am i good?

Dini77 said:

I'm curious how/whether this overall % time in L4-L6 changes based on where you are in your training/racing program.

Definitely!

Dini77 said:

Not so much the spilt across levels as i'm across how you emphasise different levels leading up to races etc, but moreso the overall % time L4-L6. Does this ~40-50% figure vary that much throughout the year or is it fairly constant.

I would say that the optimal distribution of your effort is going to depend on your goals, the time of year (see above), your own personal strengths and weaknesses, etc. (However, as I've mentioned a number of times before, I don't think "time in levels" is a very good way to analyze powermeter data.)

Dini77 said:

Andy/others - I'm still not completely versed in using TSS to monitor and manage training/racing load. Do you guys construct your riding program based on what daily/weekly/monthly TSS you need to hit?

That's pretty much it: I use TSS to quantify the overall training load, then within that context lay out the particular workouts that 1) keep the training load managable, 2) address my competition goals, and 3) assure that I will be "fresh" when I need to be, e.g., for important races or key workouts.

Dini77 said:

In which case, how did you arrive at what TSS works for you? Have i completely lost the plot here😕

Individuals will likely differ in terms of the maximal training load that they can tolerate/obtain benefits from. That said, over the long haul an average daily TSS of 100-150/d seems to be where most people fall...those doing less than that (such as myself) usually feel that they are "undertraining", whereas I have yet to see data from anyone (including elite endurance track racers, Grand Tour winners, 24 MTB racers, etc.) who has averaged more than 150 TSS/d for a prolonged period. That's not to say that such individuals don't exist, as I'm sure that they do...it's just that there don't seem to be very many people who can and do carry such a high training load for a prolonged period, which in and of itself I believe says something about where the upper limit of optimal probably lies.

Of course, the overall load is just part of the picture...you also have to keep in mind how it is attained, i.e., how rapidly you build up to a particular load and the composition of that training load (e.g., you can rack up a lot of TSS points doing level 6 "go hard, puke, go home" workouts, but that's hardly an optimal approach when training for a 24 h MTB race).

acoggan said:

Individuals will likely differ in terms of the maximal training load that they can tolerate/obtain benefits from. That said, over the long haul an average daily TSS of 100-150/d seems to be where most people fall...those doing less than that (such as myself) usually feel that they are "undertraining", whereas I have yet to see data from anyone (including elite endurance track racers, Grand Tour winners, 24 MTB racers, etc.) who has averaged more than 150 TSS/d for a prolonged period. That's not to say that such individuals don't exist, as I'm sure that they do...it's just that there don't seem to be very many people who can and do carry such a high training load for a prolonged period, which in and of itself I believe says something about where the upper limit of optimal probably lies.

I just want to highlight what a jaw-droppingly fascinating result this is. When I first saw Andy point this out on the wattage list on topica.com, I went back and looked at my weekly training loads, and sure enough, found that weeks over 1000TSS leave me feeling acutely overreached, while weeks under 700TSS feel like I'm completely slacking.

Also, given the mythologization of professional training programs that takes place in the popular press, it's fascinating that, e.g., GT winners' (!) overall training stress is very much in the same ballpark as the training stress sustained by Joe Critracer in the middle of the cat 3 pack. It certainly gives the lie to the intuition that the pros are better than us mere mortals because they ride 12 hours a day at threshold and eat nails for breakfast, etc.

If this result turns out to be anywhere near as robust as Andy seems sure it is, it's also powerful validation of TSS as a metric; if chronic TSS values fall in a narrow band for athletes spanning a wide range of talent, level of time to commit to the sport, etc., it's probably measuring something real.

kmavm said:

I just want to highlight what a jaw-droppingly fascinating result this is. When I first saw Andy point this out on the wattage list on topica.com, I went back and looked at my weekly training loads, and sure enough, found that weeks over 1000TSS leave me feeling acutely overreached, while weeks under 700TSS feel like I'm completely slacking.

So your data seem to fit the pattern as well...although there is also the issue of how quickly you've ramped up to that 1000 TSS/wk level.

kmavm said:

Also, given the mythologization of professional training programs that takes place in the popular press, it's fascinating that, e.g., GT winners' (!) overall training stress is very much in the same ballpark as the training stress sustained by Joe Critracer in the middle of the cat 3 pack. It certainly gives the lie to the intuition that the pros are better than us mere mortals because they ride 12 hours a day at threshold and eat nails for breakfast, etc.

On this point I whole-heartedly agree: while those at the top of the heap undoubtly have numerous genetic advantages, including perhaps the ability to benefit/recover from a large training load, we are all still members of the same species. Ergo, it makes sense that if you take somebody's absolute fitness/performance ability into account, there's much less difference between individuals than if you don't. (Or, as Greg Lemond once put it: it doesn't hurt any less, you just go faster. 😄 )

kmavm said:

If this result turns out to be anywhere near as robust as Andy seems sure it is, it's also powerful validation of TSS as a metric; if chronic TSS values fall in a narrow band for athletes spanning a wide range of talent, level of time to commit to the sport, etc., it's probably measuring something real.

Well, a range of 100 to 150 is still fairly large, so I'm not sure that you can say that such observations provide a powerful validation. I would agree, though, that it is a validation of sorts...although considering that TSS is based on the rather simple, but nonetheless logical, premise that there is some sort of interaction between how much work you do and the intensity of that work, therefore the numbers should be multiplied together, it would be shocking if it didn't turn out to be "measuring something real".

acoggan said:

So your data seem to fit the pattern as well...although there is also the issue of how quickly you've ramped up to that 1000 TSS/wk level.

On this point I whole-heartedly agree: while those at the top of the heap undoubtly have numerous genetic advantages, including perhaps the ability to benefit/recover from a large training load, we are all still members of the same species. Ergo, it makes sense that if you take somebody's absolute fitness/performance ability into account, there's much less difference between individuals than if you don't. (Or, as Greg Lemond once put it: it doesn't hurt any less, you just go faster. 😄 )

Well, a range of 100 to 150 is still fairly large, so I'm not sure that you can say that such observations provide a powerful validation. I would agree, though, that it is a validation of sorts...although considering that TSS is based on the rather simple, but nonetheless logical, premise that there is some sort of interaction between how much work you do and the intensity of that work, therefore the numbers should be multiplied together, it would be shocking if it didn't turn out to be "measuring something real".

Thanks for all this, it's great info - i'm now looking at all my PM data to see if i've been slacking on the TSS scale😄