I commute to work as much as I can. Lately it has worked out to be every day but one a week. 12 and a half miles each way. On Sunday I will ride 35 to 45 miles. Come Monday morning, I'm beat. Legs tight and tired. Question is. Should I rest or ride anyway? I want to ride but I don't want to tear my muscles down. I'm 50.

Listen to your legs. My vote any way.

Unless you are being paid to ride a bike, it is silly to risk damaging your body to ride.

If you take a day off the bike, what do you lose, other than non-existent internet cred?

Well that's the question. I don't feel like I am injuring myself but am I hindering adaptation to the extra milage?

I'll check with my son (a fitness trainer who's studied muscle building pretty well) but if your're 50 or older you should be getting rest days in. Are you cycling on Saturday? Perhaps do your 35m ride on Saturday, and take Sunday off... Maybe try this once? See how you feel?

Generally speaking, I think you're supposed to get a rest day after every workout day at our age.

You're answering your own question. If tired and stiff, rest. You'll have a much more efficient and better ride the next time around.

When I was exceedingly fit and a lot younger (25-40 approx) I would ride six days a week and sometimes on my day off. I Usually needed a day off after every six.

Adaptation to mileage happens when your legs can recover. If you beat them until they are sore and keep beating them, you actually lose performance and break down muscle tissue. The rest time is when you grow. If you never rest you will possibly survive the ride, but you will lose capacity steadily.

If you are willing to take twice as long to ride to work for several days, that might give your legs enough of a rest. Might not.

Go ahead and do your weekend plan. (I wouldn't but I hate to quash others' wills. Go do it and learn the sore and painful lesson on your own.) Next week you will be waiting for the weekend ... so you can stop riding.

Pretty much anyone who works out with any method will tell you ... do Not work sore muscles.

Personally I tried to use the seventh day to do errands, where I could ride at six or eight miles an hour, just enough to get blood flowing and to bring nutrients and flush dead cells. Going for a walk would also be good. If you need on day of inactivity and then one day of light effort, do it.

Nowadays, (considerably older and Not in good shape) I sometimes cannot ride every other day. I hate to miss a day (days are precious now that I am old and don't have the seemingly infinite supply) but I have learned that if I overdo it I will lose a lot more days, and the one-extra day of rest is better than a week of recovery.

Youngster I'm in a similar situation and commute 40 mi round trip during the week. I usually do a group ride on Sat and maybe an easy ride or nothing on Sun.

I vary the intensity of weekday commutes depending on how I feel. If I'm fresh I'll naturally go harder. If I do a big ride on Sunday, I'll take it easy on Mon. If you're tired on Mon treat that day and maybe the next as a recovery day and just ride slower to work. A recovery ride isn't going to damage anything.

If you feel like taking a day off, do so. If you feel like you're a little tired, but you still want to ride, just pay attention to your intensity. Take it easy some days so you can go harder on others. Sometimes I just don't feel like not riding. This is the end of a 70+ day streak last fall-- and I'm the first to admit I wasn't taking it easy as often as I should have been. But at least for me, ~20 miles with less than 1,000ft of vertical has become "recovery" for me.

I'm no sports medicine expert (the likes of whom really should be answering your question), but I know for myself, if I am asking these questions that is all the indication that I need that I'm probably being too macho and more likely to harm than benefit myself by doing so.

A day off is not going to kill your acclimation to longer distances, again unless you are a professional or other high level athlete.

What is your goal?

Do you just like to ride your bike, want to ride it every day? You can probably commute at low intensity 5 days per week and do one longer ride on the weekend and be fine.

Do you actually want to improve performance? You'd be better off riding at greater intensity 2-3 days, lower intensity 2-3 days, with 1-2 days off per week and building some rest weeks in every 3-4 weeks.

There is a huge temptation to equate "more" with "better". Big volume works well for some people. For others it just leaves them tired & slow. You have to find what works for you, but don't just go chasing big miles or riding every day because that's what other people do. That's never a good reason to do anything.

If you're tired, take a day off. That said, what matters isn't mileage so much as time and intensity. If the 45 miles on Sunday is sitting in on a coffee shop ride, that's a lot different than 45 miles of racing. That's why Friel developed the training stress score.

Personally, I prefer an easy hour of light spinning to taking a day off. You still get outside, you have active recovery, and you still get yourself to work.

This. I never got any faster till I learned that my hard days were too easy and my easy days were too hard. But, if you don't care about getting fitter and just want to cover the distance, then just ride at the pace that's comfortable.

I can say from first hand experience if you can take a rest day or a day off the bike then do it. Your legs will really benefit from the rest days.

I was in a motorcycle accident 2 months ago and the only way to get to work was on my bike. Well after being in bed for a month and literally doing no exercise to riding 35 miles round trip 7 days a week my legs hated it! I actually lost speed when going to work since I wasn't able to take days off. It didn't help that I had lost some muscle when I was out from the accident but now I'm doing much better since I can stay off the bike 1 or 2 days a week.

I think some people that have been riding for a long time can do that but I'm not to that level yet. Keep on riding man!

Rest vs Ride

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tombaatar

I commute to work as much as I can.Lately it has worked out to be every day but one a week. 12 and a half miles each way. On Sunday I will ride 35 to 45 miles. Come Monday morning, I'm beat.Legs tight and tired. Question is. Should I rest or ride anyway? I want to ride but I don't want to tear my musclesdown. I'm 50.

With my busy job / family activities, all my cycling is via a commute of a minimal 14 miles one-way, including a long ride (greater than 40 miles) on Saturday to go in for a few hours at my convenience. Your riding schedule sounds like my ideal, but I’m often stymied to fulfill due to lack of time.

Even when I’m riding optimally, it works out well to take Sunday off, just to do various errands and chores, best done by car, and spend additional family time. When asked by acquaintances if I rode that day, my reply is “Never on a Sunday.” (title of a 1960 movie / theme song ).

Cliff Notes:

It somewhat depends on your age and current level of fitness. Keep in mind that pro bicycle racers take days off and winters off.

There is also a growing body of study indicating that daily moderate exercise (in bicycling this is about 30-60 minutes @ 13 mph) is better for general health than strenuous exercise, particularly for people past about 35. If you get a lot of enjoyment out of racing or riding with fast groups every day then that's one thing and the enjoyment is beneficial in itself, but if a longer life in good health with as few ailments as possible is your goal then moderate is likely the way to go.

Unless you're training seriously for something I see no reason why you can't ride on the weekend if you enjoy it. If you're just a bit tired on Monday, no big deal. Just take it easy on the ride to work and back. You can ride 12 miles at a leisurely pace and still get there in a reasonable amount of time.

I commute to work 12 miles each way as well, and while I don't usually ride on the weekend I do run on the weekends, and yeah, I'm tired on Monday, but nothing that's going to keep me from riding to work.

ride

Adaptation occurs during rest when muscles rebuild themselves.

Nutrition, recovery, stretch instead and you will come back stronger on Tuesday.

Also consider taking an easy week every three or four weeks.


-Tim-

Good information. Thanks. I took it easy this morning. Will take it easy for the rest of the week. Funny, last week I only got two rides in due to weather and family responsibilities. Rode 45 that Sunday and had numerous 20+ mph splits (fast for me). Felt great and felt like i could have done it again when I got home.

My goal is just fitness and avoiding the stress of driving. I don't race. I usually ride alone.

I did the same thing for a couple of years. 10.5 miles each way, often taking Friday off, a longer ride on Saturday or Sunday and resting the other day - either nothing or short easy rides.

I got to where I played it by feel. If my legs were still dead on Monday or especially Tuesday then I'd take Thursday off as well and the next week I'd be fine. That gradually shifted over to five days commuting and sometimes taking Friday off.

I think it's OK to ride as much as you want, but you can vary the intensity. And use common sense to avoid real injury.

Perfect. I also bet that by Thursday or Friday you'll feel like going fast again.

In college when I ran competitively we were expected to take a day off every two weeks and never before/after workouts.

Since I was young then, I extrapolate to "take at least a day off every week" now that I'm older.

But in all honesty it depends on how fast and hard you ride.

In college we tended to "run fast much of the time," even when we weren't supposed to.

Rest vs Ride

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tombaatar

Good information. Thanks. I took it easy this morning. Will take it easy for the rest of the week. Funny, last week I only got two rides in due to weather and family responsibilities. Rode 45 that Sunday and had numerous 20+ mph splits (fast for me). Felt great and felt like i could have done it again when I got home.

My goal is just fitness and avoiding the stress of driving. I don't race. I usually ride alone.

Quote:

Originally Posted by wphamilton

...I think it's OK to ride as much as you want, but you can vary the intensity.And use common sense to avoid real injury.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jim from Boston

With my busy job / family activities, all my cycling is via a commute of a minimal 14 miles one-way, including a long ride (greater than 40 miles) on Saturday to go in for a few hours at my convenience. Your riding schedule sounds like my ideal, but I’m often stymied to fulfill due to lack of time.

Since I note similarities between our riding motivations and modalities, FYA, I have previously posted:FWIW.

Since my perceived exertion is relative, I can ride according to my schedule as I feel, rather than striving (over-exerting) to achieve a standardized goal like heart rate or watts.