I’ve come to a fairly frustrating conclusion: if I don’t train for more than a single day, my fitness quickly drops off. Wattage is lower, hr is higher, and that’s just the objective measurements.
This can be frustrating, as if I have any drop in motivation or some external event occurs, then I have to suffer for a few days doing wimpy workouts and dog shit recovery runs/rides/swims.
Normal numbers for riding is like ~240 watts at ~145 bpm for a few hours. After just three days off, I’m doing 210 W at 150 bpm and hating life. What is the deal? Am I alone?
I get that you have the numbers to back that up, but that just doesn’t seem right. Regardless, guaranteed you’re not losing fitness in 2 days. It’s some other factor. As to what, I have no idea.
I’ve come to a fairly frustrating conclusion: if I don’t train for more than a single day, my fitness quickly drops off. Wattage is lower, hr is higher, and that’s just the objective measurements.
This can be frustrating, as if I have any drop in motivation or some external event occurs, then I have to suffer for a few days doing wimpy workouts and dog shit recovery runs/rides/swims.
Normal numbers for riding is like ~240 watts at ~145 bpm for a few hours. After just three days off, I’m doing 210 W at 150 bpm and hating life. What is the deal? Am I alone?
I’m not an expert, but that seems like a very large drop-off for only three days of rest. That being said, I struggle with something similar and I’ve often wondered if it is physical or psychological. I train a fair amount and very consistently- I averaged just under 10 hours per week in 2020. But if I take a week off running and then go out and run 7-8 miles, I can get stiff. Also, sometimes I feel better having trained consecutive days in a row than I do coming off 1-2 rest days.
It’s always complicated my taper for races. I tend not to want to cut back much, but that makes me wonder if I’m going into races over-trained or on tired legs. Earlier in my career when I focused on marathons, I’m pretty sure I would over-taper and lose conditioning. I’d start 3 weeks out and really go light the last 10 days. I found I ran better when I went 80%, 60%, and 40% of peak mileage in the last 3 weeks and mirrored my training schedule in those last three weeks in terms of mixing in some speed and tempo work. I’d just do the higher intensity stuff at a somewhat easier pace and shorter distance.
Anyway, I feel your pain because it’s really unpleasant to feel like you’ve lost conditioning so quickly and to struggle after you’ve supposedly re-charged your batteries.
I’ve noticed through my training that after a long distance weekend and rest day on Monday, my Tuesday activity feels like death. However, Wednesday is back to feeling great. If I take off Monday and Tuesday, my Wednesday run feels like death. If I just looked at my first day back numbers, I might concluded I lost fitness. However, it seems that I just need day to get things moving again.
You aren’t losing fitness in a day or two. That’s simply not true.
HR can be lower for a number of factors. I would also make sure you’re looking at Heart Rate Variability and not just in the moment HR during your ride. If your resting HR is higher and your riding HR is lower, that indicates low variability and possible overtraining
I like this view:
Low resting HR + High HRV = you are in good shape to smash it
Low resting HR + Low HRV = you might need some type of recovery or just a regular aerobic ride
High resting HR + Low HRV = you probably need some type of recovery or a day completely off
High resting HR + High HRV = you might be stressed or experiencing a “fight or flight†response
I’ve come to a fairly frustrating conclusion: if I don’t train for more than a single day, my fitness quickly drops off. Wattage is lower, hr is higher, and that’s just the objective measurements.
This can be frustrating, as if I have any drop in motivation or some external event occurs, then I have to suffer for a few days doing wimpy workouts and dog shit recovery runs/rides/swims.
Normal numbers for riding is like ~240 watts at ~145 bpm for a few hours. After just three days off, I’m doing 210 W at 150 bpm and hating life. What is the deal? Am I alone?
Are you consistently feel bad after taking a day off? because that doesnt sound right
I think it was steve magnes had a theory/study where some people benefit most from an off day the day before a race and others like to take the off day two days before and have an easy shake out the day before to get the body back to feeling good. I personally feel pretty bad the day after an off day but two days after and I feel really good so I schedule rest days and hard days around that
Now if you take 1 day off and then feel bad for a week or something afterwards then I think something else is going on because you arent going to lose fitness that quickly. Maybe you are over-training, or have poor diet/sleep?
3 days off is a bit more significant time off so it may take some more time than 1 day to feel normal again but you didnt lose aerobic fitness in that time. I know I took 2 days off and then day 2 into training I had one of my best workouts ever this year. took 4 days off a few months ago and was quickly back into solid fitness and knocking out some good workouts the following week after taking soem time at doing easy zone 2 runs and a sweet spot bike workout
You do not lose any fitness in a day, or two, or 7, or even 10. In fact with a long rest period, you will go faster for longer if coming off a good training bloc. It is called a taper, which just about every great athlete in the world does in power and endurance sports.
I think what you are experiencing is just a type of sluggishness that comes from stopping something that you do everyday. That is normal, and as someone else pointed out, is why a lot of us like to take the 2nd day before a race off and then do light stuff the day before to avoid that.
Also keep in mind that your HR during periods of rest will often go up, and that is not a bad thing. Hard training blocs often suppress the upper end of HR, and the rest helps your muscles recover as well as your heart( it is a muscle too after all) SO it is primed to hit those higher numbers, and often starts a lot higher too than a normal workout day…
You aren’t losing fitness in a day or two. That’s simply not true.
This ^^^
There’s something else going on and I’d bet it’s related to hyrdration. Lower hydration = higher HR for same power.
Either that or on days after a day off, you crush through less of a warm-up, accumulate fatigue fast, and then suffer through more fatigue the rest of your ride because of a skipped/skimped warm-up.
“Fitness” can hang on for 3-4 weeks on minimal training without huge losses.
Sound like a case of overtraining over the long term; in this case when you rest you body is going into full repair mode and is not ready to return to training, so when you try to give it a go, its saying “no thanks”. I would look at things from a broader perspective and take a look at what your program looks like and how much rest you’re giving yourself, training variety (of lack therof), and when the last time you gave yourself a bonafide off-season. If you fill in those blanks we might have more suggestions
I took two weeks off from running due to an injury back in February. I kept swimming and biking. Took a noticeable hit in my run fitness. I’ve often heard two weeks as a rule of thumb for losing fitness, seems true in my anecdotal experience.
some anecdotes:
when i was in my best fitness, i was also very sharp, and sharpness is lost really quickly. just maintaining - let alone improving - my top-end when i was running, say, 3:00/kms, was a lot of work.
on the other hand, muscle memory is a magical thing: i hardly swim these days, but have a lot of swimming base from my childhood and find that i can jump into a 1.5 or 2km tri swim and muddle along mid-pack just fine. low fitness, but persistent decent technique.
finally: i used to know an olympic rower - serious person, medical doctor, and gold medalist. she reckoned that at the top end, the formula was 1:2, meaning that if she took 1 month off, it would take about 2 months of training to get back to peak form. presumably there are upper and lower limits to this (a day off and 2 years off, for instance . . .) but it ‘feels’ about right to me. your mileage may vary.
Interestingly, I have also come here seeking for an answer to a similar conundrum.
Pretty much been training for the past 13 months or so (some time with a coach, and some time on a training plan). I think it has finally making me burn out (also the lack of clarity on certain races and travel doubts). Losing motivation and in a constant state of fatigue so I finally decided to take a week off from training.
All this while I have been very hesitant to take too much time off, with the worry that my fitness will suffer. I have worked so hard to get to this level of fitness, and the thought of taking 1-2 weeks off makes me feel very guilty. Thoughts?
to OP an others Ross Tucker has an episode going in depth about how we lose fitness in the real science of sport podcast.
my short takeaway is that one day would be too little to lose fitness.
additionally if on a longer break it ( would have to go back to be 100% accurate ) 5 to 10% would be “normal†in 7 to 14 days and if the athlete was able to do one 30 min session in that time frame losses would be halved. this last part makes the case for tapering.
hope this helps and you find the episode interesting / helpful.
What Monty said, “Also keep in mind that your HR during periods of rest will often go up, and that is not a bad thing. Hard training blocs often suppress the upper end of HR, and the rest helps your muscles recover as well as your heart( it is a muscle too after all) SO it is primed to hit those higher numbers, and often starts a lot higher too than a normal workout day…”
I believe there is an age component to this too. It seems I de-train a heckuva lot faster in my 60’s than I did in my 30’s, 40’s and even 50’s. Consistency truly seems to be key. I try to do something SBR related every day at this point in my life.
That’s simply not true. Check the table below according to Issurin (2010)
Aerobic residual training effect can last for 30 ± 5 days. The first thing to drop off is ATP-PC production and CNS activation after 5 ±3 days.
Maybe after a few days off your body is getting a chance to actually repair itself and recover from efforts. During recovery, resting HR is often higher and people feel “off” as their body is physically changing.
