tired

My 2 cents worth.

I don't think that you would suffer any significant reduction in fitness over four days. I would suggest that perhaps that your perception of being puffed would be due to other circumstances ie: diet. Did you deviate form your normal diet over the break (ok, who DIDN'T?). Did you consume more alcohol?

These things can have a great impact in the short term. Without knowing more about you I would imagine that once you are back into training, eating and resting normally again you probably will see gains from the break.

KOGAN said:

i was out of breath and generally felt bad.

When I take even a few days off, I notice it in my breathing and HR. But, I don't feel much difference where it matters, in my legs, so I usually just ignore the higher breathing and cardio workload and ride at my usual power. Within a day or two, my breathing and cardio return to prior levels.

RapDaddyo said:

When I take even a few days off, I notice it in my breathing and HR. But, I don't feel much difference where it matters, in my legs, so I usually just ignore the higher breathing and cardio workload and ride at my usual power. Within a day or two, my breathing and cardio return to prior levels.

Aggg. This is what happened to me today. I was doing a CP test. Got 7 min into a ~20min test and breathing and HR were going into the red zone. No way I was going to make ~20min. Figured I was still tired from my last training block. Could be I was experiencing the same thing you describe. On the other hand could be I was over estimating what I could do for 20min.

watts4speed said:

Aggg. This is what happened to me today. I was doing a CP test. Got 7 min into a ~20min test and breathing and HR were going into the red zone. No way I was going to make ~20min. Figured I was still tired from my last training block. Could be I was experiencing the same thing you describe. On the other hand could be I was over estimating what I could do for 20min.

My advice - ignore your breathing and HR. What are your legs telling you? If your legs won't turn the cranks, then the jig's up. If the legs will turn the cranks but you're breathing hard and your HR is high, don't worry about it.

RapDaddyo said:

My advice - ignore your breathing and HR. What are your legs telling you? If your legs won't turn the cranks, then the jig's up. If the legs will turn the cranks but you're breathing hard and your HR is high, don't worry about it.

Sometimes, early in a workout, I can feel really bad. Breathing, HR, on rare occasions some minor nauseau. Most of the time, once I really "break a sweat", it goes away.

Wayne

dockeen said:

Sometimes, early in a workout, I can feel really bad. Breathing, HR, on rare occasions some minor nauseau. Most of the time, once I really "break a sweat", it goes away.

Wayne

Yeah, I think breathing and HR are highly overrated anyway.😉

RapDaddyo said:

My advice - ignore your breathing and HR. What are your legs telling you? If your legs won't turn the cranks, then the jig's up. If the legs will turn the cranks but you're breathing hard and your HR is high, don't worry about it.

I'd like not too. My experience in the past is that when my HR/Breathing takes off like it did I won't finish the 20min duration due to muscle fatague of the lungs. Not a really good condition to feel confident I pushed my legs to their max. My last CP test wasn't a problem. My HR can vary pretty widely for a given power, and is somewhat correlated with previous hard efforts. My breathing also is pretty consistant with my HR. If I go into the 170s then I'll be breathing hard. My power seems decoupled from my HR.

watts4speed said:

My power seems decoupled from my HR.

Mine too. Check out this 17.5 mile hillcliimb, with NP and AvgHR by mile. If there's a relationship between power and HR, I can't find it.

RapDaddyo said:

Mine too. Check out this 17.5 mile hillcliimb, with NP and AvgHR by mile. If there's a relationship between power and HR, I can't find it.

In the chart your showing are you riding at the maximum power you can maintain, which is decreasing over time, or are you holding HR relatively constant?

watts4speed said:

In the chart your showing are you riding at the maximum power you can maintain, which is decreasing over time, or are you holding HR relatively constant?

I was intending to ride a variable power plan with the highest power in the steepest sections. I paid no attention to HR during the ride. But, this was the first time I had attempted to ride at my max power for 2 hours. So, while I had a fairly good idea of my 1hr power, I was sort of guessing about my 2hr power. The correct power profile should have been highest in the middle third of the course where the course is steepest. But, I took it out too hard, realized it and tried to pull back, went as hard as I could in the middle and then was completely wasted for the final third. I was astonished at how little power I could make in the last third of the course. Whereas I was doing 20min intervals at 300W at that time, I found it difficult to make 200W in some parts of the course. It was a real wake-up call as to the difference between 1hr power and 2hr power. I didn't post the graphic as an illustration of good power management, but rather a graphic illustration of the disconnect between power and HR.

KOGAN said:

hi

i have a strange problem in that i have been doing over 4000km easy over the last 3 months with one or two interval sessions but otherwise no intensity and my rides have been 25-30km/h pace. i was advised to take a few days off over christmas. i thought this was odd as i wasnt that tired but i took the advise and took four days off the bike completely. i got back on the bike on monday and did a normal two hour ride and really felt slow and tired. i was out of breath and generally felt bad. i thought this was just an off day and so did 2 hours the next day and felt the same but felt better in the last hour so did an interval session on the turbo for an hour when i got home and felt quite good. but yesterday i felt terrible again. i am taking another 2 days off the bike but has anyone got any ideas why i feel like this after a break?

how come i feel more tired after the break than before it?

any ideas much appreciated

KOGAN

Though I can understand that forums are good place to ask questions and get feed back, it would be even more important that you ask this question to the person that prescribed 4000 of ez volume over the last 3 months at the first place.

You're loosing some fitness as a result of this, but it may be part of a longer term plan therefore it may be a good thing I don't know.

But for sure, 4000k barely exceeding 30kmh in avg seems like a lot of slow volume to me. And I'm not surprised that overcompensation doesn't occur (as it normally would) after a short rest period. Overcompensation is the process during which we feel fresh and sharp after one or more days off. But for this process to take place, sufficient training load needs to be obtained before resting.

As for the short breath experimented the day after a short period "off", I too experiment this. But normally, the following day (two days after the short period "off"😉, "the cranks are in danger".