rousseau

How sore are your quads day to day? I'm finding that if I ride every day I'm always in a state of some degree of soreness, no matter what kind of recovery rides I do.

Which I don't mind, actually. At risk of sounding too Zen or something, I like going through the day being reminded by my quads that biking rules my life. Okay, maybe that's not Zen, because Zen means eliminating passions from your life (among other things), and this is one passion I can't or won't give up.

But a question comes to mind: should I lay off the bike for a couple of days every two weeks or so to let the muscles "fully heal"? Will that make me stronger? Or just fresher the first day back on the bike after the rest?

Or, does more riding make your base fitness go up, even if you feel a bit sore all the time?

Or what?

Seattle Forrest

I just spent a week camping in the mountains, sans the bike. When I got back, I was shocked at how easy some of my hills were, even after lots of hiking and scrambling. Cycling uses a lot of the same muscles, but not all, so I got a much better rest than normal; like you, when I'm in my normal state of affairs, I ride virtually every day.

Are you doing intervals, or normal riding? If it's the former, you do need a day or two of rest, but I think if you aren't spending a lot of time doing anaerobic work, and your body isn't complaining loudly, that what you're doing is fine.

rousseau

I do rides of varying intensities, but I invariably finish them off with several short hill repeats that leave me breathless. Hmmm...maybe I should be taking a day off now and then?

Thing is, my legs aren't killing me or crazy sore, they're just...present, if you know what I mean.

tadawdy

It's often said that most of us don't go hard enough on our hard days or easy enough on easy days. If you're not using a HR monitor to keep yourself honest, this is almost invariably true. On a long ride where the goal is building endurance, for example, you'll always start off too hard if you have no objective measure of the work you're doing. It always feels easy in the beginning.

Periodization isn't just for serious athletes. Anyone who exercises almost every day would be best served by varying duration and intensity, and is good to throw different modes in too. Any of my clients I see multiple times a week (i.e. the more engaged, ambitious ones) get this type of planning. Nether health maintenance nor sports performance are about going as hard as you can all the time. If nothing else, it's mentally draining.

There are also various stretching and self-massage techniques to deal with chronic tightness. Sometimes they really make a difference. Sometimes you need a break, or better nutrition, or more sleep...the list goes on.

Creatre

Personally, I am sore directly after the ride until about 4 hours after my ride. Sometimes less if I didn't do any intervals. I am not sore again until the next time I ride.

wanders

Taking a couple days probably wouldn't hurt. At my age, I find a 3 day on(at varying intensity) and 1 day off a good balance for minimizing soreness/fatigue and not losing endurance. About 3 times a year I have to take about a week off the bike due to family. I've found I come back from this "stronger"(rested) but my endurance has gone to crap.

I would say try taking a day or 2 and see how you feel and adjust accordingly.

datlas 

I suggest alternating easy/hard days.

gjb483

I'm in the 2nd week of what Joe Friel refers to as a "build" period of my training, my workouts consist of either hill repeats or intervals ridden at considerably hard efforts, and yes, my legs hurt. Recovery from these efforts usually means taking a day or two off (depending on my workout, I did some 5 minute power intervals last week that wrecked me for a few days), if I'm on the bike those days, I'm usually restricting myself to the small chainring and keeping it very low key.

ricohman

I recently bought an HRM and I use it for all my easy days and some hard rides as well. As mentioned above it is all to easy to go to hard and the HRM does keep you honest.
To be truthful you can go pretty fast at 130-140bpm for a few hours.
On these base building rides I let the HRM dictate how fast I am going whether its into a wind or up and down hills. Is this correct?

echappist

QFT. also consider getting these

also, if your quads are constantly sore (say for three consecutive days when you aren't doing anything tough), you need to lay off any form of exercise for 2-3 days as you could easily go into overtraining mode.

crhilton

I hear that it's all about active recovery. Do you take recovery days where you ride, but keep it entirely in your endurance zone?

umd

Everybody's HR is different. 140bpm may be low to one person and high to another.

calamarichris

As pleasant as the muscular reminder is, I've found that keeping your legs that way ultimately ret@rds your improvement.
After recently reading the Friel book, I started getting much more sleep, forcing myself to take recovery days, and doing the little things that remove the delicious reminder, like self-massage, recovery drinks, and careful breathing & stretching.
I'm a little embarrassed to admit that I've only recently (in the last two months) been able to complete a recovery-pace ride on the road and just let every else zip by.

My legs are seldom stale anymore, but I'm ahead of schedule on my goal of a 300W FTP before the end of the year.

Back in the 80's & 90's when I was getting dropped repeatedly in the international class amateur races in Holland & Belgium, I was constantly tired and thought it was simply a matter of toughing it out. But I suspect that now at 41, I could give the 20-something me a run for his money. Rest is like EPO for the rest of us.

wfrogge

Diet
Active rest days
Full rest days


Things to look at (in that order)

stevegor

I'm sure all the modern gizmos like HRMs and excellent books that are out there are important and I'm not saying don't use them, but an older successful cyclist once said to me about training, "Listen to your body". In other words, surely by now we know our own bodies, if they're tired, being lazy, injured... need a rest.
Remember, I didn't say don't use the HRM, it's just sometimes we need to rely on our own monitors instead.

jdon

this

colombo357

A good massage from a busty blonde will take care of soreness in short order.

pdedes

when i raced, i was always suspicious if my legs felt overly fresh.

ahsposo 

What about stiffness?

rousseau

This all sounds like sage advice. As a 44-year-old who rides strictly for enjoyment and exercise, I'm getting the impression that I'd best err on the side of caution and let myself rest up. I will duly do just that for a few days to see what happens.

RT

After the legs get used to daily riding (in my case), it's not so much about the leg fatigue as it is general fatigue. I am struggling to figure out how to keep the rest of my temple in tune with my legs, which could spin for days. I speculate that my core needing some work and possibly my fit being off by a tad has something to do with it.

bigdaddy10028

You need rest, at least.one.full day per week. Of.your bike is.used as simple transportation of a mile or 2 here and there that is fine but otherwise you need at least a full days rest. If your noticeably sore daily, you are majorly overtraining. The process is breaking the body down so it can grow back stronger; your not allowing it the time it needs to grow back.

NomadVW 

Depends on the workout of the day. Sore and fatigued are different sensations. Very rarely are my legs sore, but they are often tired.

So really.. at least these 3 questions came to mind, and counting the one before and the two after, that makes six questions that came to mind?

Rest weeks are good, but it depends on how intensely you are training and what you're training for. If you're just training for miles, taking an easy week is good. Rest is definitely essential.


Yes, if done correctly.

Wut?

NomadVW 

Very, very few of us train anywhere near enough to get to "overtraining." More like undertraining or training improperly.

umd

I would say it is not necessary to take a day completely off the bike if you have the discipline to go easy enough on rest days.