Firstly, I apologies for the cheesy title but I love a quote and seemed to fit perfectly with this week’s revelations.

This week has been a good training week. It was the first week back from an easy week, so I felt quite strong in all disciplines. Particularly swimming, where I managed to make turn-around-times I previously struggled to achieve. I also improved my deadlift weight by 5 kg on Wednesday and even beat a few guys up some big climbs during the club ride on Thursday – that always makes me feel good.

Yet, the best thing about returning from an easy week, is just how energised you feel each day. I hadn’t realised how much fatigue I was carrying from the previous training block until I reduced the training volume for one week. Although inevitably, with over twenty hours of training a week, I was going to feel fatigued and that’s ok. In fact its normal. But it’s not sustainable. That’s the point of an easy week. Not to reverse all that hard work (this was a perception I held for a while – ‘I can’t have a whole week off, I’ll lose fitness’) but instead, allow your body time to adapt and get stronger.

After understanding the science and seeing how positively my body reacted, I am a firm believer in the ‘easy week’ now. I’ll briefly explain how it works. During an easy week, the intensity of your workouts are kept the same but the overall volume is reduced. This doesn’t have to include all your workouts, for instance a skills session in swimming is unlikely to be altered due to its relatively low training load, but it will usually include most of them.

Before September 2022, I had never really had an easy week or regular training blocks. Crazy – I studied Sports Science! I would taper before races and have an off season but I never really considered an ‘easy week’. I would just keep turning up to club training and killing myself in every session. It worked for a while: I felt super strong, I got lots of PBs and I even became a National Champion but then the wheel turned and I went through a string of illnesses and injuries. Fortunately, nothing major but nonetheless frustrating.

I have since learnt a lot about my body and what it can handle and can’t. With the introduction of an easy week, I have already noticed a big difference to my performance and general energy levels. It’s also great psychologically, as you’re willing to push yourself to your limits knowing you’ll have that week to recover.

Yet, it’s a fine balance and maintaining the right level of activity in an easy week is also tricky to grasp. Generally as a rule, reducing your training volume by 20 – 50 % during an easy week is standard, but this will vary greatly depending on your current level of conditioning, training phase/season (e.g. winter base phase, build phase or race season) and your training goals.

To summarise, I was someone who found it very difficult to relax and take a session easier through fear that I wasn’t working hard enough. I would go on an easy ride and someone would pass me and I’d shoot off again to beat them. I do love this competitive side of me but I have learnt to control it (although, I still wouldn’t recommend playing a board game with me) and unleash it when it counts – competition!

It take courage to recover and you can do it!