Did my long run Sunday with a little added effort as my legs were a little tired from the previous week. Monday my legs felt shot, but I went out mountain biking anyway. I got that heavy/burning feeling in my legs over and over (dead legs). So, is working out on tired legs actually beneficial or is it deleterious? Is there a physiological benefit?
Maybe see this thread about bricks: http://forum.slowtwitch.com/gforum.cgi?do=post_view_flat;post=3410338;page=1;mh=-1;sb=post_latest_reply;so=ASC
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Short answer: No. There is no “added” benefit to running/biking on tired legs. Having said that, “more is more,” so you shouldn’t avoid working out on tired legs (i.e. you don’t need to take a day off after a big training day). Recovery is delayed by going hard on back-to-back, so you need to consider what your priorities are and near-term goals. For example, if you’re in a run focus, I’d try to avoid biking hard the day after a long run because it would delay the time when I’d be ready for another quality run session. That’s obviously harder when you’re trying to maintain balance across all three disciplines, so you need to think hard about what you’re trying to accomplish for that week.
The generic answer is that it depends what you’re trying to accomplish. If your “dead legs” don’t hamper the intended quality of the workout - and don’t negatively impact your subsequent workouts - then there’s little harm in doing so. That said, I’m of the mind that running on dead legs is just a bad practice. A lot of people dismiss the notion that “junk miles” exist, but the way I see it you should have a small arsenal of run workouts ranging from low volume (w/intervals) up to your long run. If you can’t safely knock out any one of those workouts on any given day, then you probably shouldn’t be running.
It impedes recovery and will delay the rebuilding of muscle to make you stronger. The ideal situation is to tire your legs to a point and then rest to recover and rebuild. Going MTB’ing on a rest day was not the smartest idea.
It impedes recovery and will delay the rebuilding of muscle to make you stronger. The ideal situation is to tire your legs to a point and then rest to recover and rebuild. Going MTB’ing on a rest day was not the smartest idea.
Just to play devil’s advocate here, how long is enough recovery? And are you actually losing fitness working out when your legs are dead or just delaying the point when you reach full recovery and thus the ability to do another hard session? If you have one long session and one speed session for swimming, biking and running, that’s six hard workouts in a week and thus no time for recovery.
“The ideal situation is to tire your legs to a point and then rest to recover and rebuild.”
I agree with this line, but not necessarily on a day by day basis. Taking an extreme example of someone who is a beginner and wants to do try, if they take this too literally they will bike one day, rest the next, then run, then rest, etc. If you wait until you feel good you’ll never get any volume in.
Its perfectly acceptable to run 2-3 days, even fairly hard, then recover, and its also good if recovery is an easy run.
Not that everyone has to exactly copy elite runners, but do people think a top distance runner never runs on tired legs?
Styrrell
It impedes recovery and will delay the rebuilding of muscle to make you stronger. The ideal situation is to tire your legs to a point and then rest to recover and rebuild. Going MTB’ing on a rest day was not the smartest idea.
This. Rest is no joke.
I’m sure there is good information on Bricks and running on tired legs in ST… but that link was mostly a pissing contest.
I’m going to go for a swim now with my tired legs. One of the nice things about triathlon is you can almost always
find something that is not hurting. 
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Depending on your age and how fast you recover, you can get by with 1 rest day a week for quite some time. However, once in a while it would be highly advised to tack on a rest week where you do nothing strenuous and focus solely on recovery. I’m very fast at recovering (23 years old) and usually I will take a rest week once every 6-8 weeks. I find that the first 2-3 rides are rather lackluster, but shortly after I start to really get back into the swing of things.
But everybody is different. A friend of mine who is 18 takes 3-4 days off at the end of every month. It seems to work fairly well for him. You need to find what works well for your needs.
My legs are always tired.
Is running on tired legs beneficial?
The rule of specificity of training says, “yes”
The rule of run training says, “No” - running on fresh legs and getting high quality run training in is better.
The right answer is that you have to figure out a mix that works for you. Let’s be honest, in any triathlon and in particular the longer races, you are going to be running on tired and potentially beat-up legs at some point.
In one of Chris Charmichael’s books, he said that Lance Armstrong mostly did active recovery, meaning low intensity (like 50-60% effort) low volume workouts. He said that Lance did this in between some longer races, I forget which ones exactly, but the result was that he recovered well.
When lactic acids are trapped within the muscles moving them out is beneficial. Light days can help accomplish this although Tour riders usually use a masseuse immediately following their races to help legs recover.
Elevate your legs and do some self massage after a hard day. Even after nine days of racing most Tour de France riders went for a short easy ride on the rest day yesterday, so that action in and of itself pretty well helps answer the question.
More than just timing your rest days appropriately, it is having some kind of plan with respect to supplements, massage, leg elevation, icing for soreness or strains, use of recovery beverages and other elements of a strategic and planned recovery. If you don’t recover, then needless to say, it is a good idea to have an easy day or a rest day.
X2. My legs are tired every day. I won’t risk injury but I’m always training on tired legs. When you are 40 and doing 6 runs a week and 4 bike sessions you rarely feel fresh. But you also become very aware of what your body can handle and what it can’t.
When lactic acids are trapped within the muscles moving them out is beneficial.
I am pretty sure the idea which fingers lactic acid levels or concentrations or trapping as the cause of post workout soreness in the short and long term has been shown to be false and not based on observable physiological mechanisms.
nothing to prove I recover faster than not running at all, but a nice and easy paced (don’t even worry about pace, just do the distance) short 3-4 mile run when my legs are beat up sure makes me feel a lot better, and I just added a few miles to my weekly total.
I think theres something to be said for training on tired legs to get you mentally tough, its going to happen in a race so best be prepared, plenty of time to recover during a taper. That said you need to be sensible about it too, if you are so tired you just stumble around then like was said earlier all the quality is gone.
When lactic acids are trapped within the muscles moving them out is beneficial. Light days can help accomplish this although Tour riders usually use a masseuse immediately following their races to help legs recover.
Seriously?
Shane
My legs are always tired.
Yes. That. If I rest until my legs are not tired I’d have more rest than training days. Not sure how it would be possible to get in shape.
Training on tired legs got me to finishing in the top 20% in my second 70.3 Tri about 2.5 years into the sport. I’m also not as young anymore as I would like (49) so that might have something to do with it.