Hurting legs, push on or rest?

Training
1

Hi, I have a question

I have been training in Sufferlandria since March, and having been making nice progress. Two weeks ago i finished the all purpose road plan. After that I jumped on the Vulcano plan. As I was hoping to go to France in 4 weeks, and climb some real mountains there, this fitted perfectly
Anyways, the vulcano climbing plan seems much more intense than the all purpose road plan, especially the recovery seems shorter.
Now to my question: when my legs hurt (sometimes a bit, sometimes a lot), and my next training is not a recovery ride, should I just push on and put some more pain in there? Or would it be better to give them some extra rest?
I wouldn’t really mind either way, I love the suffering, I just dont want to over train and get worse instead of better.

Thanks for your toughts.

2

If on doubt. Rest it out.

All your gains are made when you are fully fatigued and recover.

Could go on further. But someone once told me if you think you need a rest day or week you probably should have already had it.

1 Like
3

I think it depends on the hurt you are feeling and how much training history you have. Of course, rest is the safe answer, but if the pain is just fatigue and there is one more video to get through, followed by a rest day, I will take it on, backing off on the targets mid video if I can’t hit my numbers. My training is focused on endurance racing, so having the mental strength to push through is important.

If the pain is more than fatigue, don’t be afraid to hit some of the excellent yoga recovery videos and take the rest. As @Savman said, recovery is where the gains happen.

4

Thank you both for your thought.
Looking back I think my legs started to hurt after I did Angels last week on new 4DP numbers. Maybe I should blame the short warmup.
I will take a day of extra rest today, and do some yoga (I love the yoga, I do it daily, as I really feels it helps with recovery, my flexibility and my lower back pains).
I guess the coaches sometimes want you to do some workouts with fatigued legs, but i see 3 tough sessions in a row commng up. I will nail those after!

5

Nothing wrong with skipping a workout or dropping the intensity if the legs aren’t there! If you haven’t already, give this article a read.

3 Likes
6

Thank you @Coach.Mac.C

I had read that article before. This time I could have easily done the workout.
However I was not sure if there is a point of “pain/fatigue” where it would be better to not do the next workout, or whether it is actually intended to keep adding more strain to the legs, when they are still hurting from the day(s) before.