There’s nothing wrong with a plateau, if that’s what you want to do… ride an equal amount of time (or rather load) every week. However, if you’re expecting to increase CTL/Fitness, you have to extend duration or increase intensity, or if you want to get faster, you have to drop volume and increase intensity. If you only have a set amount of hours to ride, you will always hit a plateau at some point.
Hence the reason that you can never be in green forever. Rather, you will be in the grey/blue zone.
Speaking of Neilson Powless:
Tom Southey in the car, yesterday, to James and Neilson:
“Ok, James you have to follow. You have super, super legs. And these are the best in the world and you are in the game with them. Neilson, you are also really in this game, ok.”
Neilson said after the stage that he got dropped horribly, so there’s perspective from an elite level.
I was trying to highlight that I was guilty of thinking I had to be at least in the green all the time and could try and push a session beyond where I should have to achieve that. This lead to the balance of hard Vs low sessions to err too much to the hard or actually hardish. Its sort of ok for a bit but isn’t sustainable and you pay the price down-the-line as I did. No pain, no gain is a dangerous mantra especially as you age - staying consistent and at low risk of injury is my new mantra!
Tools like intervals are great but you can get fixated on specific numbers if you’re not careful. I know this isn’t the intention but early on seeing that fitness line go up is addictive. Having never been coached I suspect a key benefit of coaches is that more balanced and interpreted perspective that recreationals like me can lack until they find out the hard way
The fitness graph is just a “simple equation”.
There are much more adaptations at play.
You are still gaining at other levels even if you are in the gray and blue zones.
IMO by your chart, you don’t have blocks of work and recovery. So you are always going about the same and have a plateau (not always bad, everyone gets there)
It’s been said many times, these fitness charts are actually nothing to do with fitness.
They are a measure of the amount of effort you have put in during your rides. The chart is only of value if used alongside some kind of training program. Targeting being in the green all of the time is not a training program.
I think even the names “fitness” and “fatigue” lead to some confusion, but I understand why Intervals.icu uses them.
FWIW @kasperbp other platforms/models call similar measures “chronic training load (CTL)” and “acute training load (ATL)”, which is perhaps a more descriptive name. They’re just a measure of load, one hour at threshold ~= 100 “load”, regardless of what your threshold power is.
(ATL and CTL are trademarked terms owned by TrainingPeaks)
Clearly my phone is listening to my conversations as I have received a few mails, that I don’t recall subscribing to, about the optimal training zone, aka the green zone.
This email is a good read for those wondering/doubting some advice given. However, this green zone is the “easy green” and not the optimal performance green.
Some key points:
get your zones set correctly
stop spiking on your endurance days
perform a limited number of intense sessions with intent
Because it is unlikely that you are going too easy.
Consistent work over time is the critical success factor
to build a habit of consistent work, aim low & do it daily (consistency)
Make adjustments by:
More frequency - increase your average weekly frequency
More duration - extend your longest endurance day(s)
More strength - additional specific preparation sessions
May I ask what would be the optimal performance green zone, or rather where can I read/learn more about it?
I’m very new to all this despite my 52s, I’ve just started cycling a couple of month ago as way to lose those extra 15kg I got from quitting smoking. Trying to understand what i’m doing, I’ve been reading Joe Friel’s training bible with great interest, and now Gordo Byrn’s endurance essentials with same interest, I really didn’t expect such a deep world and my happier body wanting more. BTW thank you for this amazing tool and community, feeling quite lucky to have found those even if I’ve just scratch the surface.
Here is my graph and first planned-ahead week
Well done on taking up the challenge to get active and lose the extra weight. In Joe Friel’s book, he mentions a few things:
progressive overload - this is a progressive increase in either volume (duration and frequency) or intensity (how hard) each week, and over a fairly long period (base is 12-16 weeks).
recovery - this is where the body repairs the damage done when doing workouts. We get fitter when we recovery, not when we train.
supercompensation - this happens between blocks of training, i.e. in the recovery weeks (3rd or 4th week, if following a periodised plan).
periodised training - the way of balancing periods of intense exercise that causes fatigue, as well as periods of recovery, that encourages the body to rebuild and grow stronger.
On the fitness chart, form is the difference between fitness and fatigue. When it’s green, fatigue (7 day average) is greater than fitness (42 day average) and you are adding more training each week. Progressive overload is adding a little more each week, then recovering to allow the body the adapt, then adding more training and recovery. As a new athlete, it is quite easy to stay in green for a long period, but you will eventually hit a plateaux/flat line when you either (1) run out of extra time to train, or (2) can no longer sustain increased intensity. This is where overtraining starts, but can also be caused by going too hard/long too soon. This is where the periodisation of your training helps.
Don’t think of the optimal training zone as having every session in the green. Rather think week by week, where the sum of the load for the week is more than the previous week. How much? It depends on what you are trying to achieve with your training and how much time you have per week. That is why he mentions working backwards from your goal (event). If you aren’t doing a specific event, you can still training as if you’re racing.
Let’s assume the person has a maximum of 12 hours a week to train. The training in the beginning wouldn’t add up to 12 hours, but instead would be much less, and it would progressively increase to the build/peak phase just before the taper. It would start close to 4-6 hours and build up for 2-3 weeks, the recover, build up again and recover.
Progressive overload can be done in 2 ways:
Increase volume (longer sessions or adding more sessions per week);
Increase intensity (harder sessions).
There is a third way: that is to shorten the recovery time between hard intervals, but it’s
a combination of volume and intensity. With increased volume and intensity you will need increased recovery too.
Ooh, that green zone, I see, my bad, I thought you were speaking of another metabolic zone similar to the easy green aerobic threshold Byrn speaks of.
Yes I’m starting to digest all those concepts, and just starting to implement them, at least in my mind . Up to this week I mainly went by listening my body, spending much of my slowly increasing time in z1+z2 hr, mainly walking with more n more biking, and backing off for few days as soon as felt a pain somewhere, happened mainly on a knee.
Now that body seems to better respond, I went full bike this week and gonna try to start periodisation, by increasing the load (volume) each week by 10% for three weeks followed by a recovery week. I’m not sure about the load of the recovery week, I guess half the preceeding week load would be ok? (EDIT: already answered here) Same for the 2 recovery days per week, I plan riding at half my fitness.
As for the season goal, I don’t have one yet, I just want to increase my endurance fitness until I can make good use of the smart trainer I plan to get for Christmas and the road bike I will get next spring. Buying a mountain bike as a first bike was not really a smart move but I got inspired by the surrounding wildness I live in and new nothing about sport and training. Have to start from where we are.
Ooh, I gonna make use of that one, thank you.
Another metric I discovered today is ACWR, Acute Chronic Workload Ratio, which relates to safe ramping if I get it right.
This is a great thread. Thanks for all guys and gals contributing here. I want to share my experience as well:
I am spiking all the time, never hit a plateau with training load. But I struggle to boost my performance.
In 2020 i started doing brevets and long distance riding. Some call it ultracycling, I prefer to call it brevet or audax rides. The nature of such rides is its extreme length and endurance component. After every event (>200 km) and every long training (>100 km) ride I am in the deep red, thus I SPIKE. After the event I recover one or two weeks, depending on the distance and elevation. With some easy sessions and lots of walking .
I started training with structure in 2020 and gradually ramped up my fitness to a peak of 117 this season, that is because of LEL 2022 and PBP 2023 (both DNF ). The off season in the last two years, incl. 2023 I dropped down to about 45. I do lots of interval training in winter plus yoga and body weight training, come spring I ramp up the distance compared to winter. It worked really well for me endurance wise. Depending on the season I train around 8 hours a week. Sometimes 12 hours when I do a long weekend ride.
What I did not manage yet, is to get faster overall. E. g. increase power and speed in Endurance Zone 2. So I thought I try the 80/20 method next season (80 % Z2 training and 20 % HIT intervals) and I am back into running, perhaps this helps with my overall metabolic state? I have no major events in 2024, so I have time to try something new. Any advice on raising that performance?
I am not an expert, but I will give my best. Looking at your graph and your explanation I will suggest you take some time to think about the amount times you go into red, not only red, but deep into red territory. In 2023 you had six times you really went deep. Some coaches might say that six times in a year might be too much for an amateur, even a trained one. I will suggest you increase your weekly volume. I am not sure 8h/w is enough for an amateur to train for huge 200plus kms efforts.
The spikes in your chart show the huge difference between your training and the huge efforts you perform. When you say that your fitness progressed to 117, you have to take into account that it is an artificial increase, in the sense that it is the product of 3 huge efforts in a couple of months. But, you can see how before and after those peaks of fitness the slope is negative, indicating a very pronounced loss in fitness. You spend little to none time in the green zone, developing your fitness. You spend your time doing huge efforts or recovering from them, not developing your fitness.
You might be able to go deep into your capacity while doing your huge efforts, but that does not mean, that you are doing the training to sustain those efforts. I am not judging your commitment or the fact that you like those events, just commenting on what the graph shows and your words about not becoming faster.
I will suggest you take a look into the volume needed to train, on a weekly basis, to sustain those huge efforts. Indeed a polarized 80/20 intensity distribution could work, but only if you pay the price with the weekly volume. Some say volume is king.
The data and the graphs are great guides, but not all fitness is created equal.
I hope this helps and wish you a great 2024 full of amazing rides.
Jorge
Hi Jorge
Firstly, thank you very much for taking the time to write such a long and thoughtful reply. I will try my best to get more volume in Z2 into my training. I tend to ride too fast during my training hours. But ramping up quality volume time means I have to sacrifice my interval trainings during the week, or do only one of those and 2 Z2 volume sessions (one shorter during the week) and one longer on weekends). I think 2024 is a good year to try that. I wish you all the best for your season. Take care and cheers! Chrigu.
This a great topic thanks for all the advice in here.
I was certainly misunderstanding it and chasing the green but now I understand it better so am quite relieved too.
Probably a controversial idea but perhaps not calling it fitness would help a lot of people out. I guess fitness as a scientific term is one thing but most people working towards becoming ‘fitter’ assume something slightly different.
In any event the more I read here the more I realise I know so little so maybe is time I seek some proper advice!!
That said currently I’m only just in the green, and Garmin training load is saying low but I feel I’ve really pushed. My young sons has a bad cold so perhaps I’m going to be hit with another virus (will be no 3 or 4 this winter).
The original name is CTL = Chronic Training Load but as it is trademarked by TrainingPeaks, it can’t be used here. Your remark was mentioned and discussed before on the forum, but noone seems to be able to find a good alternative name…
HRV could give some insight. It’s a good predictor for me…
My RHR had jumped couple points but I’ve only been wearing the watch overnight for couple weeks to experiment with HRV (I hate sleeping with the Fenix it’s just too big and angular) so don’t have a status.
Weirdly Garmin says I’m peaking which isn’t something I’ve seen often - maybe twice ever. Despite my load being low.
But I think the scratchy throat and lethargy today on top of a zone 2 felt very hard yesterday probably answers it. …
Naming wise I feel like training load of Garmin is closer to what the fitness graph is. So something along those lines maybe.
. Up to this week I mainly went by listening my body, spending much of my slowly increasing time in z1+z2 hr, mainly walking with more n more biking, and backing off for few days as soon as felt a pain somewhere, happened mainly on a knee.
.
). The off season in the last two years, incl. 2023 I dropped down to about 45. I do lots of interval training in winter plus yoga and body weight training, come spring I ramp up the distance compared to winter. It worked really well for me endurance wise. Depending on the season I train around 8 hours a week. Sometimes 12 hours when I do a long weekend ride.
