running your battery down

[sundial]

I stopped in a bookstore and was thumbing through Road magazine when I came across an article about staying off the bike to recharge your "battery" per se. I didn't get to finish the article but I gathered it was about staying off your bike during the winter to completely "run down the battery" so that it could be recharged 98% in the spring. Did anyone else read this article? Can you enlighten me more about the suggestions made?

[Aquila]

Sounds silly to me. At least, for me, as an average person who rides to get out in the fresh air and feel good and have fun.

But I'd be out there right now, if it weren't so danged cold!

Me, I take a weather enforced break, pretty much, but it means I come back in less-good shape.

I can see doing something else really active, and maybe it's different for hard-core racing types, but I'd think that you could "recharge" with a couple days off, some good sleep, and good meals. On the other hand, at the level I bike at, taking a day or two off (during decent weather months) just makes me want to go play on my bike some more.

[alpinerabbit]

"Serious training plans" are periodized into macrocycles, mesocycles and microcycles - over the course of a year, a season, a month, a week.

For "everyWOman", surely it also makes sense not to do the same thing every month of the year because it won't get you further... even without grand training ambitions.

Allowing your body to repair, rest, cross train, collect motivation - that's winter business

[tulip]

It doesn't mean "sit on the sofa and eat pizza for three months!" Stay active, but if you are on a serious training program, take this time to cross train and do other activities. When I was racing, that is what we did in the winter.

[jobob]

It doesn't mean "sit on the sofa and eat pizza for three months!"

Oh. rats.

[Blueberry]

Oh. rats.

And I'm pretty sure it doesn't mean sit on the sofa, eat pizza and drink beer for 3 months. Double rats