How much rest is right?
 

Last month I hit my mileage goal with almost a week to spare. This is the first time I didn't take it down to the wire. I'd been having some issues with my left shoulder on longer rides so I decided to take a week off weight training and only ride every other day.

I feel really good now. My posture is even better. So it's obvious that I've been over-doing it. I've read listen to your body as to when to rest. Apparently I'm a little deaf.

Any advice?

I always monitor my resting heart rate and sleep patterns. They usually tell me when I'm over training. In terms of resistance training. I have an every other day routine that I've followed for years. I've never had to back off on it. So, I can't help much there.

It's difficult to be your own coach because its difficult to be objective about yourself. One thing for certain, each year that passes, I notice that recovery time takes longer.

For those who use their bike for commuting, its practically 5 days a week and maybe weekends for the longer rides. I think they're in better overall shape, not to race but better at sustaining all kinds of physical activity.

You just have to pick your objectives.

I'm one of those commuters that also does long hard rides on the weekends and races. I have a professional coach. Coach's approach to rest is to have a recovery day after any workout that includes high-intensity intervals. That recovery day can be either no riding, or an easy commute: short route and at recovery pace (HR zone 1; 15-18mph). My total recovery days are Friday and Sunday, as my hardest workout is generally on Saturday. I'll do a fast group ride Sat, and then typically add base miles to get up to 75-80 miles. My commutes range from 8 miles to 20 miles one way, depending on what type of workout I'm doing on the way in to work.

To build muscle, you need to stress the muscle then rest it. The growth happens when you are resting. No rest = no growth. The harder you stress it, the more recovery time you need. If I was only doing base miles, I could ride every day, as the night's rest would be sufficient. Taking muscles to the point of failure, however, dictates a recovery day.

Still trying to recover from a bad winter but a few years ago I was in training for a hard ride. Sundays ride was long and hilly- Monday rest day- Tuesday and Thursday were down the gym and wed and Friday were out riding for 20 effective miles. Saturday was sorting the bikes for the following weeks training. As we got nearer the ride we cut the Gym and upped the severity of the evening rides. Although when we were doing the gym aswell as the evening rides we felt as though we were training hard- it wasn't untill we cut the gym that we could put more into the riding training. 4 nights on the trot and we were just below full effort as we had to go out again tomorrow.

Still keep riding to 3 days a week- I feel that I need that rest day between rides.

Stepfam: I think I'll try the every other day for awhile. I've already done a metric century which was my long ride goal for my first year. With 3000 miles under my belt maybe I'm ready for some interval work and other higher intensity stuff. I'm thinking an 8 day rotation.

1: Normal Pace 20 miles
2: Off
3: Intervals 10 miles
4: Off
5: Longer Slow 30 miles
6: Off
7: Normal Pace 20 miles
8: Off

Rest until you feel rested. If I get on my bike too soon after a long or a hard ride, I feel tired. My body tells me that I am not rested enough. Generally, I ride every other day unless I feel tired on a bike day.
then I skip it and ride the next day.

My particular body seems to enjoy leisurely rest/recovery rides much more than it does staying off the bike altogether. This may, of course, be more about the head then the rest of the carcass.

I'm 64 and have been riding faithfully since my retirement 9 years ago. I do about 150 a week and ride several centuries a year because that is what gives me a constant goal. Until VERY recently, I rode 5 days a week, no matter what. Within the last several months (due to a saddle sore and some antibiotics that reduced my weekly riding) I discovered that resting 2 days after a hard day of hills or a long ride makes me improve and feel 200% better. In the last 3 months, I have improved more than the last 3 years! Maybe it's an age thing! My problem has been that I really enjoy riding and hate taking days off! Bottom line, the older I get the more rest I need to recover and improve!

ltmark, I think you've probably got it right. A racer friend of mine told me, "In order to get fast, you have to ride slow." I definitely wonder if I should rest more. I ride 5-6 days/week, but at least one and sometimes two of the rides are recovery rides.

My general plan is ride Saturday and Sunday, take Monday off, Ride Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, and Friday off. Sometimes I will do very easy (small-chain ring only, 15-25 miles, <15 MPH) rides on M or F.

My biggest problem is that I want to do ambitious on Saturday AND on Sunday. This past weekend I rode 80 hard miles on Saturday, with lots of hill climbing. I intended to take it easy on Sunday, but ended up on a fun club ride that was a little faster than I exptected it to be. 45 miles in all, with some hammering. And while I was hammering, I was thinking "Maybe I'm sacrificing the gain from yesterday's workout, by not taking it easy today?" similarly, I do a hard hill-climbing ride on Tuesday and generally try to make Wednesday an easy day, but sometimes I ride hard on Wednesday when I probably shouldn't.

I've cut my miles in half the last two weeks after 2-650 mile months. I miss riding every day but I don't miss feeling run down/ran over all the time. I have 3000 miles in since Oct. so I'm still pretty green. HTFU may not be as universal as I'd like it to be.

This was much like my first year of cycling after not using a bike for many years. This worked well for me, since it allows for 24 hour of recovering. Remember, when in recovery, an athlete is still burning calories at an elevated rate since the body is rebuilding muscle mass.

The following year I followed this general pattern, starting in March and ending in November;
• Tuesday: 30 miles @ 17mph pace
• Thursday: 20 miles @ 17 to 18mph pace
• Weekend: One 55 to 75 mile ride and one 20 to 35 mile ride.

Plus one or two 100 to 127 mile rides per month during the warmer half of the year.

I never had any injuries that kept me off the bike for more than three days with this routine.

I'm learning about this right now and every other day off.. sounds like a good idea.

Some experts claim that 300 minutes of cardio per week is necessary for the over sixty types, less (like 150) for younger, if you can believe that, so I'm backing off my usual 1 hour per day a little and considering 1hour every other day to be about right. I'm averaging about 14mph right now.

I might just take a more leisurely shorter route on days off. Thanks all for the good info here.

Since resuming riding 2 months ago I've been riding 5-6 days a week, 3-10 miles a day. No real problems with recovery, but for the past week or so my knee has started bothering me, and yesterday it actually hurt while riding!

Luckily a couple of motrin erased the pain, but now I've started wondering if I'm overdoing things just a bit. Or, my bike may need further tweaks in terms of fit!

In any case, I took today off (well, if I can resist :), and plan to see how things go tomorrow.

Little joint pains come and go when you are riding regularly. Well, they come and go when you get to be our age without riding at all, come to think of it. I don't think they mean anything about your bike fit or overdoing things unless they are acute or if they persist.

double entry.

You are sooo right!

But, the pain in my knee had been going on for a few days, got really noticable on Thursday. Took Friday off, rode w/tennies on Saturday and was back in my cleats today, pain free (whew!).