Performance drop in the first third of a new Season

A rider has just expressed a concern to me (in french though. So I won't be able to quote him).

This guy got his powermeter at the end of the racing season. So no data could be recorded during the competition season.

I would guess that he could accumulate a CTL well over 80tss a day. In fact he had a great season, both training and racing wise.

When he got his powermeter, he was eager to train with it. Therefore he didn't take any transition brake. He switched from road training to trainer. He did experiment a slight power loss, like anyone else.

But now, he can really feel that his performances are dropping instead of improving compared to this summer.
I basically explained him that this performance drop, occuring roughly 30-45 days after the end of summer season was probably caused by a massive drop in CTL, as a result of a drop in both volume and intensity. During the summer, with a daily CTL over 80 tss, taking 3 days off isn't an issue.

Now with a CTL under 50 tss a day, any break longer than 2 days is detrimental (at least performance wise).

My questions :

- Does it sound like a fair explaination?
- Did you guys (those who don't take any transition break) experimented a drop in performances as well or do you stay race fit all year?

 

The scenario you describe would fit the yearly flucuations in my "core fitness" (i.e., functional threshold power) quite nicely.

 

Would you consider trying to maintain a "racing core fitness" level all year round as an option?

Do you know of riders that try that? Or coaches that recommend it?