Leg Fatigue
 

I have been back on a bike since mid April. Riding about 10-40miles/day 5 days a week. I'm feeling as if my legs are not rebounding as I would expect. They feel fatigued or weak. I can feel it when I climb a flight of stairs.
I'm eating right, drinking plenty of fluids... any thoughts.

Granted it's been years since I've been doing anything like this. The only thing I can think of is that I am not giving myself enough time to recover between rides...?? I'm 38 - have stayed active, but not always aerobic in nature.

Would enjoy hearing what you all think.

R

What you have described is a frequent symptom of over training. Try inserting rest days and recovery rides and see if that helps the situation.

Do you vary your work out routine???

It sounds like you have developed an aerobic base. Try doing some intervals or sprints one day, then a recovery day the next.

If you continually just go for a "ride", you usually go too hard and then do not recover. Try some hard and some easy days. Go HARD on the hard days and EASY on the easy days.

This is why people buy heart rate monitors!

Protein helps me. Stronger muscles, no fatigue. As it is, my lungs suck, but my muscles have yet to get sore after any ride. Works for me, anyway.

I recently put intervals into my workouts once I got to about 1500 miles for the year and got dropped in a crit. Now after a couple of days of training, my legs get real jelloey. I'll be mid ride and they'll just start screaming up hills. Recovery becomes more important the harder you train. Active recovery, that is. I do 30-60 mile training rides hard, and then go out at lunch for 15 miles of easy spinning at low heart rate to stretch my muscles and purge lactic acid. This is my first season as a racer, so I'm trying to train right to the edge.

I have the same problem, it maybe from over training!:D

My first thought is that you haven't been back to riding that long- just a month so far. It may be that instead of easing back into cycling, you just jumped in full on. Perhaps you just need to ease back the mileage a bit and slowly add the mileage back on over time. The rule of thumb is add only 10% additional to your workout per week. So, for instance, if you start by doing 10 miles a day, 5 days a week the first week, the next week, you can add 10% more effort on, so you'd increase from 10 miles to 11 miles a day the next week. Then the next week, you can go 12.2 miles... and so on and so on. When you have built up a sufficient amount of mileage, you can start adding in those longer days where you do lots of mileage, and vary it with other days, where you do less mileage.

I think you have plenty of recovery time- 2 days off is a nice amount of time off, provided that you are doing nothing more than an easy spin with low mileage to keep your legs fresh.

What are you training for? What is your schedule exactly from day to day? I think if we had a better idea of what you were doing, we could be a little more specific with our responses. 10- 40 miles a day is a bit of variety!

I'll wait to hear back from you.

Koff

I'm training for our local MS 150. About 45m of flat stuff and then a nice left turn right up in the Colorado Rockies for the remaining 30. I'm no longer worried about the 45. More so the later 30. And then the next day...
This weeks schedule looks like this M-8, T-Off, W-13,T-15,F-Off,S-40,S-11. Then I add 10% (roughly) and start over. The ride is mid July so I have some time. But I also know that I need to also be working on some hill training... Which will change the schedule a bit.
I went out today for my 8 - a nice recovery type ride - and felt great - but I also know that my legs still don't feel like they have fully healed. I'm not sore at all - just feel a little like jello some times.

Let me know what you think.
R

What is your definition of a "recovery ride"?

You should be spinning about 100 rpm and you heart rate should be in the recovery zone (I forget the percentage of max range). You should be way low of your AT.

This sums up to a very easy ride. You body should have no problem recovering from this.

"Recovery Ride" - Spinning at about 100, just out to warm up the legs, get everything moving and pumping, but nothing more than a easy "Sunday afternoon" ride with the family... heart rate is low - not even breaking a sweat.

Well some people thought your problem was "overtraining". Overtraining is usually applied to a fit athelete who goes out and does more mileage at a higher intensity then their body can endure and instead of getting improving their performance slides. Usually, people who do this report an elevated resting heart rate.

Shoot I have put in lots and lots of miles in weeks and this has never happened to me. I think I do ok because my talent is endurance (I suspect I don't have a fast twitch muscle fiber). And if I ride hard one day and feel it on the next ride, I just back off some and recover. Quite a few people don't listen to their body and their body makes them pay.

I think I know what happened here. If after a ride, your legs feel weak, sore, or like jelly, it means you rode pretty hard and your legs are a little beaten up. GOOD. That means you had a good intense workout it also means taht you need to rest and let your legs recover. Take it easy tomorrow (you can ride but only do what feels ok).

I had the same problem until I got on a High Protein, High Carbohydrate diet and get plenty of sleep. When I know that I am going to ride more than 50 miles, I will do carb loading starting three days before.

What do you consider to be "High" Protein - and what do you like as your protein source?

Also what kind of increase do you try to get to in carb loading... 10%, 20, more?

Pat - I think your right - what ever we call it, I have worked the muscles well and they are looking for a little down time. I'm sure I can be doing some different things to insure that their recovery goes better. Perhaps loading up on Carbs and Protein before a planned workout and making sure I replenish the store after I'm done. Finding that balance is the key and the struggle. I just need time to figure it out - ask others about how the do it and have at it.

20% fat, 40% protein, 40% carbohydrates

Hmmm... When I look at your schedule, I see that you do quite a bit of riding between Friday and Tuesday. Is there any way you can chage it around and maybe do something like M- 8, T- 11, W- 13, Th- 15, F- Off, S- 40, S- off? That way, the day you do the long ride, your legs are fresh, and by Mon, your legs are fully recoverd from pushing yourself on a longer ride.

I thought it was implied that you recently got back into riding, and it could just be that you're still getting used to riding. If so, that 40 mile ride may be kicking your butt more than you realize. In that case, it's still an overtraining issue, and by changing around your rest days, it may do the trick.

Try it next week if you can and then evaluate if the change in rest days makes a difference for you, then report back and tell us what happened.

Koff

That a good point. I'll try and make the adjustment the week after.
I'm riding on Sunday(june1) in a tour in Castle Rock - only 50, but I'll be adjusting the schedule next week to accomidate that.

With a two year old, a wife with a career and my own work and volunteer schedule, it's been a challenge to try and stick with any regular schedule. To simply get out and ride is a bonus and to get the miles I'm looking for is even better.

Will see what happend and let you know.
R

Just catching up.

Did we ever hear back on how it went?

Newbie with first post revives a zombie thread from 20 years ago?

The OP hasn't posted on BF in 16 years!

Now I've seen everything.

Denvercoder9 I don't know if any of those members are active any more. I've been here since 2017 and none of those member names even ring a bell for me. The certainly haven't shown up in any of the sub-forums I frequent.

Possibly your bump in this thread might get one or more of them active again. But realize this is a 21 yo thread.

If you have a question regarding something talked about in this thread then make a new thread and ask that there. I and others will be willing to offer our views and opinions about it.

Welcome to BF!

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Bring this thread back to life!