On "needing" a recovery week
Hi,
We've posted a couple training articles on TriFuel recently so I did a drive by of their forum. Here are some thoughts below on scheduling recovery weeks. As you know...we don't really schedule recovery weeks into our plan. PnI like to think that we've done a pretty job of
- Developing a weekly training template that builds recovery, has the right mix of intensity and volume, right into the training plan.
- Encouraging you and giving you permission to toss the plan and take a day off, dial things down, when you need to, or before you need to. That is, PnI will be the first to smack upside the head if you follow our plan into a brick wall.
Anyway, cutting and pasting this over here so we can have our own discussion. The thread on TriFuel is over here if you'd like to participate or talk about what we do, from the perspective of an EN athlete.
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A book says do 3 on, 1 off, 2 on, 1 off, etc.
The same book uses volume as the primary tool to manipulate/manage training stress across a week, but it doesn't talk about how to build out an effective weekly training template. By this, I mean one where Monday works with Tuesday works with Wednesday, etc. So...
The athlete trains with a not-so-great weekly training template. They increase the training volume weekly as their tool to increase training load. Near the end of Week 3 they are begging for the week to end so they can have the recovery week. In that recovery week they drop or significantly dial down some key sessions, like bike and/or run tempo sessions, the length of their long bike and long run, etc.
Notes on this above:
- Because they haven't built out an effective training week, one that builds recovery into the training week itself, they go from session to session carrying a lot of fatigue which at some point significantly decreases the effectiveness of individual sessions. That is, by that third week they are often just going through the motions.
- If in your recovery week you eliminate your key workouts, significantly dial down the length of your long bike and long run, you've effectively compromised 25% of these sessions for the month (ie, 3 on, 1 off scenario).
- If you do it right (I can't stress enough the importance of this weekly training template), you're hitting every session in weeks 1-3. In that fourth week you might take Monday off, roll some stuff around, decrease a bit here and there and you're ready to get back it by Wednesday. More importantly, you don't miss/compromise your key sessions and long bike/long run that week, not incurring the opportunity cost of that 25% above.
- Related to this, you should give yourself permission to take a day off or significantly dial down a session anytime you feel you need to, regardless of where/when you're "supposed" to. IOW, train in real time, don't follow a training schedule into a brick wall.
- More frequently, however, this 3/1 scenario allows to you get sloppy in that 3wks. That is by week 3 you've dug yourself into a hole, you "need" that recovery week, and the recovery week, because it is a week, allows you to get away with digging yourself into another 3wk hole :-) You don't manage your training and recovery in real time because, hey, I gets a recovery week in 2wks, right?
Comments
I'll check out the trifuel forum. I haven't read much over there, too many forums, not enough time!
And, here's another point, I would butcher the 3 week build (without any 'in week' recovery) and 'need' to flip the schedule around to pull that recovery week in a week early, and really slack off that recovery week. Or, if I felt ok during the builds, I'd back the recovery week up, usually 1 week too late.
Bottom line, results were adequate at best.
You touch on something that I chose to focus on this year in the OS (Jan). Last year, I heard that the OS was very flexible. If life calls for flipping then it's OK to adjust the week. Just get the work in. I butchered that, too. I'm trying a new attack on it this year. Yes, it's flexible. Yes, I will probably have to move a wko around, at some point. But, it will be as a last resort. I've come to realize that there may be a reason to order of things in your schedule, a method to the madness. Duh. The wko's have an order, and SO DO THE REST DAYS, also called recovery days. 3 weeks in and I'm building confidence with this approach. I, physically, can feel the work in my legs every evening, can tell there's 'breakdown' even with a relatively short (in the tri world) workout. But, by respecting the recovery days, and EXECUTING the recovery days, when I step up to the next workout, I'm focused and hitting the intervals. I look forward to staying on course and comparing results of this year to last year, where I was a little too flexible.
c ya.
I did the 3:1 for Lake Placid in 2004 and was still tired and in a huge hole by the time I hit the race.
Now I'm half way through my 3rd OS and can use the plan week in and week out when I am smart. I typcally only get in to trouble when I do too much or something dumb.
Too much maybe pushing the 105% on the FTP intervals then backing that up with a run that is also too fast. This leads to a day or two off. Other examples of stupid stuff is doing an extra FTP interval, not getting enough sleep or not eating right. All this add up and eventually requires a day or two off. Last season I got sick an the end of the OS due to the not enougth sleep and it cost we an extra week in transition 2 instead of the one planned.
So this year I actually planned ahead for stupid stuff and put 1 week off (do what I want to) in my OS. It turns out that I have not been running much so this will be used as an extra week of OS work.
As was mentioned in a previous post the wokrouts are structured to allow for recovery while increasing the workout load then transition is a time for focused recovery and move in to a race plan. I think one key to mention here is to ensure that people focus on the transition weeks following the OS to consolidate gains and rest up for the racing season.
Gordon
I had been self-coached and developed my own plans for about 8 of the past 10 years before joining EN (aside from the annual plan Coach R did for me back when he was Crucible Fitness that I used for 2 yrs in which I did 3 IMs). Most of the advice out there on the 3:1 plans or the 10 days on, 1 day off variants of that is founded on the ability to do a consistent, repeatable week -- week in and week out for a long time. I do believe that if you have that ability/flexibility/discipline, then is is possible, but virtually no-one I know has that kind of life. I think I pulled it off one year, in the early '00s, when I had nearly no commute, no business travel, very regular hours and our kids were too small to be in organized activities or school and old enough not to need to be fed, carried and changed. Outside of that, it was always a struggle to make that approach work, personally.
IMO, among the hidden, subtle power of the EN OS and other plans is it allows you to work very hard and recover within the context of the same week - so if you miss a session because of life, work, illness, whatever, you don't compromise a whole week's worth of effort. In some of these other plans, if you for some reason miss a weekend you bail on the key long bike and run sessions and most of the long term training benefit of that week is out the window.
The other issue with the 3:1 plans is that they don't fit racing schedules or seasons very well. If you try to fit a 3:1, 2:1 or 10 on: 1 off plan around racing during your build up, it really doesnt work so well, in my experience.