Yes, its misleading. Let us know how it goes after you take it easier
It’s a good point that you make Stephen about grammatical verbiage. Try thinking of it as “optimal” for adaptation stimulus and that such adaptations also require some rest in order to be realised.
1 Like
Yes, but wouldn’t it be better if the authors used words that accurately described the situation? Eg, good, bad, poor, excellent. Anything that describes the perceived situation more accurately?
Well, it seems to me like they are guessing wrong or using words that do not accurately describe the situation. 
But yes, i’m doing recovery rides.
There is a possibility that your FTP is over-estimated and that’s part of the problem. But now is definitely not a good time for an FTP test.
The danger is that if you try doing recovery rides by power, it’s not easy enough. You should feel like you’re barely pushing on the pedals. It’s a good idea to avoid hills completely. Or just take a number of days completely off the bike.
1 Like
Recovery rides guided by power or by HR?
Perception is the issue. For me, the current words are accurate, while good, bad, etc. are highly nondescript. For you, it appears that it’s currently the opposite. That’s where conversation and discussion allow us the opportunity for exploration and understanding. 
Well Garmin keeps wanting me to adjust my FTP down, but thats probably because I have been doing a lot of club rides which aren’t focused on any particular type of training. Been doing some Z2 rides but have a sportive coming up on Thursday so I think I’ll just take a few days off as you say.
By both, trying to keep within Z2 power and HR
1 Like
Focus mostly on HR zones and watch how it coincides with power. That allows you to see trends over time as well as daily readiness. Power zones are good for shorter intervals where HR is a delayed metric. In all cases, pay attention to RPE.
Yes, I think you are right Howie, I got myself hung up with that graph and what I thought the legend meant. I’m probably going to go back to my own “feel” and do what is right for my body.
2 Likes
lol
this talk has been great, stephen. i see your point. probably if the words where progressing/green, maintaining/gray, recovering/blue… they’d be more literal. even though, you’ll be questioning what you were feeling when you’d hit the recover zone, cause you weren’t feeling recovered – but maybe starting to recover.
the thing is, as a moving average from the last days, the graph is a tendency, not a immediate status.
1 Like
I think also a lesson that averages (collected data) are not always correct for the individual. It’s the same with Retul bike fit. They work on theoretical angles of best power. I’ve had three and none have been as good as 2 I have had from Biomechanics who work on the whole body. I suppose the learning curve here is, to listen to your own body?
1 Like
I have a friend who is a semi pro rider in Spain. Says he’s old school, doesn’t have a gps device, power pedals or heart rate sensor and yet he’s always on the podium at age 55.
2 Likes
Hi,
I am in my 70 also and what I see you have constant workouts but … you don’t take any resting periods (which you should do even being much younger).
You can’t do only workouts. If you do you won’t make progress after a while. Recovering must be build in. So do workouts staying in the green zone and take some rest/recovery within you leave the green zone. Not long but long enough to recover and then start workouts again. Take care you also have a mix of (ir)regular workouts varying hard/light, short long.
But what ever you do, you need to build in recovery/rest days!!!
Hi Ed, I think you may have misunderstood my post. I know why I’m tired, my point and question was "why is the data showing me as “optimal” because to me as an English speaker, Optimal means best form.
I’ll admit I’ve not read the whole thread… But “optimal” when it comes to form means optimal for you to increase your “fitness” without too much risk of causing injury / overtraining. It is a rule of thumb more than anything else though, and some times you may need to rest and recover while in “optimal” form, and at other times you will be able to train harder than indicated by the “optimal” zone.
1 Like
Thanks William. But I must admit, it still doesn’t make sense to me. My whole point it that I am tired and probably overtrained, am I optimally overtrained or optimally tired. I know I have to recuperate but thats not the point. confused dot com
Stephen,
how long have you been tired?
how long have you been training for?
Fitness, Fatigue and Form are calculated values that are based on power, duration and intensity relative to your FTP. There is no subjective value in those calculations.
So if the graph shows optimal, it’s because you are objectively ready for more. Could be that you are pushing yourself to meet a certain level but not getting enough rest to sustain it.
It’s difficult to diagnose the problem just from the PMC. as you need to look at the metrics that indicate fatigue, eg. elevated resting HR or lower HR for a compatible effort at a certain power.
Being only cycling on the road for less than 1 year, im making plenty of mistakes myself.
I signed up for this 117 km 2800+ event for 4th of June.
Been riding regularly (4 times a week) since january, and have seen progress.
Tried to do a base period and on march i went to a build period. Ive been doing 3 weeks of more load, 1 week less load cycles.
But last weeks all my rides are shown as tempo or threshold. I try to replicate the event so usually rides have some climbing, its hard to not be on high Z3 power zone or Z4 if you are clilmbing!
So ive felt more tired, like lack of explosiveness and riding feeling tired. Happens that Garmin shows optimal load, BUT non productive state. On the load focus screen low aerobic load is almost zero and most of my training has been intense aerobic. Even if i tried to not enter too much time Z4 power zone or more as the rides were long, it seems i have done too few recovery rides. On that screen (attached) high aerobic zone is almost 90% of training last 4 weeks. Its in spanish, but it says i should focus on low intensity aerobic rides.
So here i am, 11 days till event feeling like i cant push. Im going to make 3 or 4 short 1h or 1h30m recovery rides this week and hopefully i will be ok for the event
1 Like