2 years of training with nothing to show for it

so if I’m digging a hole for myself how long do I need to rest to get back to normal and start over? I took most of last week off and started today with mid vol SS base and the first workout was not east at all… I would have killed that workout 2 weeks ago…

Ya I totally agree with you there expect for the FTPs don’t ever match. Every ramp text I’ve taken matched almost exactly with what Xert was saying my FTP was at the time… Creepy close to within a watt or 2

Hmm. that is really weird on the ftp thing. It’s never the same for me. But generally the trainer road ramp tests haven’t been accurate to my real world ftp either. so. /shrug. Who knows why. :smiley: Xert and real world ftp are as you say spookily accurate.

So for your new base block you did a ramp test, then went into the first ss ride and it was too hard at the ftp it selected for you? I don’t see your ramp test. what was the first ride it prescribed?

So I didnt do a ramp test and took the FTP that Xert was giving me… I know I know you’re going to say to do a ramp tex but like I said its been so close in my experience. Plus I feel like I have been digging myself out of a hole the last couple weeks so Im sure it will be low and then I will just make false gains in the next week or 2 and be stuck training at a much lower level… this whole thing is frustrating

First let me say I’m sorry. I’m sure it is frustrating. I don’t think pushing the training at the prior ftp is going to be effective, or at the very least it will be difficult to hit the targets straight away. Sweet spot base is no joke, I had a really hard time adjusting to it from what could only be called traditional base, and from a very xert based training model and a lot of ad hoc riding.

That said. I am curious what xert thinks of your fatigue level. Early on xert was showing me as VERY tired during the first weeks of sweet spot base mid. To give you context by the end of the first week Xert showed me as red, and I stayed there until the end of the first base block. (4 weeks). Second block I was red half the time, now in build I’m not in the red.

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I guess ill drop the FTP a bit or take a ramp test and start all over again and stick to TR and be consistent. Ill let you know what Xert says about my fatigue level but I don’t think it will be in the red. SS base mid vol is pretty low TSS compared to some of the weeks I’ve put in over the last few months, but maybe that’s exactly what I need :wink: thanks for the insight though and I appreciate your time

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SS base mid vol is pretty low TSS compared to some of the weeks I’ve put in over the last few months

Not all TSS is created equal. If you’re absolutely ruining yourself and riding 500TSS, it isn’t the same as having 500TSS with some lower power/recovery rides thrown in there to let your body recover from the more intense stuff.

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Sounds like you’re doing too much too fast, but I don’t believe what some say here about needing constant structure. My personal strategy is to stick to the prescribed plan 100%. I may modify some days or add Z2, but i don’t turn up the intensity no matter how good I feel. I don’t ride outside AT ALL during the plan (instead of, or in addition to the prescribed work), making sure to nail every interval inside and get the most benefit. A good strategy when outside in the warm months is to stagger weeks, so I’ll do a week of say 7 hours, then 8, then 9, then 10, and then I’ll take a “rest week” with like 6-7 hours of easier pace riding. This keeps you from getting too burned out and keeps me fresh all summer.

For the last 2 years I’ve spent November to March respectively only indoors doing a TR plan, then in Spring/Summer/Fall I basically ride outside however I want, though keep it mixed up, not making every ride super hard but not being complacent either. I’m also friends with riders of various skill levels so a bunch of my rides end up being easier as I hang out with the newer riders, and some end up super hard as I chase friends much faster than me. In between on rainy days I will either A. Free-ride Zwift or B. do random TR workouts. I just shoot for steady volume, minimum 6 hours a week, some weeks in the summer I push to 10-12. What’s the point? You gotta mix it up, and you CAN gain fitness wihle simply riding outdoors if you don’t ride too hard or too easy all the time.

My starting FTP back in the day (2017) was like 235, 1/1/19 I tested on TR at 268, ended that season in April and tested at 290w. Rode all last year, lot of big rides, centuries, tested 11/15/19 at 300w (10w gain from the spring/summer/fall outside). Ran the second year plan and finished 4/11/20 at 310w, then rode again all summer this year, set a bunch of PRs for myself, just tested at 316w yesterday.

Riding smarter, not necessarily harder, will be your friend.

I recommend trying something like this.

great advice!! thank you so much

Can you share your training history?

Also note that FTP is just one data point for measuring change in performance pre- and post- any training block or season. And depending on what FTP testing method you use, it can be a very poor one. There can be several points along your power duration curve that you may want to compare before, during and after such training blocks/season to gauge how well you are progressing (or not). And if you are/become a WKO5 user there are other extremely helpful metrics you can look at and compare, including TTE, FRC and Stamina giving you deeper insight into the real benefit (or not) of such training you are undertaking.

Have you examined your training using intervals.icu? It will pull your data from Strava and give many different perspectives. FTP is not the only measure of progress, just like TSS is not the only measure of work. As one example, on intervals.icu, they recently released a plot whereby you can compare HR to power levels recently and in the past. If you can hold the same power at a lower HR, then you’re more fit than you were, even if your FTP hasn’t changed.

Regardless of what you do, make sure you enjoy it. For some that means hitting your plan exactly as laid out, every interval, every time. For others that is group rides, races, event, real or virtual, etc. Good luck, and let us know how you’re doing!

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Beside WKO5, Golden Cheetah is also an excellent analytic tool for analyzing your performance. It’s open source so not as refine as WKO in terms developed graphs and reports, but there is more than enough canned stuffs out of the box for the average user. Like WKO, you can create your own reports but unlike WKO, there’s more than one power duration model that you can choose from to estimate your FTP, stamina, & TTE and have the ability to adjust the parameters.

I’m pretty good with models and know enough about exercise physiology to be dangerous. The GoldenCheetah multiple models and parameter adjustments was too much for me. And I’ve worked in open source industry for last 15 years and know my way around software. As they say you get what you pay for, and I spent the $ on WKO and couldn’t be happier. For what its worth.

Luckily the defaults work pretty well for me and I use different models to estimate: FTP, W’, TTE, & stamina. I have WKO4 also but don’t use it much except as a validation to which of the GC model to use for those four parameters. I also use my PDC as a check also. I find WKO is just to clunky for analyzing my ride details and for periodic overview. I have a mid-range Dell with i7 @ 3.2GHz, 48 GB memory, and plenty of storage on a SSD where it shouldn’t take ~10 seconds to compile for each view every time the view/report is accessed. It reminds me of the good old dial up modems and AOL of the 80s. GC takes around 30 seconds for startup but everything is compiled ready for viewing and further analysis. For what I’m doing, upgrading to WKO5 is a waste of time.

I’m not seeing unreasonable delays with WKO5 on 2016 MacBook Pro (2.9GHz i7, 16GB RAM, SSD). The stuff I like to do can’t be easily done in GoldenCheetah (and I’ve hacked the source and rebuilt), but for the money its not half bad :wink: GC is a little too clunky for me, but I can see the appeal.

Interesting. The compiling delay is very noticable in their educational presentation. On my system it is definitely slower than Tim on his mac, around 2x. I had followed their advice to let it compile so it quicker o future retrieval but it’s a no go on my system. The program must be optimized for mac but not for win. I had an older Ryzen 5 laptop and the behavior is the same.

well it got faster with subsequent releases, and “reasonable delay” is a relative term. The athlete level can take a pause while crunching data, but at the workout level its 0.5 second delay for some items like dFRC to refresh (and same for refreshing when I select an interval). Totally usable and it flat out looks better too, but looks are also subjective.