Whaa???? Come on man, if you avoid hammering because it'll "burn you out", you've just doomed yourself to mediocrity or worse. Let's be real now - unless you've got godlike genetics, you've gotta hammer, and pretty damn hard and often, over a long period of time, to get better. That includes a fair amount of riding on fatigued legs. If you wait until you're "fresh" to hammer, you'll never improve as much as you could.

Cycling is a lot different from running where you can easily get an overuse injury from the pounding. You can ride a lot of hours, and get really fatigued, but bounce right back without getting injured.