Originally Posted by
work4bike
The only junk miles are when you force yourself to ride when you should be recovering. Easy rides are NOT junk miles. You don't need to push it at a certain level to have gains, every mile you logged is like money in the bank, unless you're doing it when your body truly needs resting.
Check out this video, it makes a great point on how many of us (I use to be one of them) cyclists, runners push it way too hard, during all of our rides. I still do speed work and good hard rides, but I also learned that I need to take it easy on much of my rides.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MALsI0mJ09I&t=15s
^ Good reference and information about how "hard" without sufficient recovery can be the death knell for performance gains, for most folks.
My own performance sport was running, back in the day, but the principles worked. Hard, focused training on key areas yielded extraordinary benefits, but only if sufficient variation and recovery/rest between the hard sessions was done (along with decent nutrition and sleep, of course). The "down" training could still be of benefit, if sufficiently quick to still get the cardio going, but not so pushy as to derail the recovery aspect.