700tss/wk in 10-12 hours?

halbritt said:

... I've read several articles that say that most people ride too hard on easy days and too easy on hard days but I'm not sure that really applies to someone training with a power meter and using the performance manager?

That applies to many folks hoping to race and it's not really a question of how they manage overall training load (what the PMC tool does) but how they manage session intensity.

The PMC is a great tool for managing overall load and to provide a measure of the 'depth' of your training but don't sacrifice the makeup of your training in terms of session intensity focused on your specific needs and the demands of your particular events just to make CTL rise more quickly. If you're not racing then you'll likely maximize sustainable weekly load with a lot of mid to high level Tempo work or IOW, working in the sweet spot. But that won't in and of itself prepare you for fast crits or hard attacks in mass start races even though it should build a very nice base before doing high end, race specific work.

Hard to say what you should do and everyone is to some extent recovery limited as you've found out but just make sure you don't chase CTL at the expense of the training you need for your chosen events. If you really want to maximize CTL then try to ride a lot of mid to high Tempo but if you really want to maximize racing success and you're in your season now then make sure you do enough high end work which unfortunately doesn't typically build as much CTL. Alternatively if you're racing a lot you could fill the week with some high L2 to low Tempo work but again it won't build CTL as fast with your weekly time limits but it may very well provide the recovery you need to hit your hard days harder and still have energy on race days.

Off season is the best time to put a lot of CTL in the bank with SST/L4 work as that's when you can afford to defer some of the high end work and when you can afford to be a bit tired on weekends without races to worry about. It's hard to build as much CTL mid season and still compete.

Good luck,
-Dave

As you might expect, Dave gives an excellent response to the question.

I'll toss in a few things I've gleaned from my 1st season of racing & power training...

Specificity: You want your present/current training to reflect the demands/requirements of your events. If you are racing TT's then practice your TT'ing. If crits are the events, then do plenty of microintervals along with speed work and shorter intervals. I know plenty of people doing several group rides/week when their target events are say, a 20k or 40k TT....is that the best use of limited training time? YMMV...

Composition: A corollary to the above, but a say, 80 CTL, can be made up of many, many different varieties of training and training emphasis. My view of CTL is that it is simply the chronic "dose" of training that you are used to....not necessarily how fast you are, how high your FTP is, or even whether that "dose" of training is going to help you race well and/or better. My approach is to tailor the composition of CTL to reflect a) where I am in the overall season from a yearly perspective, b) what my goals are at that time.

As an addendum to composition, what Dave mentions about the best way to rack up CTL is spot on. When I got CTL over 110, I was doing hella lotsa mid-to-high tempo riding. Why? Because the fatigue associated with such rides is quite a bit less than pure L4 (or higher) riding. As a bonus, most people can ride @ IF 0.8-0.9 day in, day out, but few can do 0.9 (or higher) that often (unless of course, they seriously lowball their FTP). Yet the training levels aren't discrete, meaning nothing magically happens at L4 that isn't happening at L3. Mostly it is simply a tradeoff of time vs intensity. Though eventually you need to move up in the intensity scale to keep progressing as you get further up your relative "trained vs. untrained" continuum. Getting back to CTL....now for example, I'm around CTL 95 but with a heavy dose of L4 & L5 rather than L3 as noted earlier...essentially "sacrificing" or "trading in" some of that hard earned CTL from the offseason, for good racing form and maximal FTP development.

Schedule: Hard day - easy day, block training, etc...there are many ways of approaching your schedule on a daily basis. I'd say experiment with what works because while the physical requirements may vary, so to will the practical considerations such as how much time you have available to train or work or school, etc. Personally, I've been on a block training schedule for about 8 months and find it very beneficial.

Thanks for the thoughtful responses. My question was more specific to how one structures training load rather than managing intensity. Obviously, with only 10-12 hours a week my IF will need to be around .8 to hit the 700tss mark. I was specifically wondering if one should alternate days with greater and lesser load.

Like most things related to training with power, this has already been discussed quite a bit. After starting this thread, I was able to find some discussions that were relevant, finally coming to the conclusion that it depends on the individual. In my case, in the second week of training at near 700tss/week, I was struggling a bit. I just finished my third week and found it to be a bit less taxing. I've had a couple of rides from 90-120 minutes at .8 IF and haven't felt wrecked afterward. This in addition to a 2x20 at .9 IF in the beginning of the week.

I appreciate the advice not to be too focused on CTL in place of event specific training. In short, I got a late start to the season, had a baby in January, and didn't start really riding until April. I'm hoping to build fitness and race some CX in the fall. CTL of 100 is just an arbitrary goal following which I'm planning to spend some CTL and work on L5/6 work. Thus far, all my SST/L4 has paid off. CP20 in mid-April was 235w. As of 6/30 CP20 was 260w.

Halbritt, if you look at my earlier comments, I mentioned how there are lots of ways to arrive at a CTL of 100 and consequently, many different routines/methods of training that will get you there.

You could do a system of hard/easy/hard/easy/hard/easy. Among those that have mentioned such an approach include no less than Dr. Coggan. You could also do some sort of block training, which is what I do. For example, from wed to today I did: w - L5, r - L4, f - L3, s - group ride. It all depends on how well you recover physically but also how you do mentally with consecutive hard days vs. alternating hard/easy. Then there are pragmatic concerns, do you have time to train several consecutive days, and if yes, then how much time and when?

My approach was more by building a schedule with a goal TSS per week in mind and then structuing my days around the areas I wanted to work in. For example, to arrive at a CTL of 100, while riding 5 hard days (and one easy recovery ride that I discounted for reaching my TSS) I knew I needed an average of 140 TSS on those 5 days. So I could have, for example, done 2-3 days at say 70 and then done 2-3 at 200+. People with certain schedules have to do that since they have limited time during the workweek and thus put in big hours on the weekends. I preferred to spread things out more evenly with my days mostly in the 120-160 TSS range.

So your concluding that it depends on the individual, is I think, the right conclusion.

About having trouble with increasing TSS/CTL, when I'm in CTL building mode it is always a challenge, especially on say the 3rd day of a hard 3 day block. My preference is to add CTL little by little by lengthening already existing rides....e.g., make a 1-1/2 hour tempo ride into 1-3/4 to 2 hours. That way you aren't having to train more often or at a different intensity per se, you just add a bit of volume while preserving the intensity, hence building CTL. Soon your body will adapt to the increased training load and what felt like stretching yourself, becomes the new "normal".