Cycling_Peter

Hondo Gravel

rubiksoval

Don't take recovery weeks unless you're really tired and need a break. And if that's the case, just go do something else with a ride or two when you feel like it.

Never really understood planned recovery weeks, nor the need to try and "train" on a recovery week.

caloso

We're about the same age (I'll be 52 in May). Looking at TP, I'm right on 450/week for the last 365, but of course that's an average. From April-Sep or so, I'm usually closer to 600/week. I don't take recovery weeks, at least not intentionally as part of a training plan. Usually if I'm off the bike for more than 5 days in a row it's because I'm sick, swamped at work, or on a non-bike vacation.

The main thing I do is pay attention to TSB. And correlate that to how I feel. If I'm lower than -30 or so for a week, I'm pretty tired and I'll take a day or two off. And even that's not a full day off the bike usually, since I bike commute. A supermellow ride to work and back for a day or two is great. If I go beyond 3 or 4, I feel stale. Beyond that, and it feels like I'm losing fitness.

Of course, everyone is different, so the main thing to do is trust your body, feel your fatigue level. You can use TSB to correlate it, and as you get more experience and "calibrated" to you feel at a given TSS/CTL/TSB, you can use it to predict your fatigue. But listen to your body. You'll know.

Hermes

Here is a link to Joe Friel's blog on recovery weeks. https://www.joefrielsblog.com/2012/0...ek-design.html

In general, I do not take a do nothing week off. I tend to go really stale if I do. If I am feeling a lot of fatigue, negative TSB or higher waking HR, I may take a couple of days off. I can also just ride easier for a couple of days. I have only had one coach advocate rest weeks integrated into a plan but certainly rest.

Carbonfiberboy 

I'm 73. I also don't take a recovery week as in a scheduled one. If I feel tired and my numbers show I'm getting tired, I'll ease off but not so long that my legs don't still feel well used. Obviously one's total workload that week will be lower, so it's sort of a recovery week. So then the interesting thing is well, so how often does one take those couple days off? If it's every week, load too high. Bro science says you should plan your load so that it gets too high about every 4th week, or else the load is too low. I have no idea whether or not that's true. I try to plan my training that way, but it never works out like that. I sure as heck am not going to miss out on some fun stuff just because it's a "recovery week." Fun stuff might include needed training because getting better is also fun.

So a lot of words to say, "depends." I'd say probably worth scheduling in, but with a critical view.

Oh yeah, the OP's question . . .Bro science says cut TSS by 1/3, maintaining same volume/intensity ratio.