan, or are you saying that’s not enough to help you recover?
I used the plan builder during the winter months. There were three phases (6-6-8 weeks) and I skipped two of the recovery weeks (out of 3). So essentially only one recovery week in the last 9 months.
In the spring and summer I built my own plan. There weren’t any recovery weeks in it.
Skipping recovery weeks is not a good idea. Masters athletes, if anything, need more recovery. 3 weeks on, one week off would be the minimum you should build in. It’s individual, but for someone in there 60’s, two weeks on, one week off is not unheard of. During the recovery weeks you body will heal and not only will you come back stronger, but you will be able to train harder to make better gains in the long run.
Do you have some idea why you failed?
I’m 72
I find if I lose my freshness it is overtraining.
If it’s not wanting to do a certain workout, it is probably a motivation issue.
Overtraining is extreme and takes years to recover from. I don’t think that’s what’s going on here, yet. But we all need to de-train at least once per year (even twice), even if we’re not overtrained. Definitely plan in some breaks from interval training, as others have mentioned.
Our legs can feel flat when we come back from these breaks, though, and that might be what you’re experiencing after the one week off. You could try taking another week and just doing easy z1/z2 spinning, high-ish cadence to the coffee shop - that type of riding - before hitting the hard intervals. Also, that first hard interval back should feel really hard. It’s like blowing out the cobwebs. Just stick through it as best you can, even lower the intensity of it a little bit if needed.
I don’t know exactly. Based on the responses on this thread, I don’t think it is overtraining. I can still do club rides with good intensity. Just can’t hit the power goals during a workout. Legs are still fresh. Perhaps I need to dial down the power a bit and try to progress slower.
Also, based on what others are saying here, I need to build in more recovery in my training.
I’ll take around 6-8 breaks a year. Just have them whenever i feel overly tired for more than a few days in a row. Recovery is anything between about 3 and 7 days. I resume when I’m excited about training hard again.
It’s really simple and works well for me. I make steady progress over time. I don’t believe a more formulaic approach would suit me better. How can a pre written plan know how my body is coping?
What are the 3 workouts you are doing per week? If these are VO2max / threshold and you have been doing them consistently for 9 months without a rest week in your 60’s then not surprised you are feeling it.
Take some time off and come back with lower intensity Z2 workouts and gradually reintroduce the intensity.
I am kind of anti this whole “rest week” thing. For me that means that you are riding way too hard for 3 weeks, and then trying to solve that with one week easy.
For a lot of people that is the path to slowly getting burned out since you don’t really bounce back as expected after that week.
I would look into the training you are doing, and see if you can find a better balance in the everyday riding. Maybe just do one hard session per week and just fun endurance rides the rest?
I think that’s the point, stress your body enough and rest to get stronger.
If you ride the same all the time you just maintain your fitness, which is fine if that is what you want.
That’s not correct. Having a plan that has rest weeks has no correlation with getting stronger.
Just because you exclude rest weeks does not mean that you are riding the same. It just means that you’re not overloading so much that you need a whole week to bounce back.
Instead you are overloading less, just to be able to recover on your regular rest days.
For some, rest weeks work, but I personally don’t believe in overloading so much that you need the rest week. Even worse if the rest week isn’t enough. Then it’s a recipe for disaster in the long run.
I believe that its better to find a balance in the intensity and overloading, negating the rest weeks and just taking a few extra days off when needed (usually every 2-3 months for me, Ill take 1-2 extra rest days during a week).
We typically recommend a recovery week every 3-6 weeks, depending on what type of training you’re doing and where you’re at in your plan, so hearing that you’ve gone nine months with only one recovery week is certainly concerning.
The recovery weeks that we incorporate into our plans have specific purposes, and you cannot make the most of the productive hard workouts week after week without time to rest, recover, and absorb the stress that comes with those hard workouts.
Essentially, Stimulus + Recovery = Adaptation. To effectively and sustainably train, you cannot remove anything from this equation. If you’re doing three interval workouts each week, you’ll need to recover in order to allow your body to adapt and become stronger. These are the fundamentals of Periodized Training.
For more info on the importance of recovery weeks and periodized training, I’d recommend checking out the blog posts that I’ve linked below.
Consistency is also important. You’ll find the most success by finding a plan that works best for your lifestyle and overall goals and then following it the best you can.
By now, you should have a good idea of how many workouts you can fit into your calendar each week without regularly missing any. At this point, I’d recommend first taking at least a week or two completely off the bike and then building out a new plan with our Plan Builder tool with the volume that you think is the most reasonable for you. If you want to do less than five structured interval workouts each week, select a Low-Volume plan.
Make sure that you’re fresh when you start this new plan, and do what you can to follow along as best you can. Don’t worry too much about missing a workout here and there or throwing in a soul ride from time to time. Just make sure to account for these modifications to ensure that you’re not accumulating too much stress in any one week. Keep recovery weeks as recovery weeks! Don’t swap in any harder workouts or increase the workout intensity. It can seem silly to spend a whole week riding easy after a few weeks of hard work, but it is necessary to get faster over time.
Besides the rest week bit. I’m a bit on the fence about that. I think if you aren’t close to failing your workouts, they aren’t hard enough. It’s nice you’ve seen steady gains since November, but that will not last forever. Otherwise, you’ll be on the world tour eventually. At some point your various biological constraints will line up and you’ll stop seeing such quick gains. It could be you’re riding close to your current capabilities. Fitness can be gained pretty easily, but biological adaptations that allow you to really level up is hard. Now if you are failing a workout you’ve recently completed successfully, then I think maybe you should skip a workout or two.
It’s amazing how many people disregard the importance of recovery. You can not just progressively overload forever (so that every workout you do is almost to failure) until you reach your genetic maximum. You will reach burnout long before you reach your genetic potential.
Try lifting the same muscle sets in the gym to failure every day. See how far you go with that. Gains aren’t made in training - they are made in recovery from training.
I was doing SS1, SS2, and Build during the winter months. Then switched to a rotation of SS/Threshold/VO2 max during spring and summer, averaging about 2 workouts per week. I agree a bit of time off will be helpful. Thanks.
