Read and listen to everything Dr Seiler has published. I have posted a bunch of links in these forums. Here’s one list. His original research was based on types of sessions, which is why it was 80/20. Stephen has repeatedly clarified that it was based on sessions, even recently admitting that it was perhaps poorly named since the time in zone is more like 95% sub-VT1.
100%! Stunning.
@Stephen_Humlen-Grins, you make good points about the possible effects of that Covid jabs. A few of Dr Attia’s podcast episodes have gone into the effects—known and possible—especially when the jabs aren’t spaced as far apart as is known to be best for the body.
Probably not the most academic source for data but this scares me both personally & for the implications for the healthcare system & people’s personal health & finances.
It might be denial but I am still wondering about my personal fatigue & whether it could have a root in Covid/Long Covid.
However, following all the good advice by Intervals contributors I have to admit that my personal approach to managing training loads/objectives needs more reviewing going forward as I have been a little complacent about my recovery strategy.
I take your point about the subjective wellness graphing but I generally do not trust my subjective wellness & intuition as my mind tells fibs to get an easier time. I do need to try to improve my self perception & self talk skills. But that skill is probably one of the hardest parts of endurance sport.
Also in the morning I am a total wreck usually with a stiff back and often muscle cramps (chronic issue from childhood). Therefore morning scores e.g. as used with the HRV4 app are pointless for me. I usually wait until nearer lunchtime to assess how I feel & finalise my workout for the day. It is very short term & reactive but I do have a loose plan so generally do not have to change very often. The danger with forcing myself to adhere to a longer term or prescribed plan is likely a higher injury risk
That is a part of the problem & why I probably choose to do longer workouts. If I could do shorter exercise in the morning & then again after lunch I would less tempted to try to regularly rack up higher training loads in one go. Evenings are for eating & family so that again pushes me more towards one longer session per day to achieve a remotely satisfactory CTL & performance ability for each of the three disciplines which is not ideal.
I could manage swimming possibly in the morning but with the travel & showering etc I do not want exercise to get too dominant a part of my day as that would work against a sensible life balance & be unfair on those around me. Perhaps I need to cost up a house with a home pool.
The only way that these things improve is via self-enquiry. Just lean into it. There are gentle ways to start. 
In fact, your posts, especially this last one, show tremendous insight.
It is strange @Howie . I know, at least, I think I know, the difference between over training and this sudden fatigue, it hits so suddenly and is so severe. Its weird.
Be kind to your body.
@Stephen_Humlen-Grins, yes, it can be. It’s the compensatory response of the body. In emergency medicine we can see this in children with certain types of trauma. They compensate until they don’t and then they fall off the cliff. It’s incredibly scary because once the indications are there it’s difficult to turn it around. In adults we see this often when people go on vacation and get sick for the first few days. The body has been holding up the walls until it finally gets a chance to clean house, then all resources go to there. In elderly, we see the same trend as in children but the cliff comes much sooner and often secondary to extreme heat or a trauma, i.e. a fall that leads to fractures. In athletes, I like to rule out a few common issues (and big ticket items) via blood tests, and to see if we can find pieces to the developing puzzle. After that it’s a hunt. One thing about emergency wilderness medicine is that it provides opportunity to get really good at taking a history and tracking trends over time.
With all that said, and in direct response to your question, there’s a constant stream of questions in order to help differentiate over-training and sudden, severe fatigue. It doesn’t have to be anything serious, and one has to be cautious about seeing zebras (when it’s only horses). Generally speaking, and specifically to athletes or workaholics, hitting the wall requires a long time for recovery, sometimes a really long bloody time. It all depends on how fast one was going when slamming into that wall, how immotile the wall is, and the resources available for rehabilitation.
And with that said, Covid and the accompanying jab is a huge can of worms. The virus is able to attack an array of systems in ways that we would never have imagined. The jab, well, we just don’t know enough yet what those effects will be. Sure, we know some, but it might be 20-30 years before we really know their effects. (And that is NOT a statement for or against the jabs. Read Rachael Carson’s Silent Spring and you can begin to understand what I mean.)
@David_Bannister: lots of people have chimed in here and @Howie has given a lot of his time to offer really good commentary and advice. I’m just an ordinary Joe cyclist, so no specialist qualifications to underpin what I write here …
First, I don’t know about you – though you don’t sound too dissimilar to me – but there is one thing about a purchased plan over a more ‘follow my instincts’ plan: the element of accountability. If I’m just following a general outline – gradually raise TSS for three weeks, add a week recovery, do a couple of days with intensity, ride the rest long slow distance – then there is no one and no thing to which I am accountable to hold to those rules; so I find that I gradually slide – miss a day and then try to make it up, add a bit too much extra to one of the intensity days, let some of the TSS progression slip, etc. If I’ve laid out some money for a plan, whether off-the-shelf or from a coach, then I’m going to follow it and not go overboard.
Secondly, I don’t know whether you’ve got long Covid or are overtained or even if you are overthinking a period of stress from outside training. What I do suspect is that it is good advice to consult some experts about it. A doctor specialising in sports medicine springs to mind [I don’t mean one who treats injuries, one who is more into ‘wellness’].
And third, you moan about the cycling emphasis in triathlon plans. There’s a reason for that: cycling is almost as good as running for cardio fitness – but you can do a lot more of it without risk of serious injury. For many triathletes, actual running is about skills rather than fitness [just as it was for Nils van der Poel, world champion skater]. So I’d think that getting some advice about training would be really useful – whether you opt for general advice or for specific plans is up to you. Personally, I like That Triathlon Show [Mikael Eriksson] even though I’m not a tri person. But some serious, high-level advice about training should help you enormously in the longer run [and perhaps even during this immediate period of worry].
Good luck in your journey to feeling better and training hard again!
Michael
Accountability is an interesting aspect. I enjoy and appreciate hearing your experience with it, @Michael_Webber. Personally, I’ve been through the gamut: training plans, coaches, and self-guided. Part of choosing each one was, in fact, accountability, but for different reasons—accountability to structure, to someone else, to self. Currently, I primarily have the latter. It’s also why I don’t share my day-to-day training (although I don’t mind sharing screen grabs of various graphs). In order to be fully accountable to listening to what my system is saying, I can’t offer my ego a chance to invade with showmanship, so that it or I look good to the outside world. But this method does require constant internal vigilance—to ensure that neither laziness creeps in, making up for anything, nor aggrandising my current abilities (which is perhaps the hardest aspect for me). As a guide and coach, I try to help others become accountable to structure, to their coach, and, most importantly, to themselves.
Many thanks for replying.
I am not against paid or formal plans as such. The issue for me is that they tend to have a specific target event or goal in mind which does not really fit with my motivation. it could well be me at fault and perhaps I should be more target focus and then I could periodise my training more easily and lower my risk of over training. That was my motivation for my posting my query. Indeed when I used Zwift rather than Xert I did tend to structure around Zwift Festivals (not races) whereas with just using Xert (no specific plan structure but rather a constantly adjusting personalised daily workout targeting an athlete type/distance) I have lost that focus & mainly targeted gradual progression. I am still not sure which platform is better for me to be honest & am likely not fully/properly using Xert’s methodology & tools as often I am prescribed recovery workouts (due to it adjusting to my self-inflicted fatigue level) but instead sometimes swap to an endurance one instead to gain some extra fatigue resistance. This is because occasionally I do not have confidence that my subconscious is not just trying to take a “sickie” & creating physical (subjective) manifestations as evidence that my RHR/HRV/Form/ATLvCTL etc do not support. I think that I have now learned to trust my gut more & not assume that CTL reflects actual fatigue level though with the advice given in the forum.
Though not being very “focused athlete” or sociable admittedly, I prefer Xert in that I can more easily watch sport on TV whilst exercising & so multitask. Using Zwift without interacting with others did not really sit well with me. So the alternative is more watching sport with guilt for the inactivity whilst doing so. Whilst TV is bad, TV whilst exercising must surely be healthy? That is partly why I swapped from Zwift as I felt that I could continue my training methodology largely the same on either.
I am very self disciplined & will happily push to & past my previous limits if I can see a benefit, indeed that might be the problem as I pushing when I should have been resting, thinking that continually increasing fatigue resistance is good. In terms of accountability I am I suppose only accountable to myself and gradually progressing my fitness, though I admit this lacks a structured focus. I am not unhappy with that, however I accept that it might slow my fitness progression.
Paying for a plan would not motivate in the least to be honest. In terms of Tri plans I take your point that cycling is equally great for fitness. I apologise if I came across as “moaning” about cycling in Tri plans as that was not my intention. I appreciate the well founded science & event focus behind cycling being the primary type of workout/load. My issue is that I struggle with pushing as hard with cycling as I enjoy it less & so a traditional Tri Plan for me would be less enjoyable. This is probably largely as I only cycle indoors but I am not willing to cycle outdoors locally due to heavy traffic ( I was an Emergency Nurse & so saw lots of accident victims) & to be honest would begrudge going miles just to cycle somewhere quieter as opposed to running or swimming instead. I accept that this sounds like a philistine’s perspective but I am just being honest to myself & those offering me advice as to my motivation triggers. If I tried to force myself to change too much & I likely could in terms of my self discipline level but I worry that I would not get the same enjoyment & probably lose some life balance (which I and those around me seem happy with currently).
Another issue is that cycling aggravates my back (presumably due to the crouched position) more than swimming or running which again limits my enjoyment of it. As I do not intend to do Tri events I do not really see the point of trying to force myself to see if there is a resolution to this issue (I’m sure there would be). Rather than being a Triathlete as such I am perhaps more an endurance runner who likes swimming & thinks that cycling is good but primarily to reduce my running impact. I will check out the Triathlon Show ( I tend to currently follow GTN (Global Triathlon Network).
I might well be overthinking the fatigue issue hence why I posted on this forum to get a perspective from others who likely have better knowledge & experience than myself. In terms of professional help I am ambivalent about the impartiality & motivation of many practitioners’ advice (from 20 years of working as an Emergency Dep’t Nurse in the NHS & investing ( & so researching) in pharma & biotech companies). Covid has only increased this with so much disagreement & fuzzy science between scientists & medical professionals about causation & treatment. This is not to belittle their skill, knowledge and dedication as many lives have been improved & saved by them during the pandemic but merely to illustrate that input from many perspectives (at least from those with appropriate knowledge & skin in the game) are usually better than individual. I do readily acknowledge that internet or no cost diagnosis/advice can be dangerous but then, at least individually, medics & scientists can be fallible too as they feel the need to be sure in their advice or plan put forward to patients to inspire confidence & trust in both them & their profession. However, much medical & scientific knowledge/advice relies on research studies that are rarely a large enough sample size, impartial or humble about the real world applicability of their findings. Meta analyses are better but still rely on the individual studies being valid.
Just to demonstrate that I am appreciative of the advice given by you and others.
I think that regarding my training methodology I have mostly gone through the first five (though occasional relapses to Bargaining) and reached the Testing Stage.
Many thanks once again.
-4 weeks of load much over 1k
-4 weeks of 14h
-21 days of consecutive over 100tss
-around overall 50% percent of z3
It would be hard to finish such a month and not be totally toasted.
With such high load and intensity you need a person/coach who will see all your data and help you write a plan to at least protect you from going to far i think. At the same time it is hard to decide if it is your hobby at this point, you said you don’t think about being competetive and you don’t want to periodise while you don’t race. Nice thing about races is that you accomplish something or not but still you have to rest after, there is no other way. At the same time 130 fitness score is pretty high and without knowledge such loads are risky. 11.4 of ramp is very high and risky even for an advanced athlete. Common knowledge is that tempo rides are tricky, they are just a little harder then z2 but cummulate much more hidden fatigue, couple of weeks of such rides and you can be toasted. I mean there is a reason why pro cyclist spend most of their time not even at high z2 but middle or low z2, just to gather less fatigue. For example in build phase sst should take 10-20% of your total weekly time with 80% left for mid z2 (yours is 9h for 15 hours week, so sticking to basic rules it is ss load of a 45h week!). I can’t help more. I just think your training is much above amateur training and without years of experience it is very hard to complete corectly without injuries or health issiues.
One of the characteristics of Long Covid in its effects on the CNS and Cognition, is that it clouds potentially poor thinking, and creates large clouds of incomplete unconnected data, collected by people who can’t process,who then turn to others who have a similar approach and become more worried and upset.
So, yes, sounds like you might have it.
99% of those who might help , will ask to have control of the narrative, and organize the data in a systematic way that reaches for cohesion often in small certain steps…
I don’t think it looks like you are working with any of them.
The other 1% are astrologers.
They have nice charts.
good luck
This month was a one off challenge alongside the one that Eddie Izzard did. I could not afford 5 hrs per day so made mine shorter but more intense). So is atypical & as you say potentially injury inducing. I would not set this as a regular plan and hence why I scaled back afterwards for 6 weeks. I did expect to be wiped out which I was not surprisingly & that is partly why I am confused as to my current fatigue when doing lower weekly loads, though admittedly with less structural variety. I also didn’t have the 1:1 PVCs heart issue which I am trying to work out whether is a cause of my fatigue or a symptom of Covid/Post Viral Fatigue or over-training. Being given the all clear from a Consultant (also a marathoner) when I was training fairly intensely has only further sowed doubt into my mind that it is the over training if the cause. As you say, if representative of my routine training, then that month would almost certainly lead me to conclude that over training is the cause. But easy or logical answers are not always correct ones & that is why I am struggling somewhat.
I was more organised in periodisation then as I was fitting in with Zwift Festivals & Run Academy (& yes I do realise that I just shot myself in the foot as that comment just reinforces the potential benefit of structured plans & training).
I am still trying to find what methodology suits me best. Aspiring more towards distance/ultra running events ultimately, together with trying to switch to using Xert (which I admit that I probably do not fully understand & so may be mis-using) is why I chose to focus more on aerobic fitness than aiming for Tempo/Intense workouts. In terms of whether my workouts are tempo or aerobic as I have said in a previous post it depends (for running at least) whether I use power or HR to measure the loads. This has perhaps confused me further as from a HR perspective my weekly loads would be lower especially with interval repeats & hills.
Another significant difference then was that I was not doing much cycling, starting mostly after the HM month so as to reduce impact shock (though not prompted because my legs/hips were sore from the running at that time). That is also partly why I am less appreciative perhaps of cycling’s benefit for me personally as my fitness appears to have decreased since I increased cycling’s proportion. I accept that correlation is not causation & many other factors could be contributing, though I am also mindful that the crouched position suits my chronic back issue less than running or swimming. I am still looking at the differences & trying, with the help of yourself, other Intervals contributors & a wealth of internet articles, to see what is likely the causation as opposed to coincidence.
I will more than likely go back to traditional periodisation once my fatigue has resolved as that seems the most science backed. Trying to use RHR, HRV & ATL v CTL, Ramp rates etc does seem a bit too fuzzy for me to rely on.
I am also now more aware of the chronic fatigue risk of Z2+ that I was likely underestimating. Like so many drivers who get caught speeding, “I honestly didn’t realise I was going too fast”. My licence is now adorned with points & indeed I might already already been suspended for a few months! This post has effectively been my Mature Driver’s Assessment - http://www.iam.org.uk/drivers/motorists-courses/driving-assessment/mature-drivers-assesment.
Many thanks
I certainly have brain fogginess though many around me might suggest that it is chronic rather than acute.
I like nice charts & feel lost in the universe currently so I must be in the 1% astrology presumably. At least I am slimmer & fitter than Russell Grant. Though I might be more like him by the time I get back to training though.
I might ditch some of the misleading metrics but those charts… well they might well have to wrench them from my cold, dead hands. Though this might not be that far away if my current issue is over training. Whilst I am probably reformed most addicts have frequent relapses. I might yet be searching for a sponsor amongst the Intervals forum crew.
HOT PRESS
I have the answer to my current malaise. I have been overdosing on my Kefir milkshakes & probiotic capsules causing me to train too hard. I need to swap to eating chips & burger (probably Quorn though to save the planet!) instead and that will prevent any over training relapses.
See I said that the easy & obvious answers are not necessarily the correct ones. ATL, CTL, Periodisation. Blah Blah as Greta would say. Hurrah for science, my saviour. Those mice should get the Nobel Award (or Dickin Medal preferably. They just need some small carbon bikes now to see if the effects correlates to cycling. Perhaps trickier, though Neoprene Trisuits would be easy peasy.
Regardless of the cause, I would say that severe exhaustion is a clear sign that you need to rest and not just a day or two. Signs like this should never be ignored, what is temporary can become permanent if we ignore what our bodies are telling us.
This is my heart rate zone graph for the past couple of months. Note how it is different to your graphs. I am spending the vast majority of my time in Z1/Z2. You spend a lot more time in Z3 and above.
Every time you work in the higher intensities you are releasing stress hormones which cause inflammation. Short term this are good for you as they cause you to adapt, build muscle etc. But I get the feeling you are doing intensity above Z2 pretty much every day. That means you have high levels of stress hormones circulating every day. That causes chronic inflammation which if left unchecked can lead to disease.
Here’s my load graph showing 42 day average. Up to the end of March I was doing base training. Note that it levels off / slightly decreases every 4th week. This is because I reduce the load back to close what I was doing 4 weeks ago, before increasing the load each week again. I get the impression you are maintaining a high load every week with no deload week to absorb your training. Can you post your CIL graph so we can see what it looks like.
In summary from what you’ve posted I think
Too many sessions include intensities above Z2 intensity.
Too much intensity above Z2
You are not progressing your weekly loads in a sustainable way, nor having deload / recovery weeks to allow yourself to shed fatigue and absorb your training.
Finally you are not listening to what your body is telling you. You can look at all the numbers in the world but they do not trump how you feel. The body has got very good at telling us what is going on inside. It’s multi faceted and HRV and resting HR can’t tell you everything. If you’ve got extreme fatigue the first course of action is to rest for as much time as necessary. That may be 3 or 4 days it may be a week, it may be longer. But you need to rest.
Finally I’ll move on to high volume of low intensity that you mention. Here are my weekly hours of cycling for the past 4 weeks. These aren’t out of intervals.icu as I can’t see a way of showing them. But I do track them elsewhere.
Week ending 15th May
I ride ultra endurance events and had a 24 hour event at the weekend. I cut my training back to 5 hours in the week leading up to the event.
Week ending 22nd May
This is the week after where I keep the hours lower than my normal amount to recover from the fatigue of the previous week. I rest first, then do a recovery ride of an hour , next day a slightly longer endurance ride, not reintroducing higher intensities till back end of the week.
Week ending 29th May
I have now shed the fatigue from the week ending 15th May. I increase my weekly hours back towards normal levels.
Week ending 5th June
I have progressed the duration of my training but it is only 15 mins longer than the previous week.
Week ending 12th June
At the end of the current week I have another 24hr event. Thus my planned training has been cut right back to enable me to shed fatigue ahead of it. I’ve significantly dropped volume but I’ll maintain tge intensity of my high intensity sessions.
After my 24hr events I have fatigue like you wouldn’t believe. I listen to that fatigue no matter what the numbers might say. I initially rest up then do recovery, endurance early and leave intensity till back end of the following week. Thus you see that it’s possible to manage high volumes of training but only if the majority is in Z1/Z2. Plus you have to have a deload week after a particularly heavy week. May and June I have these 24 hour cycle events and thus I arrange my deload around them. But in months where I don’t have my long events I still plan in the easier week every 4 weeks.
Something I do for every session is write notes on how I felt, how the legs were, how the heart rate response was, how RPE compares to heart rate. A warning sign for me for instance is if my notes aren’t positive, my motivation is dipping, my heart rate response was sluggish, I could not raise my heart rate when trying to work harder, or my RPE felt significantly higher than the heart rate would indicate. It’s a sure sign I’ve built sufficient fatigue that I should back off, regardless of what my plan might be or some numbers say.
Never be afraid to cancel or delay a workout session or have a rest or recovery day if you don’t feel right or you have consecutive notes indicating things aren’t going as well as you’d hoped. I’d say there are two types of fatigue, the first you have after a hard week or hard or long workout / ride, a bit of rest or sleep and food and drink sheds that fatigue, the latter type builds gradually, and sits in the background, it’s like a malaise that inhabits your psyche, your bones after a while, it affects your motivations and mood, and a little rest , food, sleep doesn’t seem to shed it. If you have the latter fatigue I’d say it’s a sign of overtraining and you need to rest / recover for as long as it takes.
I’d rather be slightly undertrained but fresh and keen, than overtrained, fatigued, moody and demotivated. I also know which one is better for my long term health and fitness.
Exactly. 
You echo my experience. 
