sustainable ctl

[jk9270]

So I've been on Training peaks for about 8 weeks now. My CTL is 82 as of this afternoons ride. It has been going up 8-10 points per week. I think there is going to have to be a time when it hits a ceiling. What have you guys found to be a sustainable level without losing motivation or getting overtrained/burned out?

 

[LT Intolerant]

So I've been on Training peaks for about 8 weeks now. My CTL is 82 as of this afternoons ride. It has been going up 8-10 points per week. I think there is going to have to be a time when it hits a ceiling. What have you guys found to be a sustainable level without losing motivation or getting overtrained/burned out?

I've hit highs in the 125 range and held in that range for a month or two. Others who I've talked with have seen highs upwards of 135+.

The big issue for me is not being over-trained or burned out but rather being over-extended. That is its tough for me to sustain a CTL of 125 and have a life.

I usually give up CTL when I'm doing a big block of racing (tapering to be fresh) or when my wife puts the divorce lawyer on retainer.

 

[Porkyboy]

Hi

So I've been on Training peaks for about 8 weeks now. My CTL is 82 as of this afternoons ride. It has been going up 8-10 points per week. I think there is going to have to be a time when it hits a ceiling. What have you guys found to be a sustainable level without losing motivation or getting overtrained/burned out?

I've found about 90 is more than enough for me to maintain. Just rode a little 5 day tour of about 600 miles generating a 5 day TSS of 1784 perfectly happily with a starting TSS of around 80, mind you it was much higher at the end!

I used to think a very high CTL was much more important than I now believe it to be, it's what makes the CTL up that counts, IMHO. Mind you, I'm getting on a touch so I have to be more careful using my available time and energy, I never deliberately ramp my CTL by more than about 3 points per week.

Q

 

[Alex Simmons]

So I've been on Training peaks for about 8 weeks now. My CTL is 82 as of this afternoons ride. It has been going up 8-10 points per week. I think there is going to have to be a time when it hits a ceiling. What have you guys found to be a sustainable level without losing motivation or getting overtrained/burned out?

It would be unusual to be able to sustain such a high CTL ramp rate for such a period.

Did you start with CTL set at 0 ? If you had some training in the legs before starting, then your starting CTL would have been higher and the real ramp rate less.

If your medium term CTL ramp really is 8-10 TSS/day/week, then I'd also question your FTP setting as possibly being too low.

 

[swampy1970]

It would be unusual to be able to sustain such a high CTL ramp rate for such a period.

Did you start with CTL set at 0 ? If you had some training in the legs before starting, then your starting CTL would have been higher and the real ramp rate less.

If your medium term CTL ramp really is 8-10 TSS/day/week, then I'd also question your FTP setting as possibly being too low.

That's good to know. Being fairly new to this m'larky I was wondering the same thing. I'd imported all my previous sessions from PowerAgent into WKO+ and "let it do it's own thing" with regards to Performance Manager. I highly doubt that my FTP is set low... Although with my new mega el-mucho power position I could be putting out another 200 watts - NOT! LOL

 

[jk9270]

It would be unusual to be able to sustain such a high CTL ramp rate for such a period.

Did you start with CTL set at 0 ? If you had some training in the legs before starting, then your starting CTL would have been higher and the real ramp rate less.

If your medium term CTL ramp really is 8-10 TSS/day/week, then I'd also question your FTP setting as possibly being too low.

Yeah,
I started the CTL at 0. I had some training in already, so the ramp rate probably isn't 100% accurate. Lately the rate of increase has slacked off a bit. I use my best normalized 60 min power to set FTP which is 340. I know my average rides for the last few weeks have been about 160tss. That is about 5-6 days per week.

Is CTL a straight average of tss/days? That would have it peaking between 118 and 130 if my math is correct.

 

[Alex Simmons]

Yeah,
I started the CTL at 0. I had some training in already, so the ramp rate probably isn't 100% accurate. Lately the rate of increase has slacked off a bit. I use my best normalized 60 min power to set FTP which is 340. I know my average rides for the last few weeks have been about 160tss. That is about 5-6 days per week.

Is CTL a straight average of tss/days? That would have it peaking between 118 and 130 if my math is correct.

No. It's an exponentially weighted moving average, with the time constant dictating the "rate of decay" for the weighting applied to workouts on previous days.

e.g. the 42 day TC for CTL means a workout two weeks ago has more weighting in the calculation of CTL than it does in the calculation of ATL, where the TC is more like 7 days.

Try seeding your Performance Manager chart with a CTL/ATL number that roughly reflects how much riding you'd been doing up to that point (the start date).
e.g.
CTL seed ~= average hours per week for previous 2 months x 8
ATL seed ~= average hours per week for previous 2 weeks x 8

you only need to seed the very first chart, thereafter WKO knows what start values to use.

In any case, after 3-4 months you'll see the numbers converge but it might help to put the CTL ramp into a little better context for you.

Using your best 60-min NP may or may not be a good guide for FTP, it depends on whether those 60-min numbers come from very hard efforts (e.g. a hard race or a TT). If not, then it is likely you have underestimated your FTP. That in turn would artificially inflate TSS and of course CTL.