Is my post-season lay-off ok?

[Flux Capacity]

I live in a Australia, where we ride all year, so there's no "snow-induced" long breaks. My idea of a lay-off is, put simply, about 4 or 5 weeks of shorter rides with no hard intervals, rolling around in zone 1 and 2, with the occasional short burst in zone 3 (if I feel like it), and having 2 or 3 days off a week.

I most likely won't race again until the start off the Summer criterium season in October, but I might get to a road race toward the end of the Winter season. However, there are lots of hard-to-resist fast group rides that run all year, and it's fun to be in good shape them.

Is my 'break' too much or too little?

 

[DirtyWorks]

Is my 'break' too much or too little?

Fair warning: I have unpopular opinions about this topic.

If the goal is to take a mental break with no other requirement and you are mentally fresh all the way into next year, then great. If the goal is to take a mental break, and not lose much fitness and what you do works all the way into next year, then great.

At minimum, consider taking breaks within the season if you don't already. The one-break-a-year model is pretty old-school bike training and not that great.

Personally, I need to switch things up more. I like the gym and free weights with hours on the bike decline to a point where I really want to ride when I actually do it and then do it pretty hard, but not long at all. I gain some output in Watts and lose endurance, but for me the increased Watts is much harder to accomplish than the endurance.

 

[fatsprintking]

I agree with Dirtyworks in that you need to establish the goal of your break. I also think its a good idea for aussies who race all year to plan in a few mini breaks through the year. This might be just a few days off the bike and a further few days of easy riding for an hour or so. If you put these in before you get get yourself too tired they will serve to keep you reasonably fresh. I needed one of these weeks every couple of months.

I personally found that I needed to have a proper break every 2-3 years. By that I needed to 4-6 weeks off the bike and then rebuild a base over a 2-3 month period with mainly longer aerobic rides. For me this provided both a positive physical and mental base required for a big step up in performance expectation. Just racing all the time can see you get into a rut at the same level and I needed to have that break to refocus, and to reasses goals and take really have a think about my traning and racing in the previous phase and to make adjustments as required.

Fast group rides are a bit of a killer. The biggest increase in my racing performance came after I made the decision to train on my own most of the time. This allowed me to do what I needed to do rather than to get sucked into what everyone else was doing. Aussies who race road, crits and maybe track end up doing a lot of racing and too much group riding never allows you to fully recover unless you are very disciplined.

The bottom line is that it is pretty easy to achieve 90% of your capacity in cycling, but it requires real thinking and planning to get the last 10%. Breaks are a really important part of this and something that most cyclists are bad at doing. So yeah - you need to have breaks and in my opinion everynow and then you need a really good one. Plan a holiday to somewhere nice and enjoy the time away, knowing that you are then going to build up to level beyond what you have achived before over the next 6 months.

 

[JayKosta]

It might not affect you now, but after about age 35 it becomes more and more difficult to regain 'lost fitness'.

Taking rest breaks from training is fine when a rest is needed, but be ready to accept the time and effort needed to regain strength & endurance. The fitness will come, but at its own schedule.

Jay Kosta
Endwell NY USA

 

[usedtobefast]

break? i live on southern california. sometimes i get slower, sometimes i go faster. other than that i like being out on the road.

 

[Flux Capacity]

It might not affect you now, but after about age 35 it becomes more and more difficult to regain 'lost fitness'.

Taking rest breaks from training is fine when a rest is needed, but be ready to accept the time and effort needed to regain strength & endurance. The fitness will come, but at its own schedule.

Thanks. Yeah, I'm in my late 30s, and I'm aware that taking long breaks can be crucial.

 

[Flux Capacity]

break? i live on southern california. sometimes i get slower, sometimes i go faster. other than that i like being out on the road.

This sounds pretty much what I've been doing, but I thought that if I finally took a real break, my 'faster' periods might be faster.

 

[Flux Capacity]

I agree with Dirtyworks in that you need to establish the goal of your break. I also think its a good idea for aussies who race all year to plan in a few mini breaks through the year......

Thanks. Yes, I do have mini-breaks during the crit seasong (usually only 5 to 7 days) when it gets stinking hot down here, but i sometimes wonder if it's enough, or even too much. After 5 easy days during the season (maybe with a day off), i get it in my head that I'm losing too much fitness, so I get straight back into it.

 

[Flux Capacity]

Fair warning: I have unpopular opinions about this topic.

If the goal is to take a mental break with no other requirement and you are mentally fresh all the way into next year, then great. If the goal is to take a mental break, and not lose much fitness and what you do works all the way into next year, then great.

At minimum, consider taking breaks within the season if you don't already. The one-break-a-year model is pretty old-school bike training and not that great.
.

Thanks. Yep, I guess my main goal is to have a mental break without losing too much fitness.

I took it pretty easy for about 5 weeks, but strained my left medialis when i started in ramp things up, so I've a couple more easy weeks

 

[ElChingon]

This sounds pretty much what I've been doing, but I thought that if I finally took a real break, my 'faster' periods might be faster.

Or when you get back on you'll never get back to your prelevel level.

For me its more of times I can't ride due to commitments not because of a ride layoff. Ride while you can, unless you're going pro or something and need to peak for something. Really man.