I almost completed 28 weeks of structured training and even though my FTP increased and my workouts got harder and harder my fitness level decreased (from 60 to 54 with fatigue going from 55 to 41) over these 28 weeks. Is this due to me adjusting my FTP upwards every few weeks?
Very similar thread here that explains most of it.
The name ‘Fitness’ isn’t the best choice and makes it confusing for people new to this. But the original naming for the metric, CTL (Chronic Training Load), is trademarked.
Fitness is not a metric to judge performance, it’s a metric that helps you to keep your training sustainable.
FTP is good for comparing performance to yourself and others but any timed effort can be used to measure progress and performance. Analyse what kind of effort is important for your specific events, adapt your training to get better at that and follow up on progress with a test addressing that type of riding.
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I think you forgot the link to that thread
Oops!
Here’s the link: If you're staying on top of FTP, how does training load actually increase without increasing volume AND intensity?
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It means your avg daily load (42days moving avg) decreased from 60TSS to 54TSS, nothing less, nothing more.
100TSS=1h@ftp (whatever your ftp is)
harder workout means higher %of ftp. If you rise ftp, the same % of ftp is the same difficulty of a workout.
You are doing fine, just your volume or your intensity decreased.
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Okay I get it now, maybe an updated description is necessary… Am I right in assuming that fitness and fatigue are also meaningless by themselves but are more meaningful taken together as form (taking unto accound how you feel too)?
Even more info here:
Also check out the hyperlinks if you want to grasp the logic behind all this.
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Form = fitness (42day avg) - fatigue (7day avg) it is just a simple math but helps to plan and corresponds with our biology.
This graph is used mostly to plan your training. So you can for example put some future workouts (or even a race) and see more or less your fitness (ability to take load) and compare that with resulting form (danger or safe).
Fitness is not a bad word but to understand it correctly you can simply think if a load of 150TSS for example is sinking your form into high risk region your fitness is low, and if 150TSS is taking you only into green zone your fitness is high (from 150TSS perspective).
So for example if you have a planned race or any other event like a mountain you want to climb, group ride etc. you can more or less say how much tss it will cost. Lets say it will be 3h ride with a big part rode around your ftp (whatever it will be in 3 months time), this will give you around lets say 200tss and now you can go back and plan your structured training in a way that your overall weekly tss will be much higher then 200tss, lets say 800tss. But you can`t just all of a sudden ride a 800tss week (without your ramp rate being too high or in other words sinking form into red area meaning possible injury) instead you plan backwards your training weeks lowering your tss by a 50tss or 75tss or so. So looking from present day into the future your training load will slowly rise giving you higher fintess and your form not sinking into a red zone (with recovery weeks etc)
And now imagine two weeks before your event you easily perforemed a 800tss week (so from that perspective 200tss event is not a biggie=your fitness is ok) now you can take a much easier/tapering week to give some rest to your body and you will be ready give your best during your event.
Thats from fitness perspective. From ftp persepctive, if your ftp is higher then you will be just much faster, but still your load will be the same. So you can understand that: no matter how high your ftp will be, the load or the hardness of this ride will be the same, meaning 200tss. Ofc you can look at this from other way, lets say you want to ride this ride at 200w avg. Then first you want to build your fitness (as said earlier) but if you rise your ftp at the same time, it will make this 200w ride lower % of your ftp and effectivly easier or you can stick with same %ftp and ride it much faster 
those tss things and graphs are more or less golden standard so you can google it, yt it, whole web is full of info regarding that stuff intervals is free and many people here try to help as much as possible ofc
ps. I know it is hard to understand at first, but with time and training seasons it gets more and more natural.
TLDR. your higher ftp gives you the ability to ride at higher watts (faster) with same tss (%ftp), and your lower fitness score makes same load a lil bit harder for you. 200tss ride will be almost 4 day of your 54 fitness training, and 3,5 days of your 60 fitness training. For a person with 100 fitness it will be 2 days of training and for a person with 20 fitness 10 days of training. Hope I made it as easy as possible
It would be best to have a very high ftp and high fitness level at the same time ofc.
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Thanks, I think I am starting to understand
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