Original episode & show notes | Raw transcript
For any dedicated athlete, training is a structured, quantifiable, and often rewarding process. We meticulously plan workouts, track metrics, and dial in nutrition. In contrast, rest is often viewed as a void—an unstructured and unnerving pause in the pursuit of progress. The discussion in the Empirical Cycling Podcast reveals that this fear of rest is not a simple aversion to inactivity but a complex interplay of psychological, behavioral, and social factors. This analysis deconstructs the core concepts from that conversation.
A primary theme is that athletes fear rest because it is an unfamiliar territory with undefined habits.
The Structure of Training vs. The Ambiguity of Rest: During training blocks, an athlete’s life is highly regimented: when to eat, what to eat, how to execute intervals, when to sleep. This routine provides a sense of control and purpose. As one coach puts it, these habits are scrutinized and optimized. Rest, however, shatters this routine. Questions arise that have no easy answers:
How much should I eat? My body is hungry from the previous block, but my energy expenditure today is low.
Should I sleep in or do a light recovery spin?
How much off-bike activity is too much? This ambiguity creates anxiety. The athlete, accustomed to a clear “optimal” path, is suddenly navigating without a map.
Training as a Coping Mechanism: The podcast humorously but astutely points out that the all-consuming nature of hard training can serve as a convenient way to avoid other life stressors—be it household chores, work pressures, or personal issues. The routine of training provides a legitimate excuse to table other responsibilities. A rest week removes this shield, forcing the athlete to confront the “big pot with crap on the bottom of it” that they’ve been ignoring.
Rest as a Threat to Mental Health: Conversely, for many, the consistency of training is a cornerstone of their mental well-being. The routine, the endorphin release, and the sense of accomplishment are stabilizing forces. When this is removed, it can trigger a negative spiral, making the rest period feel more detrimental than the training fatigue it’s meant to cure.
Perhaps the most potent fear is that rest will lead to a loss of hard-earned fitness. This fear is compounded by a misunderstanding of how the body communicates during the recovery process.
The “CTL Trap”: Mistaking Metrics for Fitness: The Chronic Training Load (CTL) is a rolling average of training stress. During rest, CTL inevitably declines. Athletes often conflate this number with their actual physiological fitness, leading to panic. The coaches emphasize that CTL is a blunt instrument. Peak performances often occur after CTL has peaked and begun to fall, as fatigue dissipates and form rises. An athlete’s best performances are a product of fitness and freshness, not just accumulated training load.
Feeling Worse Before Feeling Better: A crucial, and often misunderstood, aspect of recovery is that athletes frequently feel sluggish, heavy, and unmotivated for the first few days of a rest week. The podcast explains this phenomenon: the body is finally shifting from a high-alert, high-stress state into a deep recovery and repair mode. This physiological downshift is often misinterpreted as a sign of declining fitness, tempting the athlete to abort the rest week and jump back into hard training to “stop the bleeding.” In reality, this feeling is a hallmark of a necessary and productive recovery process.
The Myth of Performing Best While Fatigued: Some athletes believe they perform best when carrying a high level of fatigue. This is typically a misinterpretation of feeling “opened up” by a hard effort versus being truly rested and at peak potential. While a hard “opener” workout can prime the system for a race, this is distinct from the state of chronic fatigue. Relying on being perpetually “smashed” means an athlete is consistently performing at 80-90% of their true potential, never allowing for the supercompensation that brings them to 100% or more.
Beyond the internal psychological landscape, athletes face external and behavioral challenges that make resting difficult.
Nutritional Confusion and Fear of Weight Gain: The fear of “getting fat” during a rest week is pervasive. Athletes drastically cut calories, fearing that their reduced energy expenditure will lead to weight gain. This is a critical mistake for two reasons:
Energy Debt: A hard training block creates a significant energy and recovery debt. The body needs ample fuel (calories, protein) to repair muscle damage and replenish glycogen stores. This process continues for days into the rest period.
Hunger Signals: Intense training can suppress hunger signals. When an athlete finally rests, ravenous hunger may set in as the body signals its need to repay that debt. Ignoring these signals by under-fueling sabotages the recovery process. As the coaches note, you are eating not just for today’s recovery ride, but for the workout you did yesterday and the one you’ll do tomorrow.
Social and Environmental Pressures:
The Strava Effect: In the age of social media, there is always someone, somewhere, posting an epic workout. This creates a powerful sense of “comparisonitis” and a fear of being left behind. It takes immense discipline to honor one’s own need for rest while the digital world is a constant stream of others’ efforts.
“Good Weather Guilt”: Especially for athletes in climates with limited good weather, the pressure to train when the sun is shining is immense. Taking a rest day during a perfect week can feel like a wasted opportunity, requiring a flexible and long-term perspective on training.
The “Special Exception” Fallacy: Many athletes believe the rules of rest don’t apply to them. They rationalize: “I’m not a World Tour pro,” “I only train 8 hours a week,” or “My workouts aren’t that long.” They fail to recognize that training stress is relative. Anyone consistently applying a stimulus that challenges their current capacity will accumulate fatigue and require rest to adapt, regardless of their absolute training volume.
The podcast concludes by framing rest not as a passive activity, but as an active and strategic component of training that requires skill, planning, and communication.
Preventative vs. Reactive Rest: The ideal approach is a hybrid model. Rest should be preventatively planned into the training calendar (e.g., a three-weeks-on, one-week-off structure). However, athletes and coaches must also be reactive, recognizing the signs of mounting fatigue and having the flexibility and agency to pull the plug on a workout or start a rest week early.
What Constitutes a “Good” Rest Week: A rest week is not necessarily a week completely off the bike. For most, it involves a significant reduction in volume and the elimination of intensity. It often looks like:
Several days of very short, very easy “active recovery” spins.
Maintaining some light endurance volume towards the end of the week to prevent feelings of staleness.
Incorporating “openers” or test efforts near the end of the week to “wake the legs up” and gauge recovery before resuming structured training. The podcast notes that these post-rest week openers may need to be different (less intense, longer duration) than pre-race openers.
Individualization is Key: Ultimately, the optimal amount and type of rest are highly individual. It depends on the athlete’s physiology, training load, life stress, and even their psychological response to rest. This is where data, self-awareness, and open coach-athlete communication become paramount. Experimenting during lower-priority periods is essential to learn what works best for you.
In conclusion, the fear of rest is a formidable barrier to athletic progress. It stems from a desire for control in a process that feels uncontrollable, a misunderstanding of physiological signals, and a host of external pressures. The key insight is to reframe rest from a passive void into an active, strategic, and indispensable part of the training cycle—a skill to be cultivated with the same diligence as any interval session.