About 2 months ago I started training, starting from totally zero (2 years basically no exercise let alone proper cycling).

While my MMP Watts have increased nicely, my legs feel constantly tired and heavy, especially for the first 30 mins when I set out.

Do recovery rides work, and should I be adding a one into my routine?

Or is this a sign my intensity is too high or I’m not warming up/cooling down properly? I’m mainly doing the HIIT and ‘descending pyramid’ workouts on a Wattbike, then either a 1-2 hour ride at the weekend or a swim.

It’s surely not the volume since I’m only doing 3 – 4 hours a week. I’m a total newbie to training btw, all I’ve ever done previously is ‘ride moar’ to get fit so don’t assume i know anything.

Any advice? ta

Yes, recovery rides do something, but for novices you are typically better just taking a rest day.
Sounds very unlikely based off 3-4hrs/wk, but legs constantly feeling heavy is a sign your overdoing it – not necessarily just on the bike – could be other stress factors not giving enough recovery.

Don’t know what the sessions are like on a Wattbike, but for turbo sessions, I’ll typically do a 15-20min ramped warmup, and 5-10 mins easy spinning to finish.

How many days are you doing Wattbike sessions on? You don’t really want to be doing high intensity more than twice a week, so maybe if you are doing more you could replace with an easy ride there.

Two high effort wattbike sessions a week, plus a normal 1-2 hr ride at the weekend (which TBH is also high effort since I’m 15kg overweight and unfit 😆 ).

When you say ‘stress factors’, is that just exercise or would it also be lack of sleep? I’m getting shit all sleep, my two year old still wakes us through the night (incidentally also the reason I stopped riding in the first place).

Tired legs all the time means you are not recovering properly. I think you need a good base before you start getting into serious interval work. Two months of training after starting from zero is quite a short time. Perhaps think about more general endurance training (just ride your bike for fun) and maybe do one interval session a week, until you have built up a bit more of a training base.

What else are you doing to help your legs recover? are you stretching and foam rolling daily for example?

No, nothing. Assume I should be then? 🙂

When you say ‘stress factors’, is that just exercise or would it also be lack of sleep?

Yes, basically anything that isn’t ideal resting counts
Sleep is the most important for recovery (says the guy that stayed up till 01:15 this morning 😳 )
But other stuff too, pressure at work, mowing the grass, running round after the family, even standing washing the dishes is putting load on the legs when they want to rest.

You definitely need to find a way to keep the weekend ride easy if your doing two hard interval sessions during the week.
I’d be tempted to try a ride-by-feel regime, where if you feel fresh when starting your session, ride hard, otherwise, ride easy.
It’s easy to get caught up in all the research and articles saying how well HIIT works, but it’s not going to work long term if you are running yourself down.

+1 for getting some longer rides in and cutting back on the intervals. I’m sure it’s them that are making your legs hurt.

Or just put up with the heavy legs until you get fitter.

Sounds like.you are basically doing three hard interval sessions a week and nothing else.

That is going to make your legs ache if hitting it hard.

With three hard sessions a week I’d be taking every 4th week to do light spinning and let your legs repair even if you do.no recovery rides at any other time.

Get a bike and go outside, worry less about fitness and enjoy the riding…the fitness will then come

I’m getting shit all sleep, my two year old still wakes us through the night (incidentally also the reason I stopped riding in the first place).

Google ‘sleep deprivation and training’ for some interesting articles, we’re expecting our first any day now so I was wondering how it would affect my very loose easy-hard-easy-hard-easy training/commuting schedule, sounds like it will become easy-easy-easy-easy-take the car 8)

The basics are that sleep deprivation = poor recovery.

+1 for more base work.

Leave the intervals until new year. From now until then focus on longer endurance rides at lower intensity and build up the length slowly over the next 6 moths. Aim for 3-4 hour rides by December.

If you cant do that, then make sure you spin at <100w for ten minutes after each session. This will make a huge difference to the way your legs feel next time out.

Aim for 3-4 hour rides by December.

You’re a harsh taskmaster 😉
Poor guy just wants to get a bit fitter and you want him grinding out 60mi rides in December!

Do stretching after your rides as well OP.

Nothing really wrong with feeling a bit tired if you’re training hard. Cycling more easy miles might help a bit, or not.

I sometimes take a day off if I’ve been riding a lot and other times I just grab the bike and go for a mince around with some harder work depending on how the legs feel. Play it by ear, if you feel good you’re probably good to go, if you feel like your legs are like lead, take a day off or have a gentle spin.

Recovery rides won’t magically make you feel better.

I really view them as something to keep the exercised addicted busy with when more proper training would be detrimental.

Put your feet up and have a nice cuppa instead.

what are you training for ?

recovery ride to the pub would make you feel better.

Right okay, thanks everyone. There’s a lot to think about there.

anagallis_arvensis – Member
Get a bike and go outside, worry less about fitness and enjoy the riding…the fitness will then come

Problem is riding for enjoyment isn’t really happening while being tired, busy, slow and fat. Getting overtaken all the time and having to keep stopping on climbs I didn’t even used to really notice is depressing. It just becomes a chore and I know I won’t do it.

Whereas if I tell myself I am training, I can go out or use the Wattbike with the mindset that I’m riding to do work, and watch the numbers improve.

13thfloormonk – Member
The basics are that sleep deprivation = poor recovery.

It does seem that way, I’ve certainly never struggled this much before.

iainc – Member
what are you training for ?

General self flagellation improvement, getting to the point I can ride with a local club, and maybe doing something like the Dragon ride next year (~100 miles in hilly terrain compared to my local riding). I think it should be do-able.

Id say stretch more, sp def after every ride and then why not daily before bed.

Make sure you cover off: Calves, Hamstrings, Quads, Groin and Glutes.

You could also get a foam roller to really get into the tight muscles and encourage blood flow to aid with muscle recovery.

Sports massage wil really help. Sounds like you have done too much too soon and not given your musscles time to recover.

IMO longer less intense rides will help with weight loss.

I’m getting shit all sleep

This won’t help. Also, 3-4hrs could quite feasibly be too much if it’s too high intensity and you’re not used to it.

Adding a recovery ride or two a week might not help, but you don’t want to try doing a high intensity session every day on the wattbike – i.e. do a recovery ride instead of the high intensity stuff for now rather than as well as.

Take rest weeks, too – at the very least with low intensity riding throughout the week.

Give it time, you’ll get fitter – as long as you don’t over-do it and end up getting injured.

If you’re getting sore legs all the time, you may be overdoing it, so take it easy. The other bonus of a rest week is you’ll be able to see how your fitness is coming on after the rest period as you’ll have properly fresh legs that have all the gains you’ve made though training (and it’s the recovery that allows you to actually make the gains).

British Cycling has a lot of good guidance in the members area, along with other reasons this could be a good reason to join them.

Stretching and foam rolling is very individual I have found.

Address the sleep issues you have mentioned, and make sure you are eating properly before and after your interval sessions. I’d echo what has been said up there already though, just get out and ride your bike while its decent weather and build a decent base. Save the intervals for shit weather training indoors.

we’re expecting our first any day now so I was wondering how it would affect my very loose easy-hard-easy-hard-easy training/commuting schedule, sounds like it will become easy-easy-easy-easy-take the ca

Yes definitely but I don’t generally have the option to take the car, but it can be as short as 4 miles each way if I need to. If I feel I’ve overdone it too much and feeling sleep deprived I’ll do a week of minimum distance and minimum effort, keeping HR well within Z1 which can mean ~4.5 miles takes ~30 minutes on hardtail.

I really view them as something to keep the exercised addicted busy with when more proper training would be detrimental.

This. Also, they can be very enjoyable, just spinning along taking in the sights without any pressure to put any effort in.

Problem is riding for enjoyment isn’t really happening while being tired, busy, slow and fat. Getting overtaken all the time and having to keep stopping on climbs I didn’t even used to really notice is depressing. It just becomes a chore and I know I won’t do it.

Just a thought, but why not get a mountain bike? I hear it can be quite fun…

(less grueling than the road bike though be honest, grueling is what roadbikes are for, reply above notwithstanding, and you do see a few unfit mountainbikers who nonetheless seem to be getting something out of it…)

Serious suggestion – I totally get that some folks just want a decent workout and find that more motivating than a gentle spin – but you can get fitter on a mtb but also get more of a buzz than from pushing the pedals.

Getting overtaken all the time and having to keep stopping on climbs I didn’t even used to really notice is depressing.

A recovery ride is the perfect reason to let this happen, you should start doing them.

Just ride whatever feels gentle. If you enjoy it, your fitness will come. Make your riding more about getting out and enjoying it than “winning”, and you’ll be enjoying riding a lot quicker than you will if you wait until you are 15kgs lighter and are getting good sleep.

Using a heart rate monitor during your workouts? Install Stravistix (free) plugin for Strava on Google Chrome and use the fitness/freshness stats to see if it thinks you are over-training for your current level of fitness.

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/stravistix-for-strava/dhiaggccakkgdfcadnklkbljcgicpckn?hl=en

Back in February, ~6 weeks after I started my quest for fitness, I suddenly started to feel very heavy-legged. I was going out for ~60min rides, where pretty much all of it was zones 4/5, at least 6 days per week. I learnt the hard way that I needed to incorporate at least two rest days per week and also allow some recovery time after a big effort up a hill, or trying to maintain 20+ mph for several miles.
When I discovered stravistix a month or two later and looked back at that time in Feb when I was suffering, my “form” (fitness-fatigue) was consistently more negative than -30, which is classed as “over-training” and leads to sub-optimal fitness improvement (~-20 to -25 is the right sort of ballpark iirc).

Can’t say I’ve dabbled much in “recovery rides” over the last six months or so, maybe a handful tops. I either tend to do zone4 sub 25-mile flatish sprints, or give it everything on the hills and recover after the summit.

A heart rate monitor is a reasonable idea, its surprising how slow you have to go to stay in zone 2 which is essentially a recovery ride.

What I started doing is picking somewhere with a good view, place to chill, or coffee shop around 5-10km away, ride there, chill for a bit, and then cruise home, so the purpose isn’t the ride itself but to chill for a bit, rather than cover as many kms as possible in the shortest time. After doing that for a few weeks, it became habit, to the point I now feel like i’ve wasted my evening if i don’t fit that in on days when i’m not doing proper rides. Sometimes now that even becomes my preferred ride and I push it a bit on the short climbs. Will see if that continues once the weather turns.

If you truly have started from level zero then intervals are the wrong way to get fit, you need a reasonable base on which to build. Long steady rides (zone 2) with proper rest between rides. Don’t worry what anyone else around you is doing, they aren’t doing your training plan, if they pass you, so what?

Once you’ve built a base then one intense session per week, it can be hill reps, sprint intervals, fartlek, whatever. But … it must be hard work and you don’t do another until you’ve recovered. Your steady rides will keep things moving along.

Whenever I’ve done them they’ve proved beneficial. A half hour gentle spin, concentrating on maintain a high RPM and easy gears.

johnx2 – Member

Just a thought, but why not get a mountain bike? I hear it can be quite fun…

I’ve got one but sadly it has 26 inch wheels and a 1 1/8 head tube 🙁

Real issue is that it’s a drive to my local trails and they’re a lot of fun but not really ideal for any kind of fitness work…

[video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YICtwtj2XVE[/video]

I’ve got one but sadly it has 26 inch wheels and a 1 1/8 head tube

I won’t waste my time going to Danbury then 😉

As I understand it, high cadence is too much effort for a recovery ride (it raises the HR); Z2 is too high for a recovery ride, you want to be in Z1, and ideally not having to constantly check that you haven’t crept into Z2. Z2 is for endurance/base. Z1 is recovery. No more than light pressure on pedals.

Z1 is almost impossible on my way to work with the pressure from traffic overtaking in tight spaces up hills, and the pressure to get to work on time. It really needs to be done in a very relaxed manner.

I suspect the “rides” I do are what most people would consider “recovery rides”.