Rest - it's as important as exercise!

It was really a revelation to me that rest was an important component to fitness training.
I read in one mountain biking book that you should try to ride as much as possible; ride everywhere you go. Of course, that writer meant as far as being comfortable on the bike, riding skills and so on but I translated that into workout riding every day as long and hard as possible. After reading Joe Friel's book Cycling Past 50 I learned about the necessity of rest and recovery after hard training. You need to rest the muscles stressed after a hard workout so that they can repair and rebuild themselves. That's how they get stronger. I guess I knew this in relation to weight and strength training - you are not supposed to work the same sets of muscles 2 days in a row - but I didn't translate this to riding the bike. Recently, I discovered an article by Dr. Mirkin that advises not working the same muscles until the soreness goes away! Makes sense. I guess that's what your body is telling you by the soreness! This doesn't mean you can't train on consecutive days or even more than once a day. It's just the intense workouts where you get sore that you've got to be careful about.

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