Why taking time off training can make you a better cyclist

Maddy Nutt knows this well. The professional cyclist finished a season that included several ultras, then took five weeks off training.

As she put it on Instagram in a post announcing her season break "No injury. No burnout. Just a sensible, experienced coach and an athlete trusting their expertise."

So how long should you take off, and how do you know when you're ready to train again? Here's how a coach thinks about both.

Training stress, work, travel, short nights, and family all fill the same bucket. A season fills it fast. As long as the bucket stays full, each new block of training lands on top of old fatigue, and you get less out of it.

A proper break empties the bucket. Maddy lists what she gets from it:

• Hormonal and systemic reset

• Tissue and muscle repair

• Injury prevention, particularly from overuse

• Mental reset and cognitive relief

• Renewed motivation

• Relationships and identity beyond cycling

If there's one thing Nathan Haas and Colby Pearce keep coming back to on The Cycling Performance Podcast, it's that all athletic performance rests on a foundation of health. Colby, our coaching director, puts it simply: "You get better when you rest, not when you're tired."

EF Pro Cycling performance manager Nate Wilson puts it this way: a whole season of training and racing is a huge stimulus, and rest is when your body turns it into adaptation. Skip the rest, and you limit what you get from the work you've already done.

Yes, you lose some fitness during a break. Nate explains it with a ladder. Picture your fitness at the end of the season as eight rungs up. A good break takes you down to around six, not back to two.

"You don't want to go from eight rungs up the ladder down to two," he says. Rest long enough to recover and adapt, but not so long that detraining outweighs the benefit. Then you rebuild from a healthier starting point.

How we decide how much time off an athlete needs:
There's no single number. A coach looks at the whole picture:

• The season. How many hours a week, how many goal events, and how long and hard they were. A season of ultras asks for more time off than a few gran fondos.

• How the athlete finished it. Tired legs, poor sleep, a niggle that keeps coming back, low motivation, or a recent illness all point to a longer break.

• Everything outside training. A heavy year at work, a new baby, or a lot of travel fills the same bucket.

• What comes next. When your first goal of next season is, and how much time you have to build toward it.

For a competitive rider coming off a full season, Nate's starting point is about a month away from structured training: 10 to 14 days of complete rest, followed by at least two weeks of mental rest. A lighter season usually needs less. After her season of ultras, Maddy took five weeks.

The break usually has two parts. First, real rest: no training at all. Then a period of moving for fun, with no plan, no targets, and no head unit. Hike, surf, run, do yoga, or ride with friends. Keep it light. Nate's biggest warning is about swapping one routine for another, like planning a huge hiking trip in place of training.

The length isn't fixed in advance. A coach sets a minimum and then checks in.

• You want to train. You can picture a hard session without resisting the idea. If your motivation hasn't come back, the break probably wasn't long enough.

• Easy rides feel easy. Your legs feel normal on a steady ride, not heavy or flat.

• Sleep and mood are back to normal. If you track resting heart rate or HRV, both are back in your usual range.

• The season's niggles are gone. Aches don't return when you start moving more.

• There's room in your week. You can commit to a routine again without it feeling like a burden.

• You know what you're training for. You have a goal, or at least a direction, for next season.

Wait a little longer if you still dread the idea of training, easy rides feel hard, you're sleeping badly, or you want to start mainly because stopping makes you feel guilty.

Feeling good on one easy ride isn't the same as being ready for intervals. Start with a few weeks of aerobic riding and some strength work, and don't chase last season's numbers straight away.

This was the longest off-season Maddy has taken. She missed riding. She noticed physical changes in her body and found them uncomfortable, but she reminded herself that this is a normal part of the cycle.

 Rest hasn’t always come easily to her. When she first took up endurance sport, she disliked rest days and struggled to relax without exercise. Looking back, she describes that period as exercise addiction and orthorexia. Turning pro changed things. Without enough rest, she couldn’t hit her session targets, and she stopped improving. She made significant changes to how she approached training, fueling, and recovery.

 During the break itself, Nate’s advice is simple: eat well and sleep well. That means not restricting because you’re training less, and not abandoning normal routines because the season is over. Your body is still repairing.

 If rest feels impossible rather than just uncomfortable, or if your relationship with food or exercise feels out of balance, that’s worth talking to a professional about. Our nutrition coaches can help you find a healthier approach to fueling, during the off-season and beyond.

Maddy describes her break as an athlete trusting her coach's expertise. That's the coach's job here: to tell you when to stop, judge when you're ready, and plan how you come back.

Maddy is now back with her bikes and a training plan, with big goals for 2027.

Planning your next season? Tell us what this year looked like and what you want from the next one.

• The Cycling Performance Podcast, Nathan Haas and Colby Pearce on the foundational principles of health

• The Cycling Performance Podcast, Maddy Nutt: How Good Could You Actually Be?