The All Important Rest Period

A lot of us train, train train and we don't stop to think when we make our biggest gains. We push our selves harder and harder almost living on the endorphins but what are we really accomplishing? When I was younger I should have listened to some of the veteran cyclists that I road with. They would tell me all these guys break their bodies down constantly but they never give their bodies time to recover. If you sit at a desk all day it is much easier to recover. I would say 2 days tops you are ready to roll again from a long hard ride, maybe even a 3-5hr hard hilly ride. You have recovered enough to be able to push your self hard on the next ride. Hard enough to break down your body again and then when you rest again, Yes your body will have rebuilt itself stronger. Your muscles will have adapted.

The actual cycle looks like a sign wave where the trough is the rest period where your body is recovering and the peak is where you are ready, rested enough to push your body to the point where there is enough stress on the muscles that when you rest again you will feel the gain in performance. This may be a little or a lot depending on your particular body.

In the waveform above the x axis is time. This is the time between when you add training stimulus. You see the first training stimulus is where you are rested and you are able to adequately stress or fatigue your body. The next training stimulus should happen right before super-compensation if possible and not at involution. I say if possible because life is not perfect and sometimes we cannot hit these targets.

You say well how do I know when this is for my body? You will have to learn this. It is different for every individual but a general rule is to start with exercising or training every other day and see what happens. See how you feel. Listen to your body and do not over do it to the point that it will take several days to recover. Start slowly and be consistent. You will see improvements over the months.