Is normal that no rest day is scheduled for at least 3 weeks?
Hi!
Despite my plan being set as high volume, is normal that no rest day is scheduled for at least 3 weeks?
Of course, I do delete any workout scheduled on days(my usual off day) but I thought is was unusual for a plan to not include rest days for at least 3 consecutives weeks. And since I have great respect of the process, I would prefer not to intervene by deleting session but I always take Mondays off to give my body a chance to repair itself.
Thanks!
Hi Patrick. Thanks for raising this.
There's a few colliding principles we need to appreciate, and every user needs to take responsibility for piloting their own situation.
First principle is that good training = workout + recovery. Therefore prioritizing your recovery, and taking the Monday off as you are doing, is indeed best practice when you know you need it.
For very well trained athletes, that arrive at Athletica with already high performance capacity (i.e., able to run their 5k in under 18 min), they have usually developed very high resiliency to the run training stress, and therefore an easy aerobic run is in fact recovery for them (see above equation). This strategy (running on the Monday instead of taking it off) winds up being the better road to Rome, because the second principle is training consistency, and repeated cell signalling to tell your body to adapt. These athletes get a further kick in adaptation by just having an easy training day.
Importantly however, if your body is telling you to rest and recover on Monday (or any day of the week), then you most certainly should listen to it. Delete the session and do recovery (consider Workout Wizard options) etc.
Always remember: the most important session is the next session...
Hope that helps,
Paul
Makes total sense. In fact, it may inspire one of those Mondays where I don't feel so sluggish and may entertain something like a recovery run insetad of rest!
Thank you!
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I am sorry, I am new to athletica, coming from self training based on book ātraining and racing with power meterā from hunter and coggan, because It was so much work to create the calendar of workouts I started using garmin workouts suggestions, but saw they were not good on adapting for a race. Later moved to training road, which this is my 3rd year with them because I got good success, but just recently noticed on a postponed race that it is not that smart enough yet to consider your fatigue for adapting the plan. Just noticed this athletica.ai exist so I am giving it a try thinking it will adapt better than TR if there is a changeā¦ But not seeing rest days, or having 2 workouts the same day instead of 1 single long one, seems not that smart. I guess, paying for a platform that is supposed to be smart to adapt to my conditions without me thinking if I need a rest day or not is what I would expect. Me deciding to take a rest day or not seems that I should not have to stick religiously to a plan and I still have to think and evaluate about the workouts. I guess I was expecting an electronic coach with access to my HRVs, stress, etc., from Garmin and had it decide what is better to achieve my expected results for a race. Anyways, I am just thinking loud since I just signed for the 2 weeks trial and will pause my TR plans to test this platform.
Welcome @Jorgito,
As a cyclist, if youād like a rest day, suggest you choose either low volume or mid volume plans. High volume plans by their nature are high volume and donāt have rest days. Please also see your ārecovery profileā to view your HRV data which is currently being implemented. Never be ashamed to take a rest day when you need it. You can always move your training day, delete the session, or use our Workout Wizard to do something else. I hope you enjoy your trial.
Best,
Paul
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