Maintaining CTL during rest period.

BlueJersey said:

I am about 8 days away from the end of my second 6 weeks block. I am planning to take 2 weeks off and begin to train again after 1/1/07. Between Christmas and New Year I would like to maintain my CTL. I would probably finish this block with a CTL of 65tss/day. What kind of riding in terms of intensity and duration I should be doing during this "rest" period in order to maintain a descent CTL without needing to "restart" the process all over again after 1/1/07. Looking at the end of my first block, I finished it off with a 52 tss/day. Had a week off and my TSS/day dropped down 7 (45tss/day). I was also recovering from a cold. It took me 9 days of my second block to ramp up my tss back to 52tss/day again.

Perhaps, it is inevitable that once you take the time off your CTL has to drop?? Seems obvious, I supposed.

Well...by definition, you'd need to do riding of the appropriate intensity and duration so that you'd average 65 tss/day (at least) over the 2 weeks.

Tom Anhalt said:

Well...by definition, you'd need to do riding of the appropriate intensity and duration so that you'd average 65 tss/day (at least) over the 2 weeks.

Actually you'll need more than 65 TSS/day if you are starting below that. It takes some time for CTL to "catch up".

Have a look at your rides in CP and see what you do to score > 65 TSS/day

BlueJersey said:

Perhaps, it is inevitable that once you take the time off your CTL has to drop?? Seems obvious, I supposed.

Isn't that the whole point of rest?

Your ATL drops, which causes your TSB to rise. The net effect of this process is that your CTL drops.

Kind of like peaking, though not as dramatic.

Jim

Alex Simmons said:

Actually you'll need more than 65 TSS/day if you are starting below that. It takes some time for CTL to "catch up".

Have a look at your rides in CP and see what you do to score > 65 TSS/day

The EWMA filter that's built into the PMC is just that...it's a filter. If you put a step input into it and hold it there, it will eventually converge on that value.

The OP said he'd be hitting 65 tss/day at the start of the "off" time. If he wants to hold it there, he pretty much has to keep doing 65tss/day (without much variation, although a bit below one day and a bit above another isn't going to matter much). Doing that, there'll be no "forcing function" driving the CTL up or down from that value.

Just my 2 pesos 🙂

Tom Anhalt said:

The EWMA filter that's built into the PMC is just that...it's a filter. If you put a step input into it and hold it there, it will eventually converge on that value.

The OP said he'd be hitting 65 tss/day at the start of the "off" time. If he wants to hold it there, he pretty much has to keep doing 65tss/day (without much variation, although a bit below one day and a bit above another isn't going to matter much). Doing that, there'll be no "forcing function" driving the CTL up or down from that value.

Just my 2 pesos 🙂

You're right - I mixed it up with the 52 TSS/day as being the end of the block, not 65... so my logic was correct but I was thinking he had a different (lower) starting value and wanted it to rise.

otb4evr said:

Isn't that the whole point of rest?...Your ATL drops, which causes your TSB to rise. The net effect of this process is that your CTL drops.

That was my initial reaction to this post as well. How do you take rest weeks and maintain your CTL?

The good news is that CTL is weighted with long time averaging (42 days by default in WKO+) so you can still back off a bit without a big CTL drop. I typically shoot for half my training hours and half my daily TSS during rest weeks. So if you keep the IF of your rides steady and drop the time in half your weekly TSS drops by half and your daily average TSS/d drops by half. If you've stabilized your CTL at 65 TSS/d for a while then it will start to drop with half the load. If you're on a positive CTL ramp when you hit 65 TSS/d at the start of your rest week then your weekly average CTL (or ATL) is actually higher than 65 TSS/d and the drop to half your load won't hit your CTL so hard.

For instance I'm currently in week 3 of a training block and doing mostly SST work indoors on a trainer or erg this time of year. Next week is a rest week. I've put in 6 hours so far this week with average IF of ~ .84 (for overall session, intervals are a bit higher). IOW, I've accumulated approximately 420 TSS so far this week. I have one more SST session planned and then some lower intensity work planned for the weekend. All told I should end up with ~850 TSS this week or ~120 TSS/d average for this week(a block approximation of ATL). But I'm only in week 7 of my training season so my CTL is still climbing and hovering around 80 TSS/d right now. Next week I'll average about 60 TSS/day by cutting workout time in half which will drop my CTL a bit, but not all the way down to 60 with the long time averaging inherent in CTL. My ATL will drop pretty dramatically and my TSB will rebound towards zero, but that's the point of a rest week. If I drop both my time and intensity next week (I only do that if I'm really cooked or tapering) then my daily TSS will be lower and CTL will take a bigger hit.

Anyway, how much of a CTL hit you take during rest weeks depends on how long you've been building your CTL, How high it's climbed, what ATL you're working right now and how far you plan to back off in both time and intensity during your rest weeks. If you want to hold it steady you have to average 65 TSS/d during your rest weeks as other posters point out. That's a convenient number since it implies an average of one hour a day at .81 IF which could be steady two hour L3 rides every other day which isn't too hard on the body.

Good luck,
Dave

daveryanwyoming said:

That was my initial reaction to this post as well. How do you take rest weeks and maintain your CTL?...

But why take rest weeks? IME rest weeks in a typical 3 week build - 1 week rest *periodization* type schedule are there mostly to guard against "overtraining"....especially if you don't have a good way of calculating/tracking training load.

Over the past year I've found that just manipulating the workload such that my TSB stays in the range of -10 to -25 or so allows me to just maintain a steady upwards ramping of CTL with no need (or desire) for an entire week of rest. Then, as an event approaches I do a 7-10 day taper by maintaining intensity but reducing the volume...and then, watch out! 😄

I've begun to consider planned "rest weeks" (that aren't a part of a taper for an event) as merely a lost CTL opportunity. 🙂

Just my 2 pesos.

Tom Anhalt said:

But why take rest weeks? ...

You may be right about the need (or lack thereof) for rest weeks but I do like coming up for air occasionally and find rest weeks help me balance the rest of my life with cycling. Knowing I'll get periodic breaks helps me push a bit harder through the last week of a cycle and I consistently set PBs during the first week of a new cycle. More importantly rest weeks give me important time with my wife which in the end is more important to me than cycling 🙂

-Dave

daveryanwyoming said:

More importantly rest weeks give me important time with my wife which in the end is more important to me than cycling 🙂

-Dave

Does your wife read the forum too, Dave?

P.S., love you honey! 😉

shawndoggy said:

Does your wife read the forum too, Dave?...

No but do you think I'll get a new set of Zipp 404s for Christmas if I send her a link 🙂

thanks. That's so far my plan now. May only take 1 "rest" week and still riding at l3 for 1 hour or Endurance pace (commuting to work) for 2 hours. I am definately still riding during my rest week.

daveryanwyoming said:

That was my initial reaction to this post as well. How do you take rest weeks and maintain your CTL?

The good news is that CTL is weighted with long time averaging (42 days by default in WKO+) so you can still back off a bit without a big CTL drop. I typically shoot for half my training hours and half my daily TSS during rest weeks. So if you keep the IF of your rides steady and drop the time in half your weekly TSS drops by half and your daily average TSS/d drops by half. If you've stabilized your CTL at 65 TSS/d for a while then it will start to drop with half the load. If you're on a positive CTL ramp when you hit 65 TSS/d at the start of your rest week then your weekly average CTL (or ATL) is actually higher than 65 TSS/d and the drop to half your load won't hit your CTL so hard.

For instance I'm currently in week 3 of a training block and doing mostly SST work indoors on a trainer or erg this time of year. Next week is a rest week. I've put in 6 hours so far this week with average IF of ~ .84 (for overall session, intervals are a bit higher). IOW, I've accumulated approximately 420 TSS so far this week. I have one more SST session planned and then some lower intensity work planned for the weekend. All told I should end up with ~850 TSS this week or ~120 TSS/d average for this week(a block approximation of ATL). But I'm only in week 7 of my training season so my CTL is still climbing and hovering around 80 TSS/d right now. Next week I'll average about 60 TSS/day by cutting workout time in half which will drop my CTL a bit, but not all the way down to 60 with the long time averaging inherent in CTL. My ATL will drop pretty dramatically and my TSB will rebound towards zero, but that's the point of a rest week. If I drop both my time and intensity next week (I only do that if I'm really cooked or tapering) then my daily TSS will be lower and CTL will take a bigger hit.

Anyway, how much of a CTL hit you take during rest weeks depends on how long you've been building your CTL, How high it's climbed, what ATL you're working right now and how far you plan to back off in both time and intensity during your rest weeks. If you want to hold it steady you have to average 65 TSS/d during your rest weeks as other posters point out. That's a convenient number since it implies an average of one hour a day at .81 IF which could be steady two hour L3 rides every other day which isn't too hard on the body.

Good luck,
Dave

i guess everyones is different but... i've found that as long as i've been doing a fairly steady build i can take two weeks completely off and it either doesn't affect my fitness or my fitness is very much improved.. this past mid summer i took a week off completely not even touching my bike (after 2x6week builds). after 3days on the bike i was putting in the best numbers i've had for the whole entire year... the year previous i took 2weeks completely off at the end of the season... same thing huge increase in my numbers.. as high as they have been in the year.

what i learned the previous year i put into action this year and it worked.. for me.. don't do scaled back weeks.. i do at least 5 days right off (no biking at all) and now i have the confidence to know that i will come back bigger and stronger than i was. i'd encourge you to try it... what do you have to risk at this time of the year? 5days min right off, no biking at all... and as long as you've been riding pretty regularly, you'll come back motivated and comping at the bit, stronger and ready to go... if you've been scaling back all spring and are really not donig much cycling anyway then you probably could take less days...

the other thing is that there is the body and then there is the mind.. you need to get a mental break as well.. take care of all those things and/or people that you've been neglecting all year and feeling guilty about (as long as it's not super physical.. no installing paving stone or helping a friends move...) you come back fresh motivated and ready to go and you don't loose as much fitness as you think you might.. 1 week off and after a few days of short ~1hr rides then start into it... you won't miss a beat... the only thing i would say is watch your eating and try not to gain weight... and lots and lots of sleep... think people worry about eating and training but one of the most important things you can do to improve performance, training, motivation...