This is a quote from Team Radio Shack cyclist Jani Brajkovic that he posted to his Twitter account on June 19, one week after winning the Critérium du Dauphiné. I believe what he was saying was that he was starting to feel very strong on the bike. Having raced hard for seven days at the Dauphiné (totaling 672 miles/1080km with a winning cumulative time of 28 hours, 6 minutes and 28 seconds) and then rested with easy training for a week, he was experiencing “supercompensation.” I wrote about this phenomenon in The Cylist's Training Bible, The Triathlete’s Training Bible and The Mountain Biker’s Training Bible.
In those books I called this short block of extreme overloading “crash” training. Basically, it involves training hard for several consecutive days and then backing off to rest for a few more days. At the end of this block of training athletes often experience great fitness and form which makes them feel very strong (like having a “tailwind all the time”).
But be aware that while very effective it is a dangerous way to train since it requires working out a rate that should soon lead to an overtraining syndrome occurring. For some athletes that may happen within a week. Others will go two or even three weeks before becoming overtrained. So it should be done with great caution. A full-blown overtraining syndrome will ruin your entire season.
Following the hard-training portion of the block the next step is to cut way back on training for several days. The harder the hard portion, the longer the recovery part of the block. Generally, I think it’s good to take one-half to one full-day of recovery training for every hard training day in a crash block. So if you maxed out in a seven-day stage race as Jani did then you may need at least three and possibly seven days of easy training. These easy days should be much shorter than the longest workouts that preceded the recovery portion. And they should be mostly zones 1 and 2. One or more days totally off is often beneficial, also.
