Basically the title. Sorry for the longish post. I am the beginning of my 2nd TR season…more than pleased with my first structured training plan. Long story short, past season oct 23-march 24 i did increase my ftp, overall endurance and performance. My ftp raised almost 50 watts (newbie gains, but still gains ). i was supposed to start Specialty in march, but opted to train unstructured outside (got tired from months riding inside) without power meter. I was in the best shape of my life (with low volume plan), had a 165 k race , but my derailleur broke and i could not finish. Also in march i started to run (only base runs). Also i do 2 gyms workouts a week. It look like that cycling helped a lot for my running. At the end of june i completely stopped training due to dizziness and not feeling good, so 100% drop in training. Scorching temperatures and prolonged dizziness prevented me for training, also at the middle of august i become father for first time (yeeees ). i started with light runs, gym workouts and outdoor cycling two weeks ago. Today i did my first indoor workout and boy it was miserable. I expected way less drop in fitness. My zone 2 was about 180 watts, now i hardly keep 100 watts in my zone2 HR. I was so disappointed that i stopped my ride at only 20 mins (endurance ride at 50-60%). I want to mention that i dropped my ftp manually by about 10%, but it looks like that its way more. My total gains in ftp last season were 25% and i feel that i lost all of that. How do i get out of that hole? I was planning to start triathlon base low volume next month, but i am thinking to do few weeks of endurace/recovery rides with last year’s ftp at the beginning of my TR season (about 200watts, i hope that i havent lost all of my gains 50 watts). I dont feel ready for triathlon base plan with sweetspot and threshold workouts. I dont want to do maximal ftp test, because its intense and maybe inaccurate, i prefer to do low efforts workouts and use AI FTP. My questions are:
How do i get out of that hole? Do i need to start “slow” and then do my planned base phase as i prefer or that will prolong my recovery?
have anyone been in the same hole? any advises?
How long it took you? i know that everybody is different, but i read in trainerroad blog that you regain fitness as long as you made it. This is 7 months for me and that is discouraging.
Is your fitness always dropping when you stop structured training even for less time?
You do a test and find your current FTP and then start training again. Guessing doesn’t work. You aren’t in a “hole”. You are just where you are currently at and testing tells you that.
If you stop training completely, you’ll go back to zero. That’s a fact. The good news is that when you start training again, you’ll come back faster. Still, you need 4-6 weeks to get some good fitness going again.
Thank you for the suggestion about FTP test. I am not ready for it and i will leave it for coming weeks. I was out of breath just calibrating my trainer (it requires to speed to 30kmh with high resistance). i see no point at the moment for test. Maybe i need to get my systems going and then do it if AI ftp isn’t an option.
There’s really no point in training by power if you don’t do an accurate test.
Instead of a ramp test, just do a longer test to get a starting point. Warm up and then pedal for 30 minutes for as hard as you can maintain for the whole 30 minutes. Your average power for 30 minutes is your starting FTP.
A 30 minute effort should be a 7/10ths to 8/10ths effort. You can do that. Don’t even look at power while you do it nor think about your old FTP.
Yes its pointless to train without accurate power, I will do few workouts by feel or HR and try to do some kind of test. I am afraid that my body will not tolerate too much intensity right at the beginning.
Amazing! This is certainly on the cards for you again
MANY (most) of us have been in a situation where we feel like we are starting from scratch. That can happen for a host of reasons; illness, life events, motivation etc. It sounds like this experience has highligthed to you that you value being physicaly fit. So I think the first step in moving forward should be recognising what you can do to prevent this from happening again.
Dizziness- have you figured out what was causing the dizziness? If you are confident you are on top of nutrition, hydration aNd cooling strategies, I recommend seeing your doctor to figure out what was causing this.
Consistency is key.
Have you considered doing your TrainerRoad workouts outside? Check out this article for more info. This may help maintain your motivation and thus consistency moving forward. As you noticed, structured training is what will make you faster, so finding a way that allows you to do structured training in an enjoyable way is crucial to maintaining progress and improving your fitness.
We want to find a Traininng Plan that works with your life, especially with the added challenges involved with having a newborn (CONGRATS!!). We recently introduced two and four day Training Plans. You might find that a slightly reduced Training Volume allows you to be more consistent. You can find out more about Plan Builder Version two here: 🎉🎉🎉 Announcement: Personalized Custom Training Plans! 🎉🎉🎉.
A couple of other things I’d like to mention:
Start from where you are at. Training has to be specific to your current needs and fitness. Confronting a major loss of fitness SUCKS. But it is a essential to making progress.
Use AI FTP detection rather than doing an FTP test. If you have completed 10 TrainerRoad indoor workouts, you can use this feature! You can find out more about AI FTP detection in this article here.
You’ll get back to where you were!! Being honest with yourself now will allow you to get back to that fit feeling faster!
I visited a cardiologist and neurologist in the summer, both told me i am okay. No diagnosis, first put me on Pills reducing HR , as mine was little increase ( i think from over training/ too much manual work, life and etc, other one gave me some pills for dizziness). I live in 3rd world country doctors aren’t helping a lot, barely had ECG which my Apple watch will do better. Most of them arent’t working with active people. One even gave me antidepressants. I did not take any of recommend medicaments as i am not senior with problems.
I already used the new plan builder and created triathlon plan (low volume), but i will leave it for later. I feel good off the bike. As you mentioned i will start with low intensity to get my system going.
Typically when I have had to come back from illness or being less consistent due to life I follow the frequency, duration, intensity guideline. I’ll start with just HR Zone 2 endurance rides for a couple of weeks, Increasing duration as my power and heart rate stabilize (e.g. the decoupling pushes out). Once I feel comfortable doing frequent HR Zone 2 rides at the durations I am targeting for weekly workouts, then I will start adding intensity. Usually this takes me 2-3 weeks to feel comfortable again (but, at a lower ftp obviously), after being off/sick for a couple weeks.
I dealt with something similar in 2018 with prolonged dizziness and I had to take about 7 months off until I felt I could slowly start training again. I also saw a ton of doctors, cardiologists, neurologists, and hemotologists who in the end after lots of money and tests told me absolutely nothing about what was going on. So I just rested completely until I felt better and then started out very slow no more than 30 minutes at a time of Z2 HR at most and worked up from there week by week, it didn’t take me very long to get back to where I was before. I just focused on getting some easy rides in for the first month before I even did an FTP test to start doing structured training again. Using Strava’s Fitness metrics and my FTP logs it took me 3 months from when I started riding again to get back to where I was when I took a break, that was from a fitness level of 85 down to 2 and back up to 86 and an FTP of 3.2 w/kg down to 2.5 w/kg and back to 3.2 w/kg.
You took a big break and are probably not getting consistent sleep with the new baby. You are in what I call, “the suck.”
Coming back from a break you are going to not feel great for about 2 weeks (this varies but generally I have found is about this) then things start to feel a little better. You’ll go through bouts of fatigue, soreness, questioning why you are doing this… and the new baby zombie effect if going to compound this.
How do you get out of that hole?
Consistency. Just gotta do it. Even if its just 20 min do something and get your body active again.
Has anyone been in this hole?
Me… and everyone I coach. Of course the younger you are and the shorter your time off the quicker you get in shape. My advice… the hardest part is just getting out the door… so just do it.
How long did it take you?
Coming back from a few months off… maybe a few months? But lets consider the big thing here… you have a baby now! After my first child I tried my best to stay active but my priority was my baby and helping my wife as much as I could. Running (didn’t wise up and get a bike yet) took a major hit. I did get a Bob stroller to take the kid out for runs so the wife could take a break but any consistent training just wasn’t possible. Just had to do what you can, when you can. Kid #2 was even harder. Now they are teenagers and self reliant so that has opened up a lot more training time. But sports kills a lot of that time… So how long did it take? About 15 years and counting?
Is your fitness always dropping when you stop structured training even for less time?
Short answer… yes. But you can still be pretty fit and maintain a decent amount of fitness with 30-ish min “power workouts.” When you have more time take it… but don’t abuse it.
Baby Tip…
Find a schedule that works for you and your partner. This may mean training during a lunch break, early morning, taking the kid out when he gets older. Ultimately baby and mom should always be the priority but we all need time to make sure we are healthy physically and mentally as well. Make time for yourself and make sure you plan equal time for your partner as well.
Best of luck to you. The journey is just beginning!
That is my goal for now, to stabilize my power and mostly my HR. Im certain that my RHR was suppressed by over training in the spring and early summer (6 workouts a week, barely recovered, gym workouts on rings ouch). I had a sudden drop in RHR starting march.
Yup…this. Take a few weeks and just get some basic aerobic endurance back. You can do this either by power or HR. Either one works sicne you are talking about extended durations and specific power, minute to minute, isn’t terribly important. You can use AI FTP to establish your baseline power number…while it may not be exact, because Z2 work spans such a large zone, it should be close enough.
I’m going through this now…was off the bike for basically 2 months due to various health and life issues. Since we are coming into fall, I’m not too worried about “training” at the moment so I am just mostly riding my bike as I feel like and reestablishing base fitness. Mostly Z2 but also got my ass handed to me at a hard group ride Tuesday AM (and will again tomorrow).
Once I get to November, I’ll start my training plan for next year that are focused on specific targets. By then, I’ll feel ready to bring in some structure to my training.
Wow, inspiring story. Could not find what was the reason for my dizziness, i think i took hard hit from scorching heat which is very very unusual for the part of the country where i live. It wasnt only me feeling that way. Next year i will do some of my training on heat to get used to it.
Good luck to you man, there is psychological aspect to it also, i started to ask myself “what if training actually hurt my health right now and so on”. It takes time to fight negative thoughts when you do not feel good or you are ill.
Baby and wife are first, everything else is secondary, i am not even thinking of training instead of taking care of my family. Wife is very supportive and understand that our kid needs healthy parents too. I have a rule that my wife should get as much time to do her things as i train. Not swapping good sunny autumn afternoon to walk the baby for workout either.
Thanks…luckily my issues were mostly acute and not serious long-term. COVID, followed by a kidney stone, followed by some sciatica issues (that PT and rest seems to have resolved). It was just a bad stretch, but all good now.
But given those thoughts that are creeping in for you, that is all the more reason to take your time and slowly build back up. A few weeks of Z2 work will help rebuild your confidence in going harder when the time is right.
I’m sorry that you had to go through this . I’ve been through something similar. It’s extremely frustrating. I’m so glad you are back to health and fitness now . I love hearing of people return to full health after struggles that have kept them off of the bike, so thanks for sharing .
). i was supposed to start Specialty in march, but opted to train unstructured outside (got tired from months riding inside) without power meter. I was in the best shape of my life (with low volume plan), had a 165 k race , but my derailleur broke and i could not finish. Also in march i started to run (only base runs). Also i do 2 gyms workouts a week. It look like that cycling helped a lot for my running. At the end of june i completely stopped training due to dizziness and not feeling good, so 100% drop in training. Scorching temperatures and prolonged dizziness prevented me for training, also at the middle of august i become father for first time (yeeees 
Being honest with yourself now will allow you to get back to that fit feeling faster! 
. I’ve been through something similar. It’s extremely frustrating. I’m so glad you are back to health and fitness now 
.