CTL vs. FTP - Aerobic capacity vs. Power ...

[dkrenik]

I got to think about Rick's mantra and it seems perpetually unbalanced. Let me illustrate:

FTP=How Fast You can Go (for 1 hr)
CTL=How Long You can Go [at FTP]

Which brings me to my previous argument of CTL and FTP being sorely interdependent.

Per Rick's response, "CTL=How long you can go fast" I understand to be more like "how long you can hold a peak" - weeks, months, etc.

Dave

 

[rmur17]

Nope, this I don't buy straight off. - "How long you can go fast" should be thought of in terms fo weeks, not hours. -

What does it mean? Does it mean that it take weeks to recover, and that the guy with higher CTL would be gaining so much power during that time. That doesn't make much sense does it?

Or do you mean that the high CTL will pay off in higher power output later on, but then we just use CTL as a tool to increase FTP. No-one have stated that that is a particular efficient method for doing that, or?

i don't have Dave's considerable patience and skill in answering these questions. It's great to ask them but can I ask: how long have you been training and racing, have you keep good logs over time etc?

There are some broad strokes to be applied but I suspect if you're like me, you won't really believe anything you read here until you have some personal experience with it.

1st thing I did when I became a member of the beta eweTSS group (precursor to PMC) was that I went back and slogged thru several years of training for which I had good time/pace/PE records but zero power. I compared the years w/o power to those with and developed some reasonable benchmarks in terms of avg. weekly IF and TSS compared mostly to training hours and PE. I then compared the non-power to the power years and made sure the overall IF and totals made sense, then i went back and revised the weekly #'s somewhat and (perhaps less importantly) I portioned the weekly load amongst the training days.

Then blah blah blah -- I won't bore folks with the details -- except to say they were many and indeed boring.

After that I had I believe four seasons of data - 2.5 with power and 1.5 without but those had undergone a 'sense check'.

I started plotting CTL/ATL/TSB along with some custom pet metrics of my own and started evaluating whether this 'thing' made any sense or waste just a waste of time.

Immediately I have to say the CTL line vs. overall performance, sensation, short-term performance, long-term performance stood out. It was very clear where I started to make mistakes in training mostly by getting what I now term the CTL/FTP balance wrong.

I think most folks can see that too much of one type (intensity/duration) of training will swing the balance one way and too much of another will swing it the other.

Totally fwiw, I suggest making the effort to apply the tools to your own data. Estimate it if you have to and make sure the estimates are reasonable in the broader picture. See what CTL tells you about where you perform mediocre, well, very well and for what periods. I wouldn't worry too much about pinpointing optimum TSB ranges for now. Stick to CTL ...

After that, you really should not have to ask .... again nothing wrong with asking at all or asking people to defend the metrics. But it's your own data that will 'prove' it for you.

Aside: Long can be hours or days

all the best

 

[daveryanwyoming]

... I was more questioning if has any value on it's own to have high CTL....

On it's own and for a racer, no CTL doesn't mean much. Again the extreme example of cycling tourists riding big miles at slow paces is a great example. The high CTL just shows they've spent a lot of hours on the bike but doesn't do much in terms of predicting their potential for race success. It does imply an adaptation to those long slow hours on the bike so in that sense it implies they've adapted well....to a type of training that may not carry them far in fast races.

TSS in the short term and CTL as the long term average are just measures of training load. But they're more sophisticated metrics than say just tracking miles or hours on the bike since they take into account intensity and provide a method for normalizing the stress created by workouts of differing intensities and durations. Miles or hours alone won't do that.

I think rmur and frenchyge have answered your questions on how CTL relates to "going fast long" but it does apply to long races(in terms of a flatter MMP for long durations), how you'll feel and whether you'll be able to train or race effectively on subsequent days(pretty useful for stage races of during a busy period of racing), and by extension how much faster you'll be able to get over time(if you recover from a hard session or race more quickly you can train or race again sooner or harder and over time that leads to greater fitness). And as frenchyge pointed out a bit of CTL margin relative to the bare minimum needs of your racing allow you to spend away some of that hard earned training base during tapers, which allows you to race from a more fully recovered state.

I can't really tell from the rest of your post what your questions are vs comments and feelings but I think rmur was on target. You sound sceptical and none of us are probably going to be able to convince you. Look back through your training logs or start collecting data and you'll be able to come to your own conclusions as to how much training volume you need and at what intensities. These tools are pretty new but a lot of folks have already had success using them, YMMV.

Good luck,
-Dave

 

[Alex Simmons]

Aside: Long can be hours or days

That was my interpretation.

For example, think about those two athletes going into a multi-day tour.

Oh - and I think I coined the term "retro-spect-a-scope" wrt the PMC (on eweTSS list) when I plugged in my previous season's data and it was all there staring back at me like an epiphany.

I made some overall comments on that in this post:
http://alex-cycle.blogspot.com/2006/12/christmas-pudding-racing-vs-training.html

 

[frenchyge]

Aside: Long can be hours or days

Ok, I can see that now. A 250 TSS race puts a whompin'-big negative TSB dip on someone with a CTL of 50, but for someone with a CTL of 100 -- not so much.

I still think having a high CTL means you can trade CTL for intensity or tapers and still have enough fitness for longer races over a longer period of weeks, too.

 

[Piotr]

Per Rick's response, "CTL=How long you can go fast" I understand to be more like "how long you can hold a peak" - weeks, months, etc.

Dave

Apparently, I missed that despite it making more sense.

 

[Steve_B]

Ok, I can see that now. A 250 TSS race puts a whompin'-big negative TSB dip on someone with a CTL of 50, but for someone with a CTL of 100 -- not so much.

Well, maybe not as much, but 250 is still a pretty big hit regardless of who you are. It depends some upon what your ATL is, and thus where the TSB comes out to be. For the acronym-challeneged, if you've rested and tapered well prior to a big epic event and you've accumulated a large training load in the preceeding months, you should recover better than if you are coming into it with less long-term training load and with more current fatigue from recent training/racing.

 

[dkrenik]

On it's own and for a racer, no CTL doesn't mean much. Again the extreme example of cycling tourists riding big miles at slow paces is a great example. The high CTL just shows they've spent a lot of hours on the bike but doesn't do much in terms of predicting their potential for race success. It does imply an adaptation to those long slow hours on the bike so in that sense it implies they've adapted well....to a type of training that may not carry them far in fast races.

TSS in the short term and CTL as the long term average are just measures of training load. But they're more sophisticated metrics than say just tracking miles or hours on the bike since they take into account intensity and provide a method for normalizing the stress created by workouts of differing intensities and durations. Miles or hours alone won't do that.

Good post Dave and I believe that it's important to understand the context of how one built up their CTL (which you're alluding to anyway). As you've stated, a high CTL predicated upon lots of L2 work won't carry one too far in a race. I'm thinking that this type of training would also show it's effects in one's FTP. Whereas a more balanced approach to building one's CTL will show both a build up in CTL and (hopefully) an increase in FTP.

So (as mentioned earlier) it appears that, yes, FTP and CTL are inter-related in that one should strive to build both to help enjoy some sort of success in racing. Again, I don't believe that one can just look at CTL/ATL/TSB/etc and say "damn - I'm fast" One has to understand how they got to where they are as well.

My 0.02,
Dave

 

[Andy SG]

i don't have Dave's considerable patience and skill in answering these questions. It's great to ask them but can I ask: how long have you been training and racing, have you keep good logs over time etc?

Thanks rmur, I think your answer is good an address some areas of importance.

First, say I've been riding MTB for 6-7 years, only for fun. I have participated in races that are 3 to 5 hours and normally been doing my own race. Training has been a mix of staying in shape running during winter and more targeted training for events during summer.

Two years ago I bought a road bike, and in road races is has been much easier to compare my performance with others since I strive to go with groups in a totally different way.

Last year I joined a group that set the goal to run a 300 km race in 9.5 hours. The goal was to go with our small 7 men group the whole distance, and share the workload equal. Training for this, I followed Friel's book from winter 2007 and on. This increased the training hours up to 14 hours (scheduled-in reality 12-18 hours) per week at peak.

The outcome of this investment in time was:

1) I for sure extended my capability of going long distances without getting worn out.
2) The previous hard 'bonking' now become a much more slow process, in which I could feel what was going on and by eating and riding smart I could balance between effort and fatigue.
3) I feelt as if I was able to go faster on shorter distances, say 5-20 minutes, but riding MTB I feelt really flat, and had very hard time to handle high loads for short time, 1-2 minutes.
4) Times didn't improve as much as I would have expected, in MTB races I've been doing for years with the same course and with the basically the same winning time for years.
5) I was really balancing on the edge to overtraining, with 10+ hours per week, which gives 6 days of training with Friels tables.

Going with group of riders on the road told me that I in most cases were running closer to my limits than others were. So even if I were better at pushing my self I was pretty close to the red area of the power output, when the others were in green or yellow, so to say.

So what I did was to go back to Friel - Using the work on your weaknesses approach - and realized that I couldn't understand Friel's tringles which combines abilities. There was no clear 'lack of power' exercise combination. I realized I didn't fully understood Friel's triangle with 'muscular endurance' etc. at all.
So ...

I find this forum and start to investigate further. Here, and in the litterature refered to here, you speak power, and I understand this so ... I read about FTP which seem to be exactly what is my weak area.

I get a tip of checking Morris, and the work that his done, and that match my constraints in time etc. well.

I buy a trainer that can measure watts, and start to test power based training, and in particular a Morris inspired approach.

The result has been great. Both from what I can measure on the trainer, with approximately 40-50 W increase in both FTP and 4 minutes power. The long club rides on Sunday also tells me that I have improved and have no problem of going 100 km already in January, even if we go pretty hard.

For some strange reason Morris HIT approach does not wear me out as Friels hours. Even doing 3 day blocks have a tendency to build form rather than wear me out.

So with this background I don't have much to relate to, but I have the following findings.

Block training work fine for me (doing 4 minutes or less - or doing 15-20 minutes intervalls). Days with 4, 3, 2 minute VO2max intervalls seem to give most bang for the bucks, but I have done quite a lot of 20 minutes intervalls to.

Doing 4 minute intervalls I can do approximately 25-30 minutes at high power levels per training session. I don't believe that this will result in appropriate training levels for going 4+ hours races, and therefore try to learn what the signs could be of too low CTL, and how I could measure benifits from higher CTL. But since I feel that HIT training works, I don't want to waste HIT time on junk training.

If I sound sceptic it is based on a feeling that some guys promote CTL more on the 'if you want to go long you need to train long', and an understanding that FTP is chosen as a reference to measure endurance capability. From the discussion here, I have a better understanding.

There are some broad strokes to be applied but I suspect if you're like me, you won't really believe anything you read here until you have some personal experience with it. .../cut

Immediately I have to say the CTL line vs. overall performance, sensation, short-term performance, long-term performance stood out. It was very clear where I started to make mistakes in training mostly by getting what I now term the CTL/FTP balance wrong.

Could you please elaborate on this a bit. What did you see? What are the indicators of going in one direction or the other? What is short-term performance for you, as well as long-term?

I think most folks can see that too much of one type (intensity/duration) of training will swing the balance one way and too much of another will swing it the other.

Well, yes. The thing is that weaknesses must reduce the result in racing to be worth working with. It has been clear for me that I lack power, and I try to do something about it, but yet I haven't seen any drawbacks in not doing enough training hours or miles.

Totally fwiw, I suggest making the effort to apply the tools to your own data. .../cut

Good idea. Need this eary to gather data, however.

Aside: Long can be hours or days

all the best

Thanks rmur!

 

[daveryanwyoming]

.... It has been clear for me that I lack power, and I try to do something about it, but yet I haven't seen any drawbacks in not doing enough training hours or miles. ...

Yeah, it's harder to see lack of training depth. It can manifest itself as steep power drop off late in a ride, or as excessive fatigue following a race or ride so that you have to back off from your training plan. Converesely deep training base(high CTL) manifests itself as feeling like you can stay at relatively high power levels(L3,L4) for a very long time and after a bigger ride or race you don't feel so hammered, can recover quickly and are ready to get back at it sooner.

Those are subtle things to identify and usually require a training log to see the longer term trends. But just because they're difficult to recognize doesn't mean they don't exist.

Good luck,
-Dave

 

[doctorSpoc]

I've been reading this forum for almost 6 months, and change my training based on what I've read here and in litterature, such as Morris' book. I have increased my power output significantly since I started, and feel I have learned a lot, but there's one thing I can't understand.

Pure power addicts, seem to focus on increasing their power levels, and use power output as a measure, and in many cases that means high intensity intervall training, with intervalls of different length. I've seen blogs where people focusing on power output increase, state that they need a certain amount of load/training time to benifit from training, but in many cases many people focus on straightforward intervall programs, where they rely on higher watts, rather than time, to increase workload.

On the other hand there are these guys speaking of CTL, lenght vs. intensity trade-offs between L4 intervalls or building CTL, etc. They seem to focus more on aspects that is hard to measure, but is often refered to as Aerobic capacity, or similar.

I personally think the two views must be highly related, since it must be better to generate 200W over say 2 hours if it is 70% of your capacity, than if it would be 85%. On the other hand, the time put into training each week doesn't feel like totally irrelevant, and the more you train, the more you should be able to train, so it sort of indicates a good spiral ...

Question(s) then

1) Is there anyone that is willing to claim that the FTP is good enough as indicator of capacity over a longer race. Meaning that two riders with same FTP level (and everything else similar) but with different CTL level should generate the same result in a race?

2) Is there anyone that can give an example of where the person, in the example above, with higher CTL would have an advantage?

Thanks

ihmo you need both... CTL and FTP...

in the winter my FTP doesn't fall off very much at all, but my endurance sure does... winter i'm doing 4-6hrs a week and in the summer i'm 10-15hr per week... CTL maxes out ~100 or so.

i'll use myself as the two identical riders you talk about... me in the winter and me in the summer... so both time periods i can achieve pretty much the same FTP, but in the summer with the higher training volume, my endurance on rides greater than ~2.5hrs i'm going to suffer on my winter training volume and my ability to recover day to day is compromised... so long rides and stage racing will be very difficult on this volume (low CTL) as well. if all i was doing was 1hr crits.. i think i could get by very easily on this type of volume.

didn't read the other post so sorry if i've repeated what was already said..

 

[acoggan]

ihmo you need both... CTL and FTP...

in the winter my FTP doesn't fall off very much at all, but my endurance sure does... winter i'm doing 4-6hrs a week and in the summer i'm 10-15hr per week... CTL maxes out ~100 or so.

i'll use myself as the two identical riders you talk about... me in the winter and me in the summer... so both time periods i can achieve pretty much the same FTP, but in the summer with the higher training volume, my endurance on rides greater than ~2.5hrs i'm going to suffer on my winter training volume and my ability to recover day to day is compromised... so long rides and stage racing will be very difficult on this volume (low CTL) as well. if all i was doing was 1hr crits.. i think i could get by very easily on this type of volume.

didn't read the other post so sorry if i've repeated what was already said..

The more you train the more you can train.

 

[bbrauer]

Interesting discussion.

Well you can turn those maximum times on their heads and view these as minimum times(at sufficient intensity) necessary to target a specific metabolic process. If you want to target your ability to sustain L4(Coggan's levels) or "Threshold" efforts then you'd better hold those efforts for at least 8 to 10 minutes. Hold that same intensity for much less and your body can rely on more oxygen, utilize more of its anaerobic capabilities in the mix and get through the effort with a different metabolic system.
Similarly if you want to train VO2 Max it doesn't pay to do minute long intervals. Sure you'll get some adjacent level crossover but you'll be targeting anaerobic glycolocis(L6) and not VO2 Max(L5) with these efforts

.

Except if you limit the rest interval duration. One physiological mechanism at work that I think a lot of us forget about is the metabolic process involved with recovery. You're right that a one minute max effort is going to be utilizing glycolysis for its energy requirements; but is it going to be during recovery? Recovery between efforts, I think we've concluded, is primarily an aerobic response; even after anaerobic efforts. We've used this assumption to advocate raising FTP, or developing our aerobic systems through longer L4 type efforts. A better aerobic engine aids in recovery between harder efforts and gives us more matches, so the reasoning goes.

What if we play with the rest interval durations? Again, going on the assumption that recovery is an aerobic process, shorter intervals with periods of incomplete recovery are going to hit the aerobic zone as well as the anaerobic. In fact, you've argued before that micro-intervals are primarily L4 aerobic in nature based on average power. That's at the extreme end of the work/rest relationship continuum. The same principle can be applied to longer efforts with a 1:1 work/rest relationship. I've had great success in the past with 1x1s and 2x2s, 3x2s and longer. Really, the sky's the limit in terms of creating workouts that target ALL systems and more closely replicate your racing demands.

This is my main issue with a steady diet of 2x20s. There aren't a lot of races that require two isopower efforts of 20 minutes each (except, of course time trials. And as a side note, the 2x20 is the focus of my triathlete's training right now). I've read guys on this board that are repeating "sweet spot training" like a mantra and doing 2x20s five times a week. Don't get me wrong, I think this approach is useful, particularly in the off-season, and especially for those in colder climates who are stuck indoors on the trainer. I certainly think the 2x20 SST is a heck of a lot better approach than hours of junk miles for base training. But again, the continuum. Most races require proficiency along this entire continuum. I think we need to simplify it just a little: Train How You Race. The "raise from the bottom" approach makes sense, but for me, I would categorize it more as base building.

So how does this relate to your questions? This is the first problem I have with a pure High Intensity Training(HIT) approach to building fitness. I've seen HIT plans where the longest intervals were in the 4 to 6 minute range with authors claiming anything longer is unecessary. From a certain perspective I can see what they're saying. VO2 Max represents the top end of your predominantly aerobic system(there's definitely a lot of anaerobic contribution going on at that level but you're still predominantly aerobic when working VO2 Max). Conventional wisdom says "raise VO2 Max and everything else will follow". This pull up method definitely has its advocates but there's an awful lot of published and reviewed work demonstrating that in addition to a relatively high VO2 Max and even power at VO2 Max there's still the question of power at LT(FTP in Coggan's system) as a percentage of P-VO2 Max. IOW, raising VO2 Max by itself may not be enough, there's still the question of how high you can raise FTP relative to P-VO2 Max. Longer intervals that target sustained primarily aerobic metabolic processes are the ticket to raising FTP with or without raising VO2 Max. So those efforts of at least 8 to 10 minutes are essential to increasing sustainable power if you buy into the SST/Lydiard school of thought.

But you aren't working on just the VO2 system. Any effort that taxes the body's capacity to re-uptake lactate is going to be stimulating that aerobic system. Planning your rest duration puts even more focus on the aerobic component of VO2 and anaerobic efforts.

You've already given the short answer to this one: "the more you train, the more you can train" but there are other ways of looking at the need for some reasonable duration in your training. In a simplistic way I think it's pretty easy to see that there are some minimum durations you need to train just to be able to complete longer rides. Assuming you meet the minimums discussed above you'd still need some saddle time to manage say your first century ride. So the question isn't whether you need some duration, the question is "how much?".

To address the point of the OP, I think Coggan's aphorism sums it up pretty well. I've been using shorter duration intervals for several years now, and I've started introducing the 2x20 this season in conjunction with traditional training, but I still don't think there's a substitute for saddle time. I've had arguments on other training forums with the Dave Morris acolytes about the value of distance. For me, I just feel I have that deep level of fitness that has more staying power when I put in the proper amount of hours. I guess that's what we'd define as the CTL. I should qualify that, however, by stating that I'm not advocating lots of LSD. For me, it's finding that balance where my longer rides at my targeted intensity provide a metabolic and anabolic stimulus and minimize the catabolic state.

 

[daveryanwyoming]

...Except if you limit the rest interval duration. One physiological mechanism at work that I think a lot of us forget about is the metabolic process involved with recovery. You're right that a one minute max effort is going to be utilizing glycolysis for its energy requirements; but is it going to be during recovery?...

Fair enough, rest interval duration is another dimension to play with and I agree if you keep them short enough you can keep the overall workout in an appropriate work level. Another form of microinterval, but focusing on micro-rests. But that's not what I see in a lot of the HIT literature. I see a lot more of the 4 minute on - 4 minute rest sort of advice, but I'll be honest I haven't delved deeply into current HIT thinking since overall I haven't been impressed by that approach.

...Really, the sky's the limit in terms of creating workouts that target ALL systems and more closely replicate your racing demands...

Perhaps, but I guess philosphically I have trouble with attempts to do it all at once. I guess I haven't seen many "one size fits all" approaches to anything in life that results in optimum solutions. Nope, no hard data to argue your point and maybe you're one step further ahead on this learning curve but I strongly believe tailoring each workout to specific system instead of trying to find a "does it all" solution. But I'll admit this is totally opinion and gut feeling, no hard science, research or other objective data to back up that feeling. I guess I had too many early experiences with team mates wanting to go hard for some intervals, climb some big hills, sprint for all the limit signs, and get some big miles - all on the same ride. In the end we tended not to do any of those tasks real well. I realize that's not what you're suggesting, but it's that kind of experience that makes me skeptical.

Train How You Race. The "raise from the bottom" approach makes sense, but for me, I would categorize it more as base building...

I agree with the latter part, it's base building we're talking about with SST. As well as base maintaining during periods of hard racing or during a midseason CTL rebuild. But I'm not sure I'd extend that to "Train How You Race" that basically sounds like a variation on "Racing is the best training" school of thought. And at least for me that never worked. I really do think Lydiard was on target and the foundation of his approach was building solid aerobic fitness with steady submaximal work and then specializing to the needs of the particular events only after a lot of foundation work. I'm not stuck on 2x20's either, but SST work in that form or multiple 30-45 minute efforts or simply an hour or two of continuous SST are all good ways to lay that foundation.

Sure, the SST foundation alone won't do the whole trick and sooner or later there's a need for higher end work and specialization to the needs of specific events and to address specific rider weaknesses. But this thread was really about the value of CTL and whether a solid FTP alone is all that is really needed. I think we both agree that fitness requires some volume. Even the OP aludes to that, otherwise he might only be doing a single 4 minute HIT effort or maybe 8 minutes per session instead of 24. There's clearly a need for both intensity and volume, the question is how much of each?

-Dave