There’s so many different ways of measuring progress these days. My go to is Garmin Connect via my watch and Edge computer and of course TR for training plans.
I’ve just noticed this morning that my fitness level according to Connect is droppong. Strava would seem to concur with this as well, based on quantity of cycling, time and mileage.
But the interesting thing is that my FTP is increasing according to TR and the training plan I am following.
How do I square those two things as I’d like to think my fitness is increasing… especially as I am training specifically for a long ultra endurance event next year. I’m concerned that a mid volume 5 day a week plan where I’m riding for a maximum of 2 hours in one go (according to the plan) just isnt going to cut it at the event.
Perhaps I’m just over-thinking things, but I am starting to question whether the plan is sufficient when my fitness overall is taking a hit
I think anytime you start to compare metrics across competing platforms, you are going to get contradicting results eventually. IME, you are best to focus on one system and use that as your metric.
Taht said, we need more details to evaluate what your fitness is doing…is your volume increasing or decreasing? Is your CTL rising or dropping? What plan / stage of training are you in (base, Build, Speciality, etc).
FTP is only one metric. You can gain “fitness” across multiple other areas while having FTP stay the same or even drop. Conversely, you can increase FTP but lose “fitness” in other areas (longer endurance work, etc).
My volume on the TR plan has decreased from what i was doing before i started the plan. I started my plan on 21st October (General base mid volume) as selected from the custom plan.
At the moment I’m on week 2 of the base phase 2 General base mid volume II.
I believe my CTL can be seen on the attached screen?
I’d really welcome insight as I’m blindly following the training plan as prescribed.
I can’t say for sure exactly how other companies evaluate “fitness,” but in my opinion, if your FTP is going up and you’re knocking out harder workouts week after week, that’s a good sign that you’re getting fitter.
Volume and TSS don’t tell the whole story and don’t always correlate to higher fitness. What is more important most of the time is the specific work you’re doing and how well you’re recovering in between workouts.
It looks like you’ve gone from doing most riding outdoors, which I’d guess was less structured, to doing a lot of structured training via TR. Despite less total TSS on the structured plan, you’re probably getting more consistent training stimulus and better recovery, hence increases in FTP.
Personally, I would be stressed about the CTL drop. Others above may not be. It kind of depends on what your goal is in your training and if you think you’re improving in that area. A higher FTP doesn’t matter if your goal is to ride for 3 hours as fast as possible and your 3 hour power is dropping. At the same time, your TSS average doesn’t matter if you’re doing less work but your 3 hour power is increasing.
“Fitness”, if measured as CTL, is TSS per day, on some sort of rolling average (afaik). TSS is hours * IF^2 * 100.
That means fitness is proportional to volume, so in general, if your volume goes down, your “fitness” measure will go down. The other factor is IF, which is NP / FTP. If your FTP goes up, and you keep riding at the same (normalised) power, IF will go down, and again “fitness” will go down. (If you’re following a TR plan, it should adjust the power requirement of your workouts, so that shouldn’t be a problem.)
In short, if your training volume is going down, I would expect your “fitness” measure to go down. You may still actually get fitter, or other metrics, that you care more about for your riding, might go up. (However cycling is an endurance sport, and volume matters.)
Is the TR plan you are following based on that as a 4 day stage race when you built the plan?
At the very, very least, I would expect anyone training seriously for such an event to be doing 1x 4 hour endurance ride each and every week.
Your earlier post says you are in week 2 of general base mid volume. That sounds like a generic TR plan, rather than one specifically built with a 4 day event as its basis.
Be sure that you can still properly complete all the workouts in the plan.
I would even include the 4 hour endurance ride in the rest weeks. Others may disagree with that.
As June gets nearer and if i) you have time and ii) it won’t prevent from doing the workouts in the plan you could even add more (endurance) time on the bike. Either a longer weekly ride or multiple long rides in the week.
I am convinced that the closer you can get to replicating the demands of the event in training, the better. With that in mind, @Helvellyn suggests 4 consecutive days every so often. I think that is a good idea too.
Don’t overdo it though. The workouts will get tougher and you must avoid getting so fatigued that you have to take an extended rest period that isn’t planned for.
