Stop Fearing The Recovery Week

Recovery isn't the break between training. Recovery IS training.

In this episode, CTS Head Cycling Coach Adam Pulford explains how he structures recovery blocks with everyone from beginners to elite athletes. Learn why recovery doesn't always need to last a full week, how to know when you've earned one, and why the athletes who recover best often perform best.

If recovery weeks make you anxious, this episode is for you!

HOST

Adam Pulford has been a CTS Coach for nearly two decades and holds a B.S. in Exercise Physiology. He's participated in and coached hundreds of athletes for endurance events all around the world.

​​Free Cycling Training Assessment: https://trainright.com/cycling-training-assessment-welcome/

Interested in working with a coach? Schedule a free consult: https://trainright.com/coaching/cycling/

Self-coached athlete? Check out our TrainRight Membership: https://trainright.com/membership/

Find more free resources here: https://trainright.com/blog/

Resources:

• https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3905295/
• https://trainright.com/coaching-consultation/
• Recovery Podcast with Christie Aschwandan: 
  • https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/trainright-podcast/id1494799053?i=1000722793917 
• Regulation of Muscle Glycogen Repletion, Muscle Protein Synthesis and Repair Following Exercise - PMC

Transcript

Why Recovery Weeks Trigger Anxiety

SPEAKER_00 0:00

What is something that every endurance athlete needs, yet rarely gets intentionally, and usually stresses out over? Yep. You guessed it. The good old recovery week. I hope some people are actually shaking their heads here and saying recovery weeks are so simple. You just go easy for the week and let your body rest. Yeah, that's that's pretty much it. But yet, I know there's a lot of people out there hiding their face, knowing that I'm talking directly to them. Yes, those of you who love to train the house down but hate taking a few days off, this one's for you. Here's the juicy, not so secret secret. Recovery brings adaptation. Recovery helps to prevent burnout. Recovery makes you healthier, and it makes you faster. So why do so many athletes have anxiety about taking training down for just a few days? The answer? Insecurity, fear, and doubt. Now I know that sounds a bit harsh and may hit a little deeper than my earlier jabs, but tell me I'm wrong. And please don't think that I am all high and mighty here because my emotional self is just as guilty as the next endurance at it. Riding your bike fast and hard is fun. Riding your bike slow and easy isn't. And I get it, because recovery weeks are something that we have to do now in order to get something that we want later in order to achieve our long-term goals. Say it with me, folks. Stress plus rest equals adaptation. I'm Adam Pulford, head coach of cycling at CTS. CTS is a big network of coaches worldwide that helps amateurs, weekend warriors, juniors, and elites train right to hit their goals on the bike. And training right involves recovery. Today I'll teach you how I structure recovery blocks for my athletes and provide practical tips that you can apply to your training to get the intended response. Increased fitness, increased freshness, increased performance, and a ton of fun for several years to come. So

When You Actually Need Recovery

SPEAKER_00 2:00

let's dive in. Alright, my first tip here is you don't need a recovery week every three weeks. It's pretty common for training plans that you purchase online or get from a coach, have some sort of progressively hard training for three weeks, then one week easy, then another hard three weeks of training, and so on. And that's a good recipe for sure, but it's not the end all be all. Each phase of training isn't the same. From base to build, prep to race phases, the volume and intensities are very different. Dose response is different. So recovery should too be different, in my opinion. And this is the approach I take when I'm working with the individual athletes. Additionally, beginners to seasoned riders have different needs. So speaking to how I do it as a coach, it's pretty individual. But generally speaking, I find that in the base and build phases of the training, when the intensity is lower, and when I'm trying to push up aerobic capacity, primarily in zone two and three, my athletes don't need a recovery week every three weeks. Maybe it's five weeks, or six weeks, or maybe eight weeks, or several months of build with key rest days peppered throughout for my seasoned veterans here. This is because the intensity is lower, volume is moderate, or building to high, and the overall stress to the system isn't a ton relative to what they've been through, and it doesn't need that warranted time off. We need stress before we rest to get the adaptation. And you can monitor data to determine this, like ramp rates, TSB, just keep an eye on, you know, resting heart rate, HRV, and comments in the training peak section, or just ask yourself, how are you feeling today? With beginners, meaning in the first year or two of doing elevated endurance training with structure, I'd probably stick with that recovery week every three weeks, meaning the cycles of your training phases are four weeks or a month, where you have, again, like I said, three weeks hard, one week easy. And we do this to be on the safe side because your body isn't used to high volumes of stress. And by default, the three in one pattern of heavier training for three weeks works well for most people to minimize fatigue problems in the long run. So it definitely works. And for self-coached athletes and beginners, I'd stick with that. But for my masters and for those who have been training hard for more than three years, junior elites and elites, I'd do it differently. We can run the base and build phases out much longer because they hold up better from the years and years of training without needing a full recovery week. Or maybe sometimes the training is so intense that we need a recovery block every two weeks. There's no hard and fast rules here with the recovery week, other than you need to plan it, take it, and recover from the training. Which leads me to my next point or tip. Does it

Recovery Blocks Not Always Seven Days

SPEAKER_00 4:55

need to always be a full week? Spoiler alert, nope. You may not need a full week depending on how much you are training, the total hours spent on the bike or in the gym, TSS, race days, and how well you have been sleeping. You may need less than seven days in order to simply freshen up before you move on to the next training block. Here's some stats for you. We can replenish glycogen stores fully in about 24 hours if you're super dialed, and maybe up to 48 hours for most human beings out there. We can also restore hydration levels fully in about two to four hours. Again, if you're dialed here, even after hard training sessions and hot days. We can have nearly full recovery by the next day with lots of good quality sleep, rest, restoration, food, and nourishment, even after some of your bigger, harder days. The better your habits are, the more quickly you recover. Habits ranging from fueling on the bike to what you do right after the training session to the sleep habits. This is a big reason of how True de France riders on both the men's and women's side can come back day after day with hard racing back to back to back. Their recovery is laser sharp. This is also when I have athletes prepping for a big stage race like Breck Epic or Cape Epic. I do big blocks of the back-to-back training and spend a ton of time dialing in their fueling and recovery habits. For amateurs and pros, it's more about who recovers fastest and who slows down the least because of those recovery habits. So why do we need recovery weeks or blocks like this then? It's because fatigue does build up, both mentally and physically. And even though the short-term markers like glycogen and hydration can come quick, these are not the only things to pay attention to. Additionally, for most people listening, I'm guessing their habits are not as dialed as professional rider, and you do not have a full staff looking after your recovery needs. So the reality is that you can deplete and deplete after several days and weeks of training, and the recovery weeks are there to take time away from the hard stress, to let your bodies heal and come back stronger than before. Additionally, remember that we have a very good model of current fatigue from a data standpoint. This is called acute training load or ATL on training peaks. This is that pink line or the pink number that shoots up after a hard training day, which makes sense. If you go really hard today, you're usually pretty tired tomorrow. But we're not binary bots here. All of the stressors from training and life do build up over weeks and weeks, and there's other things in our bodies that change with increased fatigue, such as hormonal changes in cortisol or nervous system changes like the fight or flight system, along with metabolic factors like glycogen and hydration, like I've already talked about. We can't measure all of these things all of the time, especially when we're training out there on the field. But ATL can model or help guide what that general short-term fatigue does under the hood of the athlete. Recall from my CTL video that ATL is a weighted average as well, showing how fatigue can build and roll off. The seven-day rolling average has impacts from today to about two weeks from today, so two weeks ago. This means today's workout is the biggest influence. Yesterday's workout slightly less, and five days ago, it still matters, but much less. Two weeks ago contributes, but very little. So even based on the fatigue models, you can see that a recovery block of five days will work pretty darn good at getting rid of most of the fatigue, perhaps not all of it, but most. And I'll be honest, if you're training like 10 hours or less per week, or just have lower stress weeks on the bike anyway, shorter recovery blocks could be better. If you do a ton of riding like 20-hour weeks, or finish a massive multi-day stage race,

Fatigue Metrics And What They Miss

SPEAKER_00 8:55

you need longer, maybe up to two weeks of full recovery. Either way, I want you to conceptually move away from quote recovery week into a recovery block sort of way of thinking to better understand the amount of recovery that you need between training phases and after races. Let's take a look at a few examples. Example one, here's a recovery block that I would use after a bigger than normal training or race weekend. Rest day is Monday, easy and short days on Tuesday, Wednesday, maybe like an opener day with a few efforts on Thursday, then we're back to hard riding or racing again Friday and into the weekend. Example number two, here's a recovery block after three to four weeks of hard training. We've got rest days on Monday and Friday, easy days Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, and then we're just back to a normal ride weekend, maybe a group ride and some endurance work. Example number three is taking a look at a recovery block on a weekend. Friday is off, short and easy on Saturday, Sunday is off. I know this is super wild for a lot of people, but hear me out. Many of my athletes recover faster if they take rest days on a weekend versus midweek. For those time-crunched athletes or those with a full-time job, family in life demands, and they're used to just squeezing out the maximum amount of time on the bike Saturday and Sunday. If we plan ahead and take an easy Friday, a light Saturday, and sleep in and rest on Sunday, once Monday comes around, they're fresh, they're antsy, they're ready to rip. The reason being is you just have less stress in your brain and your body, typically on a weekend when you take away the training and the work stress. For a busy family with soccer games, kids' piano concerts, family get-togethers, it's probably still very busy, but you're also not trying to fit in a three-hour group ride plus a quick shower, plus quick food, maybe jumping to a meeting and all the rest of it. And once in a blue moon, not pushing yourself to the limit on a weekend can do wonders for your recovery status. Example number four, this is the big two-week recovery block. And this could be after some, you know, like I said, big stage race or a massive training block. The first week is take three days off or more. It could be two days together or all three days together, and then you just do some easy riding after that. Easy zone, one to two rides, no more than 90 minutes, but typically 45 minutes to an hour. The second week is also easy endurance with one to two rest days, so less total rest days, but still easy riding. And we've got low to moderate volume, mostly zone two riding, and could be anywhere between one to 2.5 hours for that total ride time for the given ride. But this also depends on your overall volume and your recovery status. Basically getting back into it, but not full-on

Real Recovery Block Examples

SPEAKER_00 11:50

training yet. You're letting ATL still come down. Now, with all these examples, I'll usually include some core and activation work for the muscles, but it's not hard training loads. I'm not making the muscles soar, just easy movements before or after rides to maintain proper function of the muscle. Let's talk quickly about the ride structure during the recovery week. So I'm talking about how the individual ride looks. As you've seen in my previous examples, I keep the structure of the rides fairly unstructured or simple. I just tell my athletes to ride easy, keep the rate of perceived effort from a scale of one to ten, ten being a max effort. I aim for a two to three out of ten for the easy endurance rides, but that's about it. No cadence intervals, no ramp ups, no entertainment factor. For the super type A nerds out there that can't handle a ride without a prescribed percentage of FTP, I am using zone one to two, so usually like 40 to 60% of FTP on the recovery rides, and 50, maybe up to 70% of FTP on most of the easy endurance rides. Remember, the goal here is to recover and get rid of the fatigue. Fatigue comes from hard training stimulus. So we don't want hard training stimulus during these recovery blocks. Ride easy. Now, if you're riding outside, ride flat, non-technical stuff. If inside, keep it vanilla. Listen to music, watch a movie, catch up on bike racing or uh work videos or something like this. If you live in an area that is super hilly, maybe at altitude, easy rides are pretty tricky, I'll admit to that. So depending on your bikes and gearing that you have, and your actually your current fitness levels too, riding easy on hills isn't an option for some people out there. Hills can be hard, especially for most road gearing out there. So I have some of my athletes ride their gravel bike or their mountain bike with easier gears who live in these hilly places, or just ride on a bike path in town or something like that. Or you could just ride the trainer to keep it in that zone one to two. It's a pretty effective strategy, but for those who don't like riding their bike inside on a nice summer day, might not be as interesting, but it still gets the job done. Third tip more frequent shorter breaks

How To Ride During Recovery

SPEAKER_00 14:05

work better than big recovery chunks. Once you've moved beyond the base and build one phases of your training, you've added in higher intensity and race weekends. You're probably incorporating full rest days and easy days to come into the hard days ready to go and you're fresh on those race days. That's just good coaching and proper training. And because of that, there's not a ton of accumulated fatigue to the point where you need to take a full month or two off if you're managing yourself well during the season. In fact, one thing that has changed in the way I coach over the past 15 to 20 years is indeed this taking more frequent shorter breaks after big races and big blocks of training so that we're more fresh for the next block and hold up better year-round versus pushing through a race season, then taking two to three months off from targeted training. These shorter breaks are good for both mind and body, allowing for more freshness and energy throughout the year, prevents less burnout, injuries, and other problems. I'll be honest, most of my athletes perform better this way. You just need to lean into the fact that less is more once you have built your engine up for the year. Now, let's talk about what not to do on recovery weeks. First one is don't stay up late just because you're not training hard the next day. Still stick to a bedtime and your normal wake-up schedule. Second one is don't take on more project at work just because you have more time. This is not the week to double up on work and life projects. This is the week to recover. Next one is don't do this, please. Sprinting on your recovery rides. This is probably the stupidest thing I see athletes do on an easy recovery spin. And it is like doing a sprint or sprints halfway through or at the end. But why? I have no idea. No clue. Actually, no, no, no. We we've already said it. Insecurity, fear, and doubt. They don't trust that easy is what they should do. They fear that if they don't go hard, they'll lose something, and they doubt that what they're doing is going to have the intended outcome. Reality is that one sprint may not completely ruin the recovery ride, but it's not going to help you recover. And the sprints usually suck anyway. They're usually like just low power, higher perceived effort than what they should, and they don't do anything positive. So it's just pointless. And if you

Common Recovery Mistakes To Avoid

SPEAKER_00 16:40

do this on all your recovery rides, then in theory, you're never really having a full recovery ride happen, and you're most likely missing out on some restoration and some adaptation that could be there. If you're going to train and follow a program, then follow the damn program on the hard days as well as on the easy days. Okay. Final thing, what not to do, keep lifting hard on your recovery weeks. Just use some common sense here. Reduce the weights and the training load in the gym on your recovery weeks. Let your muscles recover. Because this is the goal of recovery weeks. Resume whatever normal like strength training program that you're doing once you have resumed training on the bike. It's pretty simple. So don't overthink it. It's not more complicated than that. Okay, so let's recap what we should do on recovery weeks. Number one, sleep

Simple Rules And Coaching Help

SPEAKER_00 17:30

more. Number two, rest more. Number three, train less. It's that simple. Oh, and don't add a ton more to your plate. But for a full-time working people out there listening to me, yes, this may be where you catch up on loose ends at work, but you're not staying late or burning the midnight oil to do it. Stick to the normal work patterns, but with less training time, you'll have more other time. Just keep those regular bedtimes the same. Okay, to wrap this thing up, my main message is to not fear the recovery blocks and move away from thinking that it always has to be a week long. You need to hit your goals. Hard training goes in hand with recovery to get where you want to go. There's no magic recipe that works for all people all the time. So take the advice I've given you today, dial it in for your own individual needs with how you recover best, then apply that over time, and I think you'll find success down the road, more success. And if you try some of these things, you get stuck, or you have more questions, that's where we can help. Head over to trainride.com, click on free consult, and you'll get paired up with a great coach that can start to point you in the right direction very quickly. Thanks again for listening, and we'll see you back here soon for the next one.