How to plan training load

[stevevinck]

Hi,

I recently switched to training with power (only indoors for the moment) and I have it difficult to plan my training

I have 5 training days/ week .
Do I look at TSS per week to build up the training load ? I have 550 TSS this week but feel (very) tired. I used to train on HR and although my HR averages are not that different to previous training I definitely feel the difference in training load hence the feeling of overdoing myself a little bit this week ? I'm not looking for a magic plan that gives me a peak performance at a certain date

Some tips are welcom

 

[RapDaddyo]

How many hours do you have available for training on each of the 5 days? Are your two non-training days contiguous?

 

[stevevinck]

How many hours do you have available for training on each of the 5 days? Are your two non-training days contiguous?

Monday : 1 - 1,5 hour
T : rest
W : unlimited time
T : 1 - 1,5
F : rest
S : unlimited
S : unlimited

 

[RapDaddyo]

Well, you certainly have enough available training time to increase your sustainable power substantially. FWIW, I'll share with you how I view the allocation of training time and the management of total training stress. I take a simplistic view that the way to increase sustainable power is with bona fide high-intensity L4-L7 efforts (Andy Coggan's schema). Every ride has a goal for total minutes by level (L4-L7). I group all other time in the saddle (L1-L3) as "other." I never have any specific goals for time by level for levels L1-L3. Nonetheless, with warmup, cooldown and recovery durations, my L1-L3 time makes up ~50% of my total time in the saddle. It's just the way it works out. If I had your schedule, I think I would lay out my week about as follows (weekday rides on the trainer).
M: 3x20s @ 100%FT
W: 4x20s @ 100%FT
Th: 5x5s @ 120%FT + 4x3s @ 121+%FT
Sa: 3hr ride with min 60min L4, 15min L5, 15min L6
Su: Same
That's almost 6 hrs/wk of L4-L6 time. That's a pretty intense week, and you might not be able to handle the total training stress immediately. We're all different in how we respond to high loads of training stress. I thrive on it, but you may need to work up to it.

The better option: get a coach and have him develop a weekly training plan, modified each week based on your goals, your progress and how you respond to training stress.

 

[Alex Simmons]

I'm not looking for a magic plan that gives me a peak performance at a certain date

So what are you trying to achieve?

Do I look at TSS per week to build up the training load ? I have 550 TSS this week but feel (very) tired

Yes but only in context of overall training and the short/long term training loads/stresses. Solid training typically averages 100-150 TSS/day over the course of a season. If you are struggling to attain that level it may be a few things. It may take a season or two to get used to the workload. Or your FTP is set too high and you are not "scoring" higher TSS as a result. Or you simply don't have the hours available.

But overall, seeing TSS increase each week for a few weeks then drop right down during a recovery week would be a pretty typical pattern. Of course as RD implies, the specificity of how you attain those TSS points is also important and will depend a lot on what you are trying to achieve.

I remember when I did the transfer from HRM to power. I realised very quickly how slack many of my "training" sessions actually were. So be a little patient, it might simply be that you are not used to the workload yet.

 

[vio765]

what is your avg weekly TSS?

Well, you certainly have enough available training time to increase your sustainable power substantially. FWIW, I'll share with you how I view the allocation of training time and the management of total training stress. I take a simplistic view that the way to increase sustainable power is with bona fide high-intensity L4-L7 efforts (Andy Coggan's schema). Every ride has a goal for total minutes by level (L4-L7). I group all other time in the saddle (L1-L3) as "other." I never have any specific goals for time by level for levels L1-L3. Nonetheless, with warmup, cooldown and recovery durations, my L1-L3 time makes up ~50% of my total time in the saddle. It's just the way it works out. If I had your schedule, I think I would lay out my week about as follows (weekday rides on the trainer).
M: 3x20s @ 100%FT
W: 4x20s @ 100%FT
Th: 5x5s @ 120%FT + 4x3s @ 121+%FT
Sa: 3hr ride with min 60min L4, 15min L5, 15min L6
Su: Same
That's almost 6 hrs/wk of L4-L6 time. That's a pretty intense week, and you might not be able to handle the total training stress immediately. We're all different in how we respond to high loads of training stress. I thrive on it, but you may need to work up to it.

The better option: get a coach and have him develop a weekly training plan, modified each week based on your goals, your progress and how you respond to training stress.

 

[RapDaddyo]

what is your avg weekly TSS?

~1000 points

 

[flapsupcleanup]

M: 3x20s @ 100%FT
W: 4x20s @ 100%FT
Th: 5x5s @ 120%FT + 4x3s @ 121+%FT
Sa: 3hr ride with min 60min L4, 15min L5, 15min L6
Su: Same

Hey RD, there's no way I could do 4x20s at 100% especially in the middle of a tough week. That's 80 minutes. Isnt FT effectively one's 60 minutes power? Am I missing something here or am I just wimpy. (Well I know I'm that)

 

[ric_stern/RST]

Hey RD, there's no way I could do 4x20s at 100% especially in the middle of a tough week. That's 80 minutes. Isnt FT effectively one's 60 minutes power? Am I missing something here or am I just wimpy. (Well I know I'm that)

I don't think i could complete any of those sessions

Ric

 

[MikeMuk]

RD's workouts do seem quite bad ass. I'm curious as to how much recovery there is between the 4x20s - enough to make it a 4 hour workout? lol! Think that's about the only way I could get through them...

 

[RapDaddyo]

Hey RD, there's no way I could do 4x20s at 100% especially in the middle of a tough week. That's 80 minutes. Isnt FT effectively one's 60 minutes power? Am I missing something here or am I just wimpy. (Well I know I'm that)

Yes, FT is one's 60min max power (by definition). But, I'm talking about 20min efforts with a recovery duration between each effort. Each 20min effort is actually only ~92% of my max power (for 20mins). When I do 2x20s @ 100%FT, I usually keep the recovery duration to 5mins (for the simple reason that I don't need more recovery if I have a good handle on FT and assuming I don't have too much residual fatigue). But, if I do more than 2x20 @ 100%FT, I don't worry about the length of the recovery durations. I'll take 10 or even 15mins between the efforts, whatever I feel I need. If I am riding them on a trainer, I sometimes get off the bike and rest completely between efforts, get a cup of coffee and check my email. We often talk about high-intensity efforts as a set, with equal emphasis on the recovery duration. But, we shouldn't lose sight of the fact that the physiological adaptation benefit is the high-intensity effort, not the recovery duration. I try to keep my workouts reasonably efficient (ratio of L4-L7 time to total time) because I, like everybody else, have limited time for training. But, even with a 10min recovery duration between each 20min effort, it's still a pretty good ratio (67%). I'm happy when my efficiency ratio is 50% or greater.

 

[whoawhoa]

A lot of it is dependent on the relationship of your physiological strengths/weaknesses. 5x5's at 120% of FT would be impossible for many-one only needs to look to the Power Profile chart, where we see that an athlete whose 5-min and FT are on the same row will have a 5-min MAX of 120% of their FT. No way could they do 5 at that level. Personally, I couldn't even do 1!

I'd love to hear from the experts here (Ric, Andy) but lately I've been adopting a less-interval based approach to improving sustainable power and have been doing a lot of volume and lots of tempo work. Plenty of unstructured threshold work as well. And then 1 (occasionally 2) specific l4 sessions. If I have a tt coming up, I do them on the tt bike, if I have a climbing race, I try to incorporate as much climbing as I can.

 

[RapDaddyo]

A lot of it is dependent on the relationship of your physiological strengths/weaknesses. 5x5's at 120% of FT would be impossible for many-one only needs to look to the Power Profile chart, where we see that an athlete whose 5-min and FT are on the same row will have a 5-min MAX of 120% of their FT. No way could they do 5 at that level. Personally, I couldn't even do 1!

True, but one could simply do a shorter duration at 120%FT. There's nothing magic about 120%FT or the 5min duration. The goal is to induce VO2MAX adaptation. I basically ride almost all of my high-intensity efforts >30secs at ~90% of my MP for that duration. Because I have a relatively high AWC, it poses no problem (for me) to ride 5min durations at 120%FT, but if I had a flatter MP/duration curve I would simply reduce the duration of each effort and increase the number of efforts.

 

[peterpen]

I think RDO is highly unusual in having ~1000 TSS weeks on a regular basis, and defnitely wouldn't recommend the OP aim for that. In addition, a week with that much intensity will burn out most riders extremely quickly.

The only time I've seen >900 TSS weeks is when I need to re-adjust my FT and even then those weeks felt _huge_ and had >16 hrs of riding. I'd never try consecutive weeks with a similar load. Most people, myself included, seem to fall somewhere between 600-800 TSS/wk.

 

[RapDaddyo]

I think RDO is highly unusual in having ~1000 TSS weeks on a regular basis, and defnitely wouldn't recommend the OP aim for that. In addition, a week with that much intensity will burn out most riders extremely quickly.

Although I don't have access to a large database, I agree with this statement. While I think there are a number of serious cyclists who ride ~15 hrs/wk, I think I probably have (by design) a higher ratio of L4-L7 time to total time (and, therefore, IF). I think the typical 600-700 TSS points results from ~10 hrs/wk on the bike. But, I imagine the 10 hrs/wk is more a function of their available time than it is a function of their sustainable training stress.

I would definitely advise anyone not used to such training stress to step up their volume very gradually and pay close attention to how their body responds to the additional stress.

 

[peterpen]

FWIW, I took a quick look and in the past month I've had 3 weeks with 15hrs/wk. Each came in at ~800TSS, give or take 20TSS.

Face it, RDO - you're a freak!

Seriously, I doubt many would advocate the volume of high intensity work you are doing, certainly not on a continuous basis. But hey, we'll treat you as an experiment on the outlying limits of performance. btw, when's the last time you adjusted your FT in Cycling Peaks and what method are you using to determine it?

 

[RapDaddyo]

FWIW, I took a quick look and in the past month I've had 3 weeks with 15hrs/wk. Each came in at ~800TSS, give or take 20TSS.

Seriously, I doubt many would advocate the volume of high intensity work you are doing, certainly not on a continuous basis. But hey, we'll treat you as an experiment on the outlying limits of performance. btw, when's the last time you adjusted your FT in Cycling Peaks and what method are you using to determine it?

My workouts are more efficient since I began looking at the ratio of quality time (L4-L7) to total time and realized how low the ratio was. I have moved to a much more disciplined approach to structuring my workouts (to achieve specific goals) and have some technology to help me do that. In fact, I will soon be able to plan a workout to achieve any combination of goals that I desire (time by level, NP, IF, TSS). That's why I have a high ratio of TSS points to hours in the saddle. I reset FT whenever it changes by at least 10W. I determine FT by doing three max duration tests (3min, 8min, 30min) and using the CP Model. I run the tests at least once a month.

Face it, RDO - you're a freak!

Actually, my original mentor John Allis was the freak. He did this kind of volume and more bundled up in ski pants and a sweater -- in the middle of the summer!

 

[RapDaddyo]

Seriously, I doubt many would advocate the volume of high intensity work you are doing, certainly not on a continuous basis.

This actually ends up being a moot point for most, because their schedules don't permit spending 15+ hrs/wk on their bikes. But, what is highly relevant for every serious cyclist is how to allocate their available time (however constrained it might be). I stand by my theory that many (if not most) cyclists allocate their available time inefficiently. IOW, the quality time that results in increased sustainable power is a relatively low percentage of total time. I did my own analysis of that question and gave myself a "C." Then, I restructured my rides and reconsidered my routes to increase my "ride efficiency index" (for lack of an accepted term for this concept).

 

[SolarEnergy]

FWIW, I took a quick look and in the past month I've had 3 weeks with 15hrs/wk. Each came in at ~800TSS, give or take 20TSS.

His training load is similar to that of the triathletes I coached. However, I too think that it's pretty amazing to be able to do all that at... his age (no offence RD )

I bet he is a good sleeper, and a fair eater too.

I'd love to hear from the experts here (Ric, Andy) but lately I've been adopting a less-interval based approach to improving sustainable power and have been doing a lot of volume and lots of tempo work. Plenty of unstructured threshold work as well.

I too started doing unorganized type of work. Typically, my last workout before a day off is a L2-3 ride, with unstructured bouts of L4-5-6. The goal is to finish the ride with a big difference between AP and NP. A workout in a 4-6 rider paceline is just as good.

So far, I am very satisfied with this approach, I feel it gives me more puch for the next workout after the day off.

 

[acoggan]

FWIW, I took a quick look and in the past month I've had 3 weeks with 15hrs/wk. Each came in at ~800TSS, give or take 20TSS.

Face it, RDO - you're a freak!

Hardly. Serious riders of all types frequently average up to 150 TSS/d, and often do so when training no more hours than you put in. For example, see:

http://teamhealthfx.com/blogs/dave_harris/archive/2006/07/14/1601.aspx

Personally, I only average 80-90 TSS/d, but that's while training only 7-8 h/wk.