Average Weekly TSS?

joule said:

What's your score? Where do you reach meltdown (overreaching)?

Messed that poll up! Missed 600-800! Sorry.

I've been 600-700 for the past 3 weeks with no loss of motivation or performance.

700-900 pretty much every week for 3 months. I know that doesn't really fit into the categories as they are defined but that's my "sweet" spot.

Without sounding stupid what is TSS?

I am new to this game (not cycling just power)

bike boy said:

Without sounding stupid what is TSS?

TSS stands for "training stress score." It is a measure of the overall physiological load placed on the body during a period of cycling, based on the "intensity factor" (IF) computed via normalized power and the duration of the session. Dr. Coggan's paper explains it in detail and is great reading:

http://www.midweekclub.ca/articles/coggan.pdf

Berend

Individual rides are 250-300. Only 4 rides/wk now, so only 1000-1200/wk. Will increase to 1500+/wk after 1/1.

RapDaddyo said:

Individual rides are 250-300. Only 4 rides/wk now, so only 1000-1200/wk. Will increase to 1500+/wk after 1/1.

That's some serious volume! I hit 1200 pts one week last year when I did a training camp in AZ. I rode somewhere around 20 hours that week.

Lately my 7 day total is 600-700.

I recently wrote an article on TSS if anyone cares to critique it.
http://tinyurl.com/bhzjo

RapDaddyo said:

Individual rides are 250-300. Only 4 rides/wk now, so only 1000-1200/wk. Will increase to 1500+/wk after 1/1.

I have to wonder if the LT power you've define is accurate in this case.

Those are hard, long rides!

I can do a 1 hr trainer ride (2x20) and get a TSS of 60 (lower in Z4). My hardest 4 hour ride outside hammering the hills scores 260( I am a Cat 2). Maybe mine is too low!

Not having a power meter on the CX bike makes it difficult to score accurately, but based on 1 hour threshold efforts I'd guess 400 in a week: Off season, short hard rides, racing cross only. My weekly hours are down to six right now.

Spunout said:

Those are hard, long rides!

I can do a 1 hr trainer ride (2x20) and get a TSS of 60 (lower in Z4). My hardest 4 hour ride outside hammering the hills scores 260( I am a Cat 2). Maybe mine is too low!

Not having a power meter on the CX bike makes it difficult to score accurately, but based on 1 hour threshold efforts I'd guess 400 in a week: Off season, short hard rides, racing cross only. My weekly hours are down to six right now.

I agree. I'm also new to this so could be off base, but from what I've gathered first hand and read, 800 TSS is pretty high. Obviously 1500 is something extreme. I was professionally tested just a month ago and came up with a Power at AT of 290 and using same can see how I might be able to do 700 a week, but I expect not much more without overtraining. Course I'm pretty old for this group (race age 48) so have to factor that in.

joule said:

I have to wonder if the LT power you've define is accurate in this case.

That may be, but my rides are designed in advance for NP and total minutes by training level (L4-L6). In fact, in the near future I will be able to design my training rides to achieve a number of goals very specifically. My rides are non-traditional. They are on varied terrain with L4-L6 intervals (and recoveries) integrated throughout the ride where appropriate. The main reason my TSS scores are high is the combination of duration and intensity. I recently analyzed my training rides and concluded that they were too easy. They are no longer easy (e.g., NP ~90%FT).

joule said:

I agree. I'm also new to this so could be off base, but from what I've gathered first hand and read, 800 TSS is pretty high.

Since the TSS calculation simplifies to "TSS = IF^2 x duration in hours", you'll get a lot more TSS through *long* rides than you will through *hard* rides. If you ride 3-4 hours at a time, several times a week, you can easily exceed 1000 TSS/wk even if you don't ride very hard. On the other hand, if all of your rides are interval sessions on the trainer, then 500-600 TSS/wk will probably feel like you're killing yourself.

To be fair to the TSS concept, it's important to remember that TSS attempts to quantify the body's need for recovery, and not what "feels hard" while you're actually doing the exercise.

frenchyge said:

Since the TSS calculation simplifies to "TSS = IF^2 x duration in hours", you'll get a lot more TSS through *long* rides than you will through *hard* rides.

It's exactly the opposite, frenchyge, isn' t it? IF has a squared effect on TSS, while duration has a linear one.

Berend

squidwranglr said:

It's exactly the opposite, frenchyge, isn' t it? IF has a squared effect on TSS, while duration has a linear one.

Not IMO, possibly because the IF's are normalized to FT, whereas the durations are raw, rather than being normalized to the power vs. sustainable duration curve (another exponential function).

For example:
A level 1 ride (IF=.7) produces ~50 TSS/hr, where as a L4 ride (IF=1.0) produces ~100 TSS/hr. By this relationship, a 2-hr recovery ride at Level 1 should produce about the same training stress as a 1-hr ride at FT, and that just doesn't seem to match my experiences. Maybe the 2 rides do require about the same amount of physiological recovery and rejuvenation, I certainly don't have any data to suggest otherwise besides my own impression. That was the basis of my statement that it's "easier" to generate higher TSS numbers through longer rides than through harder rides.

squidwranglr said:

It's exactly the opposite, frenchyge, isn' t it? IF has a squared effect on TSS, while duration has a linear one.

Berend

This is true, Berend; however, significantly increasing your IF for a ride takes a great deal more effort than increasing duration. For example, raising IF from .9 to 1 requires a significant increase in effort, but only increases IF^2 component by ~23%. To get the same TSS increase from duration on a 2hr baseline ride only takes adding 28 minutes to that ride. Furthermore, for any reasonable length ride 40 min+, IF has a real physiological ceiling of maybe 1.1 or so (just a guess from experience). As long as you eat and drink properly, duration has no such ceiling.

To put it more mathematically, although TSS is proportional to IF^2, the domain (likely range of numbers for IF or variation in IF) is significantly less than the domain for duration.

frenchyge said:

Not IMO, possibly because the IF's are normalized to FT, whereas the durations are raw, rather than being normalized to the power vs. sustainable duration curve (another exponential function).

For example:
A level 1 ride (IF=.7) produces ~50 TSS/hr, where as a L4 ride (IF=1.0) produces ~100 TSS/hr. By this relationship, a 2-hr recovery ride at Level 1 should produce about the same training stress as a 1-hr ride at FT, and that just doesn't seem to match my experiences. Maybe the 2 rides do require about the same amount of physiological recovery and rejuvenation, I certainly don't have any data to suggest otherwise besides my own impression. That was the basis of my statement that it's "easier" to generate higher TSS numbers through longer rides than through harder rides.

Does this also mean a ride of lower tss but higher if can create more impact on fitness than a higher tss/lower if? I can't imagine a 2 hour zone 1 ride creating near as much adaptation as a 1hr tt @ ft.

whoawhoa said:

Does this also mean a ride of lower tss but higher if can create more impact on fitness than a higher tss/lower if? I can't imagine a 2 hour zone 1 ride creating near as much adaptation as a 1hr tt @ ft.

In terms of training stimulus, the 1hr tt @ft is infinitely greater. This is because by definition a recovery ride has 0 training stimulus. It's purpose is simply to facilitate recovery from a previous training stimulus.

IMHO, it's important to differentiate between training load and training stimulus. You can ride long hours in z2 (LSD) and rack up a fairly high load over a few weeks, but it's not likely to provide the same training stimulus as say 1/4 the duration with 2x20 LT intervals or VO2Max intervals...LSD just doesn't stimulate the same number of physiological factors from what I have read.

Let's also not forget that Dr. Coggan developed TSS for a quantitative measure of load for fairly normal training and probably didn't even consider the extremes such as repeated L1 rides of 3, 4, or 5 hours. Athletes (at least ones who want to get better) would never train in this way.

germanboxers said:

IMHO, it's important to differentiate between training load and training stimulus.

Agree. I wasn't trying to imply that the 2 'equal TSS' example rides I mentioned above had comparable training impacts - just that you can achieve TSS points in different ways, and it's useful to understand that when trying to compare different riders' TSS accumulations.

germanboxers said:

Let's also not forget that Dr. Coggan developed TSS for a quantitative measure of load for fairly normal training and probably didn't even consider the extremes such as repeated L1 rides of 3, 4, or 5 hours. Athletes (at least ones who want to get better) would never train in this way.

Well said, and while it may appear that I was challenging the validity of the TSS system, I do use it myself to track and manage my own training volume. I think it's highly useful in that capacity, but trying to compare TSS values among a wide range of riders could lead to some misleading results. For instance, I'd expect someone who is doing many hours of LSD workouts to have a much greater weekly TSS than someone who is spending most of their time doing LT or VO2 intervals on a trainer.

frenchyge said:

Agree. I wasn't trying to imply that the 2 'equal TSS' example rides I mentioned above had comparable training impacts - just that you can achieve TSS points in different ways, and it's useful to understand that when trying to compare different riders' TSS accumulations.

Frenchyge, I think we are on the same page, probably even the same sentence of the same page. I was just responding to whoawhoa.

frenchyge said:

Well said, and while it may appear that I was challenging the validity of the TSS system, I do use it myself to track and manage my own training volume. I think it's highly useful in that capacity, but trying to compare TSS values among a wide range of riders could lead to some misleading results. For instance, I'd expect someone who is doing many hours of LSD workouts to have a much greater weekly TSS than someone who is spending most of their time doing LT or VO2 intervals on a trainer.

Again, I agree...it seems to me that the real value in TSS is comparing successive blocks of training, say daily, weekly, monthly for an individual so that within a particular period (base, build, taper, etc) an athlete can progressively increase training stimulus and load without overdoing it. I would bet that comparing TSS scores from base2 (more L2/L3 rides) with a build2 (L4, L5 intervals) or taper phase would not be as meaningful as comparing the TSS between a base2 and base3 or a week in base2 to a successive week in base2.

Here's a great example of an apples-to-oranges TSS comparison: rode for 39 miles with a reasonably fit friend in Jefferson County, MO (hilly ride) and averaged around 17mph for the 2h15m ride. We hammered up some of the hills. (TSS=161, IF=.822). The week before I rode 50 miles in NE Indiana (hilly, but not MO-like hills) with two slow rec riders averaging a little over 13mph for the ride. I did hammer ahead at times for bathroom and directional reasons and sprinted up a few hills, but in general my heartrate was literally as low as walking heartrate for most of the ride. (TSS=221, IF = .778). The day after this ride I felt guilty that I hadn't "trained". The day after the MO ride, I felt somewhat fatigued. Obviously, the fact that I hammered ahead and sprinted up some hills on the slow ride increased my IF significantly above what it would have been if I rode the same speed as my riding partners that day, but from a training load standpoint, I don't think it's even close to the MO ride, yet the MO ride had a significantly lower TSS. I think this illustrates (to me anyway) that the value of TSS lies in the normal range of training, not at the extremes (excessively long easy rides).