Hi there,
How do I stay in the green zone / Optimal ?
I feel like my training and group rides are hard and fatiguing, but for the last 3-4 weeks i’ve been in the grey and blue zone. I’ve been feeling super good and strong on the bike, but it seems like my fitness curve has plateaued.
Any advise? Could it be wrong settings?
/Kasper
Have you read the Guide section regarding the Fitness page?
I’m noob ranked FTP 200W, 80kg rider. My experience is after a long time rest (around 15days). I can get back to green zone within 3 days training of 140-150W(ZONE2-3), 35-45Km per day.
Seems like you might be training too hard, and not resting/recovering enough.
Yes, but I can’t find the answer.
How much history do you have? If you have 6 or more weeks with a fairly constant load, Fitness will plateau. The only way to increase fitness further is to add load by means of extra time (preferred) or more intensity.
It’s not because your Power keeps going up that the Fitness number also increases. Fitness does not show performance, it shows what your actual load is compared to your historical load and the load is referenced to your actual FTP.
An hour at 140W with an ftp of 200 gives the same load as an hour at 210W with an ftp of 300. It’s both 70% ftp. And load is what drives the numbers in the Fitness chart, not absolute power.
Wouldn’t that put me in the red zone / high risk ?
All looks normal. In the beginning of that chart, you had a load that was high compared to your fitness level. That drives you in the red zone.
The last 4-5 weeks your load is very similar to your fitness level. Thus Fitness plateaus.
For a recreational athlete, a fitness around 70 is quite good. It means that you workout regularly and have on average a daily load of around 70, representing about 1.5hr of endurance work per day, totalling weekly to about 9-12 hours of working out.
If your feeling corresponds to what the chart says, and you are at your limit for time availability, you could add some sparse intensity intervals. But be careful with the amount of higher intensity and dig yourselves in a hole. Try some stuff and find out what works for you.
If you’re not a pro and don’t have more time available, just keep doing what you’re doing. Your performance will still improve, but you want see that in your fitness chart.
The biggest mistake you could make, is to start chasing Fitness numbers by going too hard too often. It will result in a negative performance trend.
You don’t have to be in green for every activity/day. The more you do, the more you have to continue doing to keep it in green. It’s a fundamental flaw of CTL/Fitness when looked at, in isolation, and a recipe for over training.
Look at your weekly ramp rate, and see how your TSB/Form has changed from the previous week. It will show in the summary information.
Chasing the fitness line is definitely a mistake I’ve made and I suspect is common in recreational athletes that starting using these metrics on whatever platform. Can also encourage you to do an over hard session to force it back into the green.
I think it would be worth really highlighting this more to newbies (especially those like me who haven’t ever been coached) as I’ve had a couple of injuries recently following a period of strong progress - with both these contrasting aspects (the good and bad) probably influenced by this fitness line chase.
I think once you find your level, which as highlighted above is really a measure of how much time you have to train, you are better looking at other metrics for monitoring performance progress.
Once I’m injury free I plan to use the fitness line more for periodization and monitoring rest weeks. And not try and keep it rising…
That’s not the best idea…
You should never force your body to adapt to anything that is extreme. Simply because you once again risk injury and if that goes well, you will need more recovery time to bounce back from that too hard session.
Simply resume your training at a similar load if the break was not too long. Resume with a lower load if the break was long and gradually build up again.
The human body is extremely good at adapting to smaller changes but not good at all to deal with big changes. Consistent building in small steps is a sure way of getting better all the time. If you add some diversity (without overloading), you can omit plateaus and continue to grow.
A good idea in the above example to add some diversity:
I think it was a typo; I’m sure @Chris_Counsell meant to say “…encourage you you to not do an over hard session…”
Thank you so much, guys!
This is really appreciated!
/Kasper
In that case, it is an extremely valuable post.
If the message comes from someone who just experienced the negative outcomes, it will be easier to convince people that the ‘No Pain, No Gain’ philosophy is destructive for endurance training.
In Belgium there is a popular YouTube guy (AverageRob) who finished his first IronMan 2 weeks ago. He was coached for 6 months (yes only 6 months) by IronMan legend Van Lierde. I quote here what he says in almost every interview:
“The most important aspect of my training, was to work out at low to very low intensity. If I had neglected that advice, I’m sure I would have DNF’ed”
I’m at about 70 right now and just keeps hovering there as well. It does look like I’m at a pleateau and don’t think I can invest in any more hours. Maybe just increase intensity (still focused on Z2 ride indoors)
Maybe it’s a loss cause as I’ve just seen Neilson Powless 180km ride with 100bpm avg HR. (Really wow…)
Variability and periodisation can improve performance (without big changes in Fitness numbers). But that becomes a task for coaches who have a lot more experience in guiding people to get the best out of the actual situation.
How often do you let your fitness fall, by taking a break, then building back up again?
Time off the bike (even doing some cross-training) can help in the “down time/off season”.
Taking a break also means no high intensity and no big volume; just riding easily. An off season can be about 3 weeks up to a few months, and it doesn’t mean not riding at all; but rather reducing volume and virtually no intensity.
Lots of people I talk to, are scared to lose what they have, eg. a CTL/Fitness of 70. They think they will lose all their current abilities if they don’t ride often. I drop to about 40 in my off season, yet I can still out-perform friends who remain at their plateau of 70-100 all year round. Some of them I coach, and some choose not to be coached, yet the results speak for themselves: the one’s that train with a purpose out perform the others. While it’s fun for all of them, I know deep down that being dropped from the bunch in a race is not fun for the ones that ride the plateau.
Maybe about 3-6mths or so I will let it drop to lowest I’ve seen is 50+. Most intensity is only on the weekends where we try to kill each other on the group rides.
I also run or trying to get back to running.
Here’s my last 4 years; not perfect in the general sense, but certainly good enough for me to meet my objectives.
You’ll see I hardly hit the red, and when I do it’s with purpose, eg. a 4-day tour, Rapha500, or a long race. I’ve never come close to 100, yet I am still capable of racing alongside peers with values closer to, or just over 100. The higher number doesn’t indicate a fitter/fast rider. It just indicates how much load you’ve done in a 42-day rolling window.
