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Can amateurs "peak" or just burnout?
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You hear about pro's "peaking" for certain races that are their A race. I have always been under the impression that as an amateur, I simply do not put enough training in to ever peak, and stop improving. Burnout is certainly possible, but I never thought I could peak.

I am very serious about looking over the data from my rides (I'm more of a cyclist than anything). This year is the first year I've been training nearly every day. I was seeing significant improvements in my fitness every month. I ride about 7 times a week, usually take one day off and ride twice on a saturday road/mtb. My body was doing great, recovering well and I was getting faster.

About two weeks ago, I took 4 days off, which was the longest I'd had off since mid march. I get back on the bike and my body simply doesn't want to go. I've put in some hard rides and gotten about 100% power wise out of my legs, but I am trashed for days. There isn't the quick recovery I've been used to.

I would love any advice or insight. Here is my ride history from this year: http://app.strava.com/athletes/66722

Is it possible I've "peaked"? Seems a little crazy to me. I would think burnout, but the onslaught of my fatigue was AFTER 4 days of no exercise. Any thoughts ST?
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Re: Can amateurs "peak" or just burnout? [%FTP] [ In reply to ]
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Did you take those off days completely off?
Did you come back at full intensity or did you build into it over a few days?
Did anything else change with regards to nutrition or sleep?
Amateurs can peak, a peak is just backing off a little bit to rest enough to really throw down.
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Re: Can amateurs "peak" or just burnout? [AaronT] [ In reply to ]
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I did not ride or exercise at all.
I came back and did a shorter ride with a few efforts, but I was planning to race the next evening so i was pretty conservative.
I slept more than usual, but had some busy days on my feet. I ate more than usual and less healthy.


So is it possible to "peak" multiple times in a season?
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Re: Can amateurs "peak" or just burnout? [%FTP] [ In reply to ]
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You should have done recovery rides or runs on at least 2 of those days. You should have done a moderate ride to prime the legs before doing efforts.

What you are describing is not a peak, just fatigue from coming off a rest too quickly. It sounds like you rode a high level of growing fitness for a while and needed some rest. You absolutely can have another block of awesome legs, just ramp up the intensity and volume at a sensible level.
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Re: Can amateurs "peak" or just burnout? [%FTP] [ In reply to ]
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Friel says 2-3 "peaks" per year is doable, though one needs to be very disciplined in training stress/recovery regiment.
Sounds like you might include more "recovery" in your schedule.

Add: Agree with above, short & easy spins better than total rest during recovery periods (imo). Keeps legs supple, loose, etc.
Last edited by: Brushman: Jun 14, 12 12:19
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Re: Can amateurs "peak" or just burnout? [%FTP] [ In reply to ]
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%FTP wrote:
You hear about pro's "peaking" for certain races that are their A race. I have always been under the impression that as an amateur, I simply do not put enough training in to ever peak, and stop improving. Burnout is certainly possible, but I never thought I could peak.

Wait... what?

"Peaking" for an A race doesn't mean you reached a point at which you can never improve more.

It just means you build up the volume and intensity to build fitness, then back off so you're rested for the big race.
Last edited by: matto: Jun 14, 12 12:18
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Re: Can amateurs "peak" or just burnout? [%FTP] [ In reply to ]
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A couple of things in your post:

- First, yes amateurs can peak for A races or important periods during their season. How they go about that depends in part on what sort of training loads they've been maintaining and what the make up of that training was as they approach key racing periods. In general the higher the overall load (measured in hours, miles, CTL, kj, whatever total workload metric you like) the more appropriate it is to do a conventional taper. For some folks the overall load is so low that there isn't that much to taper from and they'd be better off continuing to train normally with perhaps a small backoff in training load but not a lot of extra rest days. No hard and fast guidlines, but IME in power terms (given your alias it seems appropriate) I wouldn't plan much if any taper for a rider with a CTL of less than 70 or so (this is for full time cyclists, for multi-sport athletes it depends in part on whether they're estimating and tracking non-cycling TSS) below that point most folks I've worked with simply need to keep training and aren't carrying a ton of residual fatigue. Much above a CTL of 100 and a full taper makes more sense. YMMV.

- It's pretty normal to feel blocked up and worthless on the bike after a block of consecutive rest days after you've been training regularly for a while. Just remember the real fitness adaptations you've developed over time like increased mitochondrial and capillary densities, shifts in heart stroke volume and hematocrit, muscle fiber type conversions, etc. didn't develop in just three or four days and don't evaporate in just three or four days. It sure can feel that way when the legs feel totally flat after resting but you've just got to get going and open them up again. It's usually best to open back up with a few days of riding around Tempo or lower and then start adding in some punchy high end work as your event approaches. It can be really hard on the confidence to approach those last few days feeling totally flat but just keep reminding yourself that the hard work you've done is still there and get the legs moving again. Use what you learn from this taper to plan future tapers as in when to start the taper, how much rest to take, how to open back up again and how much short high end work you need to bring on your best peak.

- In general the shorter and more intense the event and the more it will demand a lot from anaerobic and neurmuscular sources the deeper the taper and the more freshness you want to take into the event. The more endurance oriented the more fitness is important. From that viewpoint, tapering is an exercise in trading future fitness for race day freshness as you turn normal training days into rest days. So taper a bit less for long endurance based events but if you're going to do an intense short crit, cyclocross race, or some track racing then consider more taper but knowing you're getting further from the core training and will have to rebuild afterwards.

Some pretty good ways to view load building and tapering here: http://home.trainingpeaks.com/...anagement-chart.aspx

Good luck,
-Dave
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Re: Can amateurs "peak" or just burnout? [%FTP] [ In reply to ]
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if taking 4 days off put you totally out of whack for 2 weeks you probably have mega flu or bird aids or something.



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