Clickbaity headline. And some clickbaity phraseology in the content.

But reading it it's not that unreasonable, other than being a bit rambling and unnecessarily caustic and self-righteous in tone. It just seems to be saying that mentality that you can't take a day off is the issue. Not the notion that you have to take a day off. Which are different things.

Like you could pack your same training schedule into 6 days, have an off day, and probably arrive at mostly the same place.

Arriving at (generally) no day offs in a well-considered plan is fine...having a "religous" feeling that a day off is when your competition is out there on a run getting better than you...that sort of fetishization of no days off is worth some critcism. Better tone of criticism would have been helpful.

Yeah,if all triathletes were training 30 hrs a week then sure overtraining is a thing and recovery needs to be worked into the program. If someone is like the vast majority of triathletes who only put in 10 hrs a week then what exactly do they need to recover from? I have always laughed at the thought that average age groupers "need" recovery runs and rides.

Sounds about as right as my Garmin which wants me to take a day off everyday because of excessive load.

I'm a firm believer that overtraining can hit at any workload, and is a function of % increase, not total load. And basic training principles like overload and recovery don't suddenly only start applying once you hit 30 hours.

If you're working out 10 hours per week and suddenly jump to 15, you can get into deep trouble. Just like someone jumping from 20 to 30 hours can get into deep trouble.

The "only elites have to worry about overtraining" is, I think, a complete myth.

I believe most/all triathletes should take a day off per week.

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Dimond Bikes Superfan

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Yeah but if you do a 2hr workout in the morning one day and a two hour workout in the evening the next day then you have actually had more than a "day off" physically training. Now the mental aspect is a different discussion.

I actually agree with a lot of what the article is saying. Though I don’t agree that everyone should be taking 1 day off a week or even that’s what the article is suggesting.

This seems targeted for those folks who are obsessed with exercise and don’t have balance. They take pride in never or seldomly taking a day off. They don’t know what to do with themselves if they do take a day off as a lot of their self worth is tied to exercise/training. They cringe at the fact their training peaks CTL is dropping after a day off or even during taper leading into an A race. They think CTL is a measure of fitness. They tout their year end Strava training numbers on social media of 360+ days of activities. They train through sickness and injuries because they can’t fathom taking a day off.

I think some can find short term success if they happen to exhibit the above behaviors but over the long haul, it catches up to them. It’s really an unhealthy relationship with exercise/training IMO.

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blog

as a general rule, anything I read from outside.com (or their sub brands) I tend to ignore. I’d suggest you do the same

Haha, I am on the 14 workouts per week lifestyle. Two workouts per day, just because for my work I am in meeting rooms and at a computer. If I was working construction or farming I would certainly need time to "not move" but as my rest of my life is relatively motionless, I just need to move....has nothing to do with training. I will go crazy on any day where I just don't move. Its as simple as that. Lifestyle works out to roughly 2 hrs per week on weekdays, 3-4 hrs per day on weekends 7 days per week. I am 58 and have no obligations other than office stuff and my wife prefers if I am on the move vs invading her space for too many hrs per day!!!

This is the correct take, and IMO makes even more sense when viewed from a publisher like Outstide(TM)

You can basically say that people training 30h/w aren't reading this website. <1%. Who is Outside's market? It's people nervous about doing their first race, or people who have done and do races at a participant but not exclusively competitive level. People who would be turned off by articles saying "You probably need to train more". People don't like their views to be challenged. Telling the masses that they can train less and get the same results is A+ way to keep them coming to you for more ways to train less and still (purportedly) get better results. I'd love an article telling me Pop-Tarts are the optimal training fuel, science be damned.

?? Whatever manifest you're - I assume sarcastically - espousing, I think must have intended to be in reply to someone else. Nothing to do with my post.

God took a day off.

i think there's "days off" and then there's "days off."

i was super ill before xmas last year, and lots of gaps in my training. but so far this year, i've trained every day. HOWEVER, many of those days - like last night - consisted of a 30-minute trainer ride at easy/IM pace. my wife's out of town, i'm solo parenting, i had a handful of chores to do, and had to coach a track practice, and i was pretty tired. so i jumped on after dinner and did an easy half hour.

day off? kind of.

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____________________________________
https://lshtm.academia.edu/MikeCallaghan

http://howtobeswiss.blogspot.ch/

The article is unfortunately a lot of clickbait.
It says some good things but also has a lot of black or white pointless stuff.

I've done periods with no fixed rest day and periods always taking a specific day of the week (Monday) off.
I've found a fixed day off holds me back more. With that setup I may end up taking rest days when I'm fresh and then struggle to cram more training in less time.

It's definitely possible to not have fixed rest days and then take easy or rest days when needed.

I'm not aware of anyone who argues to never take a day off training even if you're tired.

In fairness I'm not aware of any physiological reason for a weekly schedule.
A weekly schedule is a result of society and culture and an arbitrary division of moon phases in ancient times.

I've found an easy day is very often good enough for recovery from a hard day but occasionally I need a full rest day.

Curious since I didn't read it, who specifically is the article talking about?

Since everything is situational dependent and individual preferences/needs varry dramatically, I'm curious who the individual is that they are discussing.

Also, curious how this individual defines improvement/performance?
Since we all have very, very different ways of measuring success that certainly impacts of this strategy holds this individual back.



P.s. general summation of my point. I am sick and tired of blanket statements and people in our sport/world ascribing their beliefs, world views and goals to other people!!
You are not them. They are not you.

Outside has some good feature content, but you have to know who to look for

https://authory.com/...4e13a46a31e8f2313040

There's no way that I'd take any training adobe from them - they're like Runners World, but with more photos of mountains & trees

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"What's your claim?" - Ben Gravy
"Your best work is the work you're excited about" - Rick Rubin

"All generalizations are false, including this one" - Mark Twain

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"What's your claim?" - Ben Gravy
"Your best work is the work you're excited about" - Rick Rubin

It's interesting that both of the photos they used in the link are women

What? Men don't need rest days? Women need rest days more than men? More women will read the link then men will?

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"What's your claim?" - Ben Gravy
"Your best work is the work you're excited about" - Rick Rubin

Every year a few friends and family (not triathletes) will announce they are doing RED January. I try to push them towards a more sustainable proper running plan (which would almost certainly give them better results!). However the more extreme nature is definitely a draw, and likely to get them more likes on social media I suspect.

Quite a few get injured (hardly surprising as most have no run base). More miss a day and then quit as they have "failed". Of the few that do get to the end most stop running straight after - a combination of psychological burnout "I can't wait for this month to be over so I don't have to run again" and no obvious progression.

From my triathlon friends a few train every day. Most are doing 10-15 hours a week so there's no real need to be out there everyday, it would be easy enough to move things around and free up a day. I do think it's more psychological than anything else, they are not at a level where they can't create sufficient stress for training adaptation in just 6 days.

I think trying to compare "normal people" to pros is problematic. Pros are genetic outliers with years of huge training volume. They can recover much quicker because they don't have many additional stressors like a 9-5 job which contribute to overall stress recovery ("overtraining" may actually be better described as being unable to recover - actual training load is just part of the equation).

On that note I've heard one coach suggesting getting up at 5am after a poor night's sleep to do a pre work training session is akin to stepping over dollars to pick up quarters. The extra sleep would have been more beneficial in the long term. I've also heard the suggestion that the triathlete cramming a ton of TSS into their weekends is digging a hole they spend most of the week trying to recover from. A more balanced daily load is much better - again a huge benefit for pros and perhaps why so many training programs have monday as a rest day.

As for the suggestion I can just recover doing "easy days". Perhaps, but if your day is that easy you can recover are you really making any physiological gains? For example I've heard <100w cycling as a goal for active recovery, and even then there seems to be very little evidence active recovery is any better than complete rest

Never heard of that before, I had to look it up

https://join.redjanuary.com/about

Seems interesting but probably not sustainable, especially if someone is starting from zero, as is the likely case

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One think about the 100/100 Challenge is that by January 1st, we're already pretty well into it (no matter which start date we chose 😉) so it doesn't carry that "New Year = New Me" bullshit with it

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"What's your claim?" - Ben Gravy
"Your best work is the work you're excited about" - Rick Rubin

My training hours have dropped considerably since the covid. Before hand, when I was in the thick of it, I purposely took a day off. I called this day "Wife Day". It was typically on Sunday so we could do things as a couple and maintain a high quality relationship. Many times, we did chores together (yard work, grocery shopping, wine touring... Ya know- chores). When I didn't have Wife Day, she would complain that I never had time for her because I was always training. That reduced dramatically after it was implemented. Sometimes my body needed it the off day. Sometimes it didn't. But, I'm still happily married.

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Take a short break from ST and read my blog:
http://tri-banter.blogspot.com/

Pop-Tarts are actually a good fast refueling snack. I would not try to eat them on the bike but afterwards they are fine with 75-80% of cal from carbs. They are also relatively cheap if you buy the Kroger's version. :)

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"Anyone can be who they want to be IF they have the HUNGER and the DRIVE."

Pop Tarts are a part of my pre and post workout/race fueling.

Ya, I eat them sometimes but switch them out with other stuff to keep it interesting. :)

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"Anyone can be who they want to be IF they have the HUNGER and the DRIVE."

Refueling clogged arteries with that processed soybean oil? Eat a banana or something similar not in plastic packaging

I decided to break my 12 year ST hiatus to comment on this-

As someone who hasn’t taken a day off running in 14 years, I can speak with some authority on this-

1. Not taking days off is 100% detrimental to training.
2. The reasons to train every day are clearly psychologic not physiologic.
3. Anybody that tracks their recovery metrics can tell you the benefits of a day off.
4. Anybody that has studied the exercise science literature can tell you the clear benefits of days off.
5. If I was coaching someone, I would tell them to take days off.
6. So given the above why do I run every day? Wouldn’t I be better off performance wise taking days completely off instead of doing my short run? Absolutely.

I don’t pretend this is what will make me the fastest triathlete possible.
But I’ve found my mental health and long term fitness consistency is better off this way. It has helped me keep exercising through the ups and downs, stressful and busy times of life.

7. I obviously don’t think exercising everyday is a horrible thing. But you need to acknowledge and admit to yourself the real reasons you are doing it. It is not because you want to get faster or maximize performance.

Not so much of an artery clogger.

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"What's your claim?" - Ben Gravy
"Your best work is the work you're excited about" - Rick Rubin

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/...articles/PMC6196963/

guess there is a study out there for all we can use to meet confirmation bias

That hypothesis has been largely debunked. Though some "influencers" still promote it.

Man Pop-Tarts have been my pre-race/big workout fuel for years. When I was racing 70.3+ I would add an Ensure for more easy calories (thanks Macca!). But they aren't a staple of my diet unless training gets crazy and I feel myself dropping weight and just need extra easy calories.

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Twitter - Instagram

Seeing this thread is kinda wild for me as I was planning to come to the community with a question related to rest days.

For some background - 56yo male triathlete who trains with a program that does not have rest days as part of the weekly schedule. Their view is that life pressures will mean most people miss a few days training per month and so rest days are not needed to be baked in.

I have been with this training company for about 2 years and have seen solid race results. Since becoming semi-retired at the beginning of the year, I have started to find I am building a lot of fatigue each week as my training is pretty much uninterrupted (I used to travel frequently for work previously). Literally this week, I decided to take Monday off completely and found I felt much more energized and excited about a big day of training on Tuesday (Bike, run and intense weights/plyometrics - total 3 hours).

I was meant to do a 1 hour run yesterday but decided to try a little experiment and take that day off as well. Again, I had much more energy and positive attitude towards another big day of training today (same schedule as Tuesday).

My hope is to swim tomorrow, bike for 2 hours Saturday and do my long run (75 minutes) on Sunday netting me out around the 9-10 hours that is a typical training volume for me anyway.

Appreciating this is just a single week and that there may be other factors at play here, my plan is to start taking Mondays and Wednesdays off each week as I feel much much fresher and strong than I normally would at this point of the week.

I'm curious is many other people have started adding in rest days after a sustained period of 7 day a week training and what the long term effects were.

of course, if you are going to make that statement, you will have something supporting it..

You definitely didn't even bother to read the abstract of the link I posted. Much less the paper.

Welcome back, couldn't disagree more. Well, maybe. If you're taking about health and well being then yes, largely agreed. If you're taking about performance not so much.

There's also the problem of scale. Some will read this and think they need to take days off every week, others will think taking Christmas off yearly is enough.

The preponderance of athletes at the top level of endurance sport train basically every day through the season. A few weeks off at the end of the year, maybe a day off here and there to travel out recover from a Grand Tour.

This guy takes two days off every week and does ok.

https://www.howtoskate.se/...8e271f440bcd45c5.pdf

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Dimond Bikes Superfan

OK, as non-skater I need some help. On page 5, he says: During my last two seasons I regularly skated 240 laps of 30,0 weekly, alone and with lane change. I'm guessing this means 240 laps of the 400m long track??? Does the 30.0 refer to holding 30 sec per lap??? If so, this means 60 miles in 2 hrs which sounds incredibly fast to this non-skater. :)

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"Anyone can be who they want to be IF they have the HUNGER and the DRIVE."

Maybe pro triathletes but this is completely inaccurate for pro cyclists. I have a number of current and former WorldTour friends and they all regularly take 1-2 days off / week.

Personally, when I was more serious about bike racing, if I didn’t need a day or two off per week then I wasn’t training hard enough.

Similar experience here, though slightly different demographic. My coach generally takes the 'take day(s) off as needed, as fatigue and life dictates' approach rather than programming them in advance, which makes sense as most of his athletes are the general 30-50's age grouper demographic that end up with a decent amount of 'incidental' time off through family holidays, work stuff etc. That worked okay for me and I was improving steadily, but eventually we started noticing a pattern of weeks where I was relatively a bit crap or key workouts where I wasn't as fresh as I'd like, which fell about where you'd expect in a typical load/deload pattern characteristic of most 'traditional' plans.
We put it down to being in a similar situation to you. I'm single and in my 20's, so my free time is largely my own, and it's fairly uncommon for me to have to adjust anything due to conflicting responsibilities- I'll pretty much just go until I'm tired. (I also tend to race more often and have a longer 'season', since I've got more freedom to focus on that throughout the year.)
We both felt including more planned time off was an improvement- I was previously pretty good at pulling things back before I got too cooked so I usually didn't need more than a couple of days here and there to bounce back, but anticipating that ahead of time meant less of that overall, as well as having less fatigue impact on important sessions- better quality, better consistency, and mentally a lot easier/more enjoyable.

I think it's pretty easy to get caught up in the relative merits of different approaches in an ideal system, but ultimately being able to recognise patterns in how you respond to training and adjust things relative to your own situation is probably closer to the definition of 'optimisation,' or at least a more workable one.

I think so. He talks about only skating at WR race pace and alone in race conditions. His 10k WR is 12.5 minutes (roughly 30 MPH). 5k WR is like 6 minutes. Specificity to the extreme during race season. All the rest of his aerobic work he seems to do on the bike.

If his 10K WR is 12.5 min, then that is 30 sec/400m, or the same pace as he is maintaining in practice for 60 mi (96K). This does not seem right???

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"Anyone can be who they want to be IF they have the HUNGER and the DRIVE."

It's 240 laps per week, so spread out over 5 days. That's about 50 laps/25 minutes of work per session. He then follows that up with 2-3 easy hours on the bike. He gives some example workouts and a weekly layout on page 12.

I did. Trust worthy study author? https://ussoy.org/author/mmessina/

OK, after reading through page 12, I see what you're saying. However, I still think he is being inaccurate on page 5 b/c he says:

During my last two seasons I regularly skated 240 laps of 30,0 weekly, alone and with lane change. I believe that I am the only skater ever to be able to do that continuously.

He says he's doing 240 laps at 30.0 continuously, but apparently not. In any event, I appreciate your help in understanding this. I'll chalk this up to him being a great athlete but not the best writer. :)

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"Anyone can be who they want to be IF they have the HUNGER and the DRIVE."

Just to be sure, when you say "days off" do you mean zero activity days? No riding, running, crosstraining, just around the house, nothing that you'd call exercise -- or do you mean a day off as in a short EZ ride, or a quick run, or 30 min of some kind of crosstraining?

I don't follow a ton of WT guys on Strava but they seem to take a day off (of tracked activities) after hard races but infrequently otherwise. Not never, but not 2 days per week every week. [This could very well be a selection bias of the type of rider who uploads to Strava].

But 99.9% of us are not pro athletes with elite genetics and multiple 1000hr+ training years. We have much poorer recovery due to work or for those that are retired age. What's good for them is not necessarily good for most people.

At least that's what their socials show. That's where the sponsors' money goes - to keep those posts & images coming. Heaven forbid you finish a workout and neglect to put something up & get a mention of #ShoeSponsor #FuelSponsor #HydrationSponsor #KitSponsor in there

And that's just for a Runner; cyclists have add #DrivetrainSponsor #BrakesSponsor #SeatSponsor #WheelSponsor #TireSponsor #etc --- kinda like @NASCAR

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"What's your claim?" - Ben Gravy
"Your best work is the work you're excited about" - Rick Rubin

Fair point. More frequently it’d be easy active recovery with minimal metabolic cost. The coach I used (who worked with a number of WT guys) gave the option for completely off the bike as well.

If that's the metric for days of then I'm 100% in agreement

Without reading this whole thread I have always believed recovery is the most important component of training. If you don't recover from your workouts you don't make gains.

I'm actually excited about this!!!



It's like Spinal Tap x History Channel's Food That Built America

"They can never get stale because they were never fresh to begin with" - Jerry Seinfeld

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"What's your claim?" - Ben Gravy
"Your best work is the work you're excited about" - Rick Rubin

That trailer was frigging hilarious!!! Thanks, I had not heard of this movie before. :)

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"Anyone can be who they want to be IF they have the HUNGER and the DRIVE."

The problem with the approach I highlighted above is that on those days where life pressures force a day off, those same pressures prevent it from being a stress-free day. IME, those sorts of days are not recuperative, and in fact are often more stressful than a training day might be.

I personally don't plan a lot of rest days, but I take at least one rest day per week. I let my recovery determine when it's time to take a break. Depending on the nature of my training, I might find that recovery seems good but I'll take a rest day if I know I'm planning a higher intensity workout in a couple of days, especially if I've gone 5-6 days since the last rest day. It seems counterproductive to even attempt a workout at threshold or above on the tail end of 6 days of workouts. Can you do it? Sure. Will it lead to the desired adaptation? Probably not.

That’s pretty much the title of this thread, and something I think many people don’t fully understand. You wouldn’t race fatigued, so why do a key workout that way? Getting to only 90% of prescribed intensity for a key workout won’t lead to optimal gains.

I identify as Runner, so it's easier to find training time

When I need to squeeze in a run during the workday, I generally bank 10 minutes per mile , to include my run+cool-down; so if my calendar gives me half an hour, I can set my status as "Away", get a 5K in, and be back online at work before anyone notices 😎

That's if I overslept, of course, being a DawnPatrol person 🌞

I would run all day/every day if I could, because I just love it!!! Even on the Mean Streets of the Jersey Pinelands (why is there no "Gravel Racing" for Runners? Or do I not know of it?)

I'm not looking to improve dramatically, but I will say that I haven't slowed significantly over the past decade; the opposite, in fact

I solely credit the 100/100s

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"What's your claim?" - Ben Gravy
"Your best work is the work you're excited about" - Rick Rubin

The flip side is tapering to 0% fatigue for every key workout isn't optimal either. It's a balance

Pro tip: almost anything you read in a magazine is bad advice.

I take a day off every week. When I am tied take an extra day or two off.

Yes, balancing Running, Biking, Swimming is a challenge. I used to have the luxury of doing two-a-days and could hit 4 workouts for every discipline in a week. Now I only can do one work out a day and it looks like 2 runs, 2 bikes, 2 swims.

I am limited on time during the week so my only long day is Saturday and I have been doing 90-120 minutes of bike/run bricks then going to my 90-120' masters swim class. I feel that the long day on Saturday is really important since I am limited to 45-90 minute workouts during the week and I am training for 2-3 hours races (Marathons & Olympic Tris). I like my long workouts to be as long as my races for the type of stuff I am going.

When I was young and impressionable one of my grade school teachers told me of a lady who was a marathoner that ran 7 days a week. She was also told that her training was dumb and holding her back. She was prescribed to take one day a week off which she resisted but ultimately gave it a shot and with no other changes in her training took 12 minutes off her next Marathon.

When I was a pure runner I ran 6 days a week but that training was still limiting me. When I crossed over to Triathlon and went to just 3 days of running a week (with cross training to cycling/swimming on the other three days) I too say improvement similar to the 12 minutes that the lady marathoner saw. So...recovery doesn't have to always be a full day off. I think that the people who are successful on 7 day plans make it work because they have a lot of passive recovery in their schedule. Through trial and error I have gone through the passive recovery and the active recovery and the passive recovery always gets me better race day results than the active recovery. So, for me, passive recovery it is.

I think burn out comes from training year round with no breaks not from training 7-days a week. If you are taking 2-3 months off every year that is a really long off season. One months off a year is the rule of thumb I usually hear recommended.

Six years isn't very long. I feel that it takes you at least 3 years in endurance sports to peak. If you are going to burn out early I feel that would be at around 6-8 years. It is not hard to find people in endurance sports who have been doing it for 40+ years.

Do what you want. I am a believer in taking a day off every week. If you haven't tried anything new in the past 2 years change something up and see what the results are. There is no reason to do things the way you always have without every testing out other training. You learn new things as you try new things. If 6 days a week makes you slower (it won't) and you don't like it (to each their own) you can go back to 7-days a week and know that is what is best for you. If you don't try new things how will you know you respond best to?