# Recovery: Zone 1 ride or day off?



## kilgoretrout (Dec 16, 2013)

I rode pretty hard yesterday and was wondering what was better for recovery. Total rest from the bike or a Power Zone 1 ride? I did a 1 hour zone 1 ride today and got like 30 TSS. So just curious if it was even worth it or just totally rest.


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## kbiker3111 (Nov 7, 2006)

kilgoretrout said:


> I rode pretty hard yesterday and was wondering what was better for recovery. Total rest from the bike or a Power Zone 1 ride? I did a 1 hour zone 1 ride today and got like 30 TSS. So just curious if it was even worth it or just totally rest.


It was probably worth it. You'll know tomorrow! Did you have fun?


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## ericm979 (Jun 26, 2005)

If i have time I prefer to do a recovery ride. Keeps my legs moving and gets me out, which is good for mental health.

But fitting cycling, work and family all in one person's life while getting a reasonable amount of sleep is difficult. So often the recovery rides, having the least benefit of any of my rides, are the first to be dropped.


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## runabike (Jun 18, 2013)

Low Zone 2 ride for an hour. Unless you're doing 20 hours a week. Then zone 1.


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## kilgoretrout (Dec 16, 2013)

kbiker3111 said:


> It was probably worth it. You'll know tomorrow! Did you have fun?


Meh, it was on the trainer while my kid napped. Watched 2011 Paris-Roubaix though, so that was nice.


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## kilgoretrout (Dec 16, 2013)

I should clarify my question a bit. Are recovery rides better or total rest better? Basically I'm gathering that they are sorta interchangeable?


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## ericm979 (Jun 26, 2005)

Recovery ride is slightly better. As long as it's really a recovery ride. Many people go too hard. Little girls on tricycles should be dropping you.


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## CoachTJCormier (Sep 16, 2011)

It all depends. Sometimes a day off is the best thing. it's more about how you feel.
If you have to push yourself to go out maybe a day off is better.


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## Poncharelli (May 7, 2006)

After a hard day I also like doing very short sprints, eight or ten of those with very easy spin in between. 

The hard sprint is 10 seconds, but then followed up by 5 minutes of "feathers on the pedals". That gives my legs some recovery (comparatively so) while working the sprint. I slip that in one day a week all year round.


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## runabike (Jun 18, 2013)

kilgoretrout said:


> I should clarify my question a bit. Are recovery rides better or total rest better? Basically I'm gathering that they are sorta interchangeable?


Riding is better than not riding. 

And you can use that riding time more effectively. Z1 is probably not effective unless you're doing a lot.


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## runabike (Jun 18, 2013)

ericm979 said:


> Recovery ride is slightly better. As long as it's really a recovery ride. Many people go too hard. Little girls on tricycles should be dropping you.


What's the point of that, though?

I disagree with this concept of a recovery ride. You're just not getting enough stimulus to justify the effort (or lack thereof).


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## woodys737 (Dec 31, 2005)

runabike said:


> What's the point of that, though?
> 
> I disagree with this concept of a recovery ride. You're just not getting enough stimulus to justify the effort (or lack thereof).


The point is to facilitate healing from the load/stress you just did in order to adapt. The question is does an easy spin (Z1) facilitate healing more effectively than not spinning easy (Z1).

I nor anyone here is really qualified to say for sure given the limited info. As someone else alluded to if you feel like spinning spin. If you feel like staying totally off then stay off. IMO it doesn't make any noticeable or beneficial difference either way in my limited amateur experience.


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## SpeedNeeder (Aug 19, 2013)

woodys737 said:


> The point is to facilitate healing from the load/stress you just did in order to adapt. The question is does an easy spin (Z1) facilitate healing more effectively than not spinning easy (Z1).
> 
> I nor anyone here is really qualified to say for sure given the limited info. As someone else alluded to if you feel like spinning spin. If you feel like staying totally off then stay off. IMO it doesn't make any noticeable or beneficial difference either way in my limited amateur experience.


This makes sense to me.


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## Alaska Mike (Sep 28, 2008)

Much of what we believe is gospel will eventually be debunked. For instance, the RICE approach has recently taken a bit of a hit. You just have to experiment and see what works for you.

Sometime what I'm doing off the bike dictates if I skip a day or ride recovery. Mentally a day off can do wonders and make you crave riding, which may result in a greater impact on your riding. Again, experiment.


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## runabike (Jun 18, 2013)

woodys737 said:


> The point is to facilitate healing from the load/stress you just did in order to adapt. The question is does an easy spin (Z1) facilitate healing more effectively than not spinning easy (Z1).
> 
> I nor anyone here is really qualified to say for sure given the limited info. As someone else alluded to if you feel like spinning spin. If you feel like staying totally off then stay off. IMO it doesn't make any noticeable or beneficial difference either way in my limited amateur experience.


I don't think healing is really what we're looking for, here.

Simple fact of the matter is this: you are not improving when you are not training. 

So the key is to continue training while recovering. If the whole idea is simply to recover or heal, then rest is what you'd do. You don't take a twisted ankle out for a short walk to help it heal. 

Instead, the idea (ideally) is to get in as much training as you can while still being adequately recovered enough to perform the workouts (this is excluding overreaching and supercomp). 

So if the OP or anyone is faced with the decision "is riding better than not riding", then I'd say riding. But if the question is "is riding super easy really as time-efficient as riding a bit harder (z1 versus z2)" then I'd say no, you're not getting nearly as effective training riding at z1 if you're training 10-12 hours a week or under. 

You can get much more from it by keeping it Z2, getting that aerobic stimulus and getting the heart rate up and blood pumping through leg muscles. Much better bang for the buck. Z1 is essentially wasting time on the bike from a training stimulus viewpoint (obviously there are other reasons to ride z1).


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## ericm979 (Jun 26, 2005)

runabike said:


> Simple fact of the matter is this: you are not improving when you are not training.


If you read any training book you'll see a statement about needing stress and recovery to improve. But maybe all those experts are wrong and you're right. Let us know how that works.


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## DZfan14 (Jul 6, 2009)

I am pretty sure I ride too much. Peak season 200+ a week easy. Two hard group rides during the week, if there is no race another hard one on Saturday. In between I solo rides that run from 25-80 miles. I go 6 or 7 days straight without a day off. I try to stick with the hard day, easy day model.

But whenever I am forced to take 2-3 days off, when I get back on the back I always feel a little stronger.


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## SpeedNeeder (Aug 19, 2013)

ericm979 said:


> If you read any training book you'll see a statement about needing stress and recovery to improve.


I agree, perhaps I misunderstood what runabike was saying.


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## runabike (Jun 18, 2013)

ericm979 said:


> If you read any training book you'll see a statement about needing stress and recovery to improve. But maybe all those experts are wrong and you're right. Let us know how that works.


Or maybe you're quick to jump the gun with a silly retort without understanding what you're reading. 

If you rest, you won't get better. Don't believe me? Go rest for the month. Come back and report how much faster you're not.

My point, if you can hold back long enough to actually think about it, is that you can RECOVER while still getting in actual training. 

Is rest as important as the stress? Yes. But why waste a ride doing Z1 when you can do the same ride at Z2, get the benefit of that type of ride, and still recover? You're not getting better if you're doing Z1. If you do Z1 all the time, you'll quickly detrain. Same for rest.


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## runabike (Jun 18, 2013)

DZfan14 said:


> I am pretty sure I ride too much. Peak season 200+ a week easy. Two hard group rides during the week, if there is no race another hard one on Saturday. In between I solo rides that run from 25-80 miles. I go 6 or 7 days straight without a day off. I try to stick with the hard day, easy day model.
> 
> But whenever I am forced to take 2-3 days off, when I get back on the back I always feel a little stronger.


It's not that you ride too much, it's that you ride too hard too much. 

Very big difference.


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## woodys737 (Dec 31, 2005)

Short term recovery studies seem to indicate that active recovery is slightly better than passive recovery. But I couldn't really find anything covering the topic in the context of this thread ie...you work hard for a week and on Sunday should it be couch time or Z1. 

I know from my own experience, a 800TSS week of all endurance and tempo I seem to do better with a day of passive. Yet an 800TSS week of endurance mixed with quite a bit of superthreshold/threshold work active recovery seems to work better. Any Z2 ride would be very hard (legs loaded/hard to sustain even low power/super suppressed heart rate etc...) to do. So for me even Z2 inhibits recovery which for the purpose of this thread=rest.

From the limited searching I did I don't think there is a definitive answer. I can imagine what works for a guy new to cycling is vastly different from an experience elite cyclist. 

Just did my 30th race this season yesterday and put in a decent effort (63mile road race with approx 2800Kj effort). That is a lot for me! My legs felt pretty bad this morning yet after my spin they feel somewhat refreshed. I assume the light work and slightly elevated HR increasd blood flow just enough to have a small benefit. I also found this true when I injured my chest (broken ribs) and to a lessor degree my back. Point is getting the "blood flowing" makes me feel much better but slow enough so I don't load my legs any more.


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## Dunbar (Aug 8, 2010)

The impression I've gotten from the popular training books is that it's best to ride every day. Most of us can't do that (or don't want to) so we compromise. Whether that's 1 day off a week or 3 days off few of us can get on the bike every day. The other thing is the polarized model training that seems to be most popular now where you either go pretty hard or pretty easy (and not much in-between.) The key to easy rides is to make sure they're easy enough so you don't sabotage your hard efforts later that week. So it's going to be hard to say if a Z1 ride is advisable without knowing more about the OP's training regimen. There's certainly no harm to doing a Z1 ride. My easy days are Z2 so I probably wouldn't bother with Z1 unless I was feeling pretty wasted and just wanted to get out for a ride.


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## DZfan14 (Jul 6, 2009)

runabike said:


> It's not that you ride too much, it's that you ride too hard too much.
> 
> Very big difference.


Very true. Most of the time I can't help myself.


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## Local Hero (Jul 8, 2010)

kilgoretrout said:


> I should clarify my question a bit. Are recovery rides better or total rest better? Basically I'm gathering that they are sorta interchangeable?


I've done both complete rest and easy spins. I prefer an easy spin. 

My experience is that my body feels weird the day after a complete rest day -- I feel like I have to shake off the cobwebs. So I end up doing a recovery ride the day after my complete rest day! 

When I keep my legs moving I usually feel fine the day after the easy day. I raced all weekend and this morning I did an easy 14mi, 60 minute spin. Then my usual recovery day roll out and stretch. Maybe it's psychological but I'm sure I'll feel fully recovered tomorrow.


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