Training & Nutrition - Scientific explanation for the effectiveness of recovery rides?

I know everybody says recovery rides help, but it seems counter intuitive to me. Can somebody give me a good scientific explanation (not anecdotal evidence) on how they actually work? It just seems to me it would add extra stress/fatigue to your joints/muscles.

I don't do recovery myself, but I think the point is to pump blood through all the tissues that took a beating during the hard ride the day before. Heat and oxygen should help recovery.

Easy riding after an endurance ride may help prevent deep vein thrombosis (blood clots), which are a particular risk of endurance athletes, by increasing blood flow through leg arteries.

I know everybody says recovery rides help, but it seems counter intuitive to me. Can somebody give me a good scientific explanation (not anecdotal evidence) on how they actually work? It just seems to me it would add extra stress/fatigue to your joints/muscles.

Strenuous exercise causes small rips in the muscles. This is generally what can make one sore a day or two later after a hard workout..this is called DOMS (Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness) BTW. Rest days allow the body to heal these tears. Thus the rest day is actually when you get stronger.

A quick primer in energy systems. There are three.

1) Anerobic Phosphate (5 second bursts)

2) Anerobic Lactate (or anerobic as we know it)

3) Aerobic (burns fat, uses lactic acid for fuel)

Hard efforts generate lactic acid. Your aerobic system at the same time works to remove lactic acid from the bloodstream. High lactic acid concentrations can, among other things, delay recovery and some say even destroy muscle tissue.

So the purpose of a recovery ride is to use your aerobic system to flush lactic acid and stay flexible.

A quick primer in energy systems. There are three.

1) Anerobic Phosphate (5 second bursts)

2) Anerobic Lactate (or anerobic as we know it)

3) Aerobic (burns fat, uses lactic acid for fuel)

Hard efforts generate lactic acid. Your aerobic system at the same time works to remove lactic acid from the bloodstream. High lactic acid concentrations can, among other things, delay recovery and some say even destroy muscle tissue.

So the purpose of a recovery ride is to use your aerobic system to flush lactic acid and stay flexible.

it might not be that easy....there is some evidence that the lactic acid gets changed into lactate which can be used by the heartmuscle for fuel. So high concentrations of lactic acid might not delay recovery, but in fact may help to fuel the exercise itself.

I'll just add here that your recovery ride should not be hard/fast enough to cause extra stress/fatigue to your joints/muscles. The recovery ride is a smell the roses type of ride. For example, if you've got young kids, ride with them at their pace.

Depends on what you mean by "recovery ride."

Continuing to exercise muscles that have been severely stressed with a reduced level of resistance will maintain a higher state of circulation and speed the removal of metabolite from the affected tissues. Similarly, if you introduce water and carbohydrate to the gut during this period of reduced effort, electolyte transport and assimilation will be faster than that of total rest.

The idea of "recovery exercise" many hours after a race or a day later is bogus.

I'll just add here that your recovery ride should not be hard/fast enough to cause extra stress/fatigue to your joints/muscles. The recovery ride is a smell the roses type of ride. For example, if you've got young kids, ride with them at their pace.

+1 on this... For me it is hard to actually do a "recovery" ride! I always find myself pushing to hard... I could imagine doing them on a trainer, but who wants to ride gently in the house, when you could be outside hammering???

Depends on what you mean by "recovery ride."

Continuing to exercise muscles that have been severely stressed with a reduced level of resistance will maintain a higher state of circulation and speed the removal of metabolite from the affected tissues. Similarly, if you introduce water and carbohydrate to the gut during this period of reduced effort, electolyte transport and assimilation will be faster than that of total rest.

The idea of "recovery exercise" many hours after a race or a day later is bogus.

Now this makes sense to me, but "experts" like Carmichael Training etc say that a recovery ride the following day is actually good. That's what I don't understand.

I disagree that the idea of a recovery ride a day later is bogus. You need a recovery ride when you have stressed or damaged muscle tissue from a hard ride or workout. I'm no physiologist, but I can tell that what's happening is that blood flow to the damaged tissue is increased. This increases the flow of nutrients which increases the rate of healing. I have no scientific basis for believing this, but it also seems that pedaling rather gently, but pedaling, causes the muscles to heal in a way that makes them more efficient.

The other thing that's going on is that it's silly to not rest. You only get stronger when you rest. So why not rest on the bike? That way you're still getting conditioning, but it's gentle so you can recover.

I can't do a recovery ride outdoors at all. I have to do them on my rollers. I just can't keep my HR down enough outdoors. As to why ride indoors when you could be outside hammering? Because major changes in pace are a key element of any periodized training plan.

I do recovery rides and I feel they work. The idea is to genteelly work the muscle, increase blood flow and washout toxins that built up during the pervious hard ride. When I first started doing them I didn’t understand the purpose of them or how to do them properly. After I learned how to do them I started feeling much better and did notice my recovery was much quicker. When I do recovery rides I do them outside on the bike, ride for 30-60 minutes, keep my HR average below 100 for the ride and I know when I’m at the right pace because kids with training wheels are passing me. Also, I find them a great mental download. I look forward to recovery rides now days, it’s nice to ride along and enjoy the scenery, and feel they have been very beneficial to me.

Getting back to the OP's question, there's really not much scientific information out there on recovery rides. I did find this:
http://www.dynamic-med.com/content/4/1/4
which shows that the best taper before a TT is a 50% reduction in training volume. That's good to know.

And I found this:
http://southgeorgiacycling.com/ProSecrets.pdf
which has information about recovery rides, but no scientific studies.

Well, there are all sorts of plausible explanations for why a recovery ride works. And the explanations can have some scientific basis. But I rather doubt that anyone has been able to come up with an experiment that has demonstrated the cause of the effect.

I know that if my muscles are sore or achy from cycling the day before, if I go out and do an easy ride for an hour or so, my muscles end up feeling pretty dern good. It could be warming and stretching that does it. It could be that the increased blood flow promotes healing or flushes out clots. It could be any number of things. I just know that, for me, it works.