Originally Posted by
Tall Cool One
I'm in week 8 of my return to being semi-serious about fitness. I started out in week 1 doing 4-30 minute workouts a week where I spend 70% of the time in the 70-80% HR zone and 10% of the time in the 80-90% zone. I have worked up to where this week I had planned to use the same zones with 3-50 minute workouts and 1-40 minute workout with the above zones.
Through yesterday, I felt good doing the workouts and had no problem getting into the HR zones I was attempting. Yesterday when I was attempting a 40 minute workout, I simply could not get my HR up to the proper level. I tried for 15 minutes and was just beating myself into oblivion and simply couldn't get into the 70-80% zone no matter how fast I spun and no matter what gear I tried. At that point I said the heck with it and dropped down into the small chain ring and spun the rest of the workout.
Am I in need of a rest/light week? If so, how little should I do? How often should I schedule a rest week in the future?
That is all.
TCO
I am not really very experienced/knowledgable, but since no one else has answered, I'll give you my take.
Your experience today means you should take a week off. I usually plan one week entirely off every 8-12 weeks and a half-effort week every 3-4 weeks. But I've been doing this training-thing for less than a year, so you maybe shouldn't take what I say as gospel. It also depends on your age, sex, baseline level of fitness and the intensity of what you are doing.
So until someone more knowledgable answers, stay off the bike.
H