Steve_B said:
That's kind of what I was thinking. I base it upon what it coming up in the 4-8 weeks and "where I am planning to be" at the end of that period. I guess I was reading something more ... I dunno... complicated... into it.
Paging DRW..........
I get away from the computer for just a couple of hours and miss all the fun
To be honest what I was thinking was that Hunter and Coggan's book isn't a training plan. It's more or less training philosophy agnostic. Coaches who thrive on LSD can use the contents just as well as Lydiard based SST advocates or the HIT folks with
long intervals in the four minute region. Notice that Friel wrote the forward, Andy coauthored the text and I have no doubt the High Intensity guys can comfortably refer to its contents.
From that standpoint the specific advice of a certain athlete working up to 40 minutes of SST but then later working up to an hour or more of solid L4 isn't very meaningful. For the LSD guys and perhaps some still avoiding the mythical
no mans land 40 minutes is plenty of time in SST. For the HIT guys 40 minutes is probably way too much time at that easy level and for the SST folks 40 minutes isn't nearly enough.
Steve_B said:
Steve_B said:
What are you suggesting? That your CTL should affect the IF chosen for a particular workout?
I think Rick had a pretty good take on where I'm coming from but to some extent yes. CTL is a way to measure the overall training load and that load is made up of individual workouts. I agree with Frenchyge and others who've suggested that the specific workout should be targeted to specific needs and we shouldn't lose sight of the concept of training our weaknesses. If all we did was look at CTL we'd all be doing LSD and huge mileage, that's for sure the easiest way to build big CTL numbers but it doesn't do much for building power or addressing a rider's specific weaknesses. But keeping an eye on CTL helps us balance our training over the course of weeks or months.
Warning Fever Induced Rant......
I used to think peaks were some sort of black magic. I'd feel great at random times and feel hammered at other times. I tracked mileage, hours on the bike, waking mood, waking HR, you name it and didn't see the pattern. CTL and the PMC has made those patterns crystal clear. You build CTL by steadily increasing overall training load in the form of TSS. During those times we stay in a state of mild to moderate fatigue and aren't likely to experience big peaks. We might set personal records as we continue to get stronger, but even better peaks await us if we also get fresh. If that load is comprised of workouts well chosen to fit the particular athlete's needs and well executed by the athlete then CTL represents the depth of specific training tailored to that athlete.
IOW, CTL represents the average daily training load we've adjusted to for approximately 3 to 3.5 CTL time constants or roughly 3 to 4 months. If the composition of that training is off target for the athlete then they'll be well adapted to the wrong training. But assuming the training is well chosen they'll be very well adapted to that load and that general training mix.
Back off from that level and relatively speaking we're resting. Keep track of TSB or whatever metric you like, but as daily TSS drops we're working below the level we've adapted to and we're fresher. We expect performance peaks during these times but CTL is also dropping so we're losing our hard earned base and now adapting to a lower workload. Keep up the CTL droop for too long and we
spend away our training base and the peak will end.
Winter build is real easy for folks in the SST camp. Build CTL and build FTP. A blend of Tempo, SST, and L4 work does that real nicely. All of those can build CTL rapidly but are also intense enough to raise FTP. But what happens as the season approaches and we start addressing specific needs and weaknesses with L5, L6 and L7 work? In general, the higher intensity efforts build less TSS per workout and if not balanced somewhere with additional TSS building our weekly TSS falls and our CTL begins to fall. Unless we want to spend one of our precious peaks we've gotta find a way to build more CTL elsewhere in the schedule when we add high end work. One way to do that is to drop one or more SST sessions down to Tempo or even high L2 and extend them. It's just a lot easier both during the workout and from a recovery standpoint to build more CTL with longer easier efforts.
But we still don't want to lose site of the specific workout goals and most of us need to keep raising FTP even as the season approaches. Well, that's the art and magic of coaching and putting together a schedule that works for a particular athlete. Something's always gotta give and there's not enough training or recovery time to work everything all the time. You won't sprint like Boonen, climb like Ras win all the time trials and track race with the best of them. Even with unlimited training time(which no one really has) you just can't do all the specific high end work and still recover and still maintain or build your base so you have to make choices.
What was I saying? Oh yeah, I really do think CTL is the big picture context from which to view a lot of these tradeoffs. Specific workouts targeted to specific training goals still comes first but it ties together the workouts in a longer term sense and starts answering the question of when to introduce high end work and when to back some workouts but extend them to offset the lost workload. It provides a context that makes it a lot easier to understand why
all the training levels or zones are relevent. Do half your training week racing or doing L5, L6, and L7 work and you might very well need a couple of long L2 or L3 days to stave off the CTL crash. Stay in the sweet spot and you may not need to go to long slower rides but unless you're a time trialist or triathlete you may be missing something more important.
Sorry for the rant Steve, I'm home with the flu and have spent way too much time laying in bed drinking tea. First time I've taken two back to back days off since October so for sure my CTL is crashing right now. But you've gotta listen to your body and I'll be back at it soon enough......
-Dave
