---
title: "Hard efforts are making you slower"
date: 2026-03-08
categories: ["Training","Durability"]
url: https://www.semiprocycling.com/digest/hard-efforts-are-making-you-slower
author: Damian Ruse (SEMIPRO Cycling)
---
# Hard efforts are making you slower

![](https://www.semiprocycling.com/digest/images/e46592a5959c74848f187374.webp)

A big systematic review just looked at 21 studies and asked a simple question: what actually kills your legs late in a ride? The total amount of work you did, or how hard the work was?

The answer is clear, and it explains a lot about why some riders fade and others do not.

Here is what it found, and what it means for how you ride and race.

## 1) Intensity costs more than volume

Efforts above your threshold caused 10 to 20 percent power drops with a surprisingly small amount of total work. Meanwhile, steady riding below threshold caused less than 5 percent drops even at much higher volumes.

Read that again. A handful of hard surges above threshold did more damage to late-ride performance than hours of steady endurance riding.

This is why you can ride for three hours feeling fine, then cover five hard attacks in the bunch and suddenly your legs are gone. It was not the three hours. It was the five surges.

## 2) Kilojoules do not tell the full story

Most riders and coaches track total kilojoules as a measure of how hard a ride was. This review found that kilojoules alone are a poor predictor of durability loss, because they do not account for intensity.

Two rides can have the same kilojoule total and leave you in completely different states. One was steady. One had surges. The one with surges cost your body far more, even if the training load number looks similar.

If you are using TSS or kilojoules as your only fatigue metric, you are probably underestimating the real cost of hard efforts.

## 3) This changes how you should think about pacing

Most riders lose races in the first half, not the second. They respond to every attack, chase every surge, and spend time above threshold when they do not need to. Then they wonder why they cannot hold on when the race really starts.

This research explains why. Every effort above threshold eats into your durability at a rate that steady riding simply does not. The riders who last are not always the strongest. They are the ones who spend their matches wisely.

## What to do with this

*If you race or ride hard group rides:*
Be deliberate about when you go above threshold. Not every attack needs a response. Not every surge needs matching. The riders who finish strongest are often the ones who let a few early moves go and saved their hard efforts for when it counted.

*If you train big hours:*
Your long endurance rides are not the thing costing your durability. But if you stack high-intensity sessions too close together without enough recovery, you are accumulating a fatigue debt that steady riding cannot explain. Space your hard days.

*If you are time-capped:*
You can still build durability. But be aware that short, intense sessions carry a higher fatigue cost per kilojoule than longer, steadier rides. If every session is hard, you may be eroding your durability without realising it. Keep at least two sessions per week genuinely easy.

**Bottom line:** it is not how much you ride that makes you fade. It is how hard, and when. Protect your threshold efforts for when they matter, and you will have more left when the ride gets real.

**Reference**
Is intensity the most important factor in determining the amount of prior work accumulated that affects cyclists' acute durability? A systematic review. *European Journal of Applied Physiology* (2025).

## On my mind

This week had a bit of everything.

Some athletes are chasing big goals. Peaks are being planned, targets are being set, and the work is starting to feel purposeful in a way that only happens when you point it at something real.

Others are testing. Putting a line in the sand to see where they are right now. Not where they hope to be, not where their legs felt like they were last Tuesday. Where they actually are. That takes guts, because the number does not always match the feeling.

And some riders just got outside. After weeks of indoor work, they finally hit the road. Fresh air, real terrain, corners that actually require you to think.

What I noticed across all of it is that progress does not look the same for everyone in the same week. One rider's breakthrough week is another rider's consolidation week. And both are doing exactly what they need to be doing.

The trap is comparison. Looking at someone else's big numbers or race goals and thinking you should be there too. But training is personal. Your week only needs to be right for you.

So if this week felt like a big step forward, good. And if it felt like quiet, necessary work, that counts too. The riders who stay in the game longest are the ones who know the difference.

Damian