Close. The riders of the dataset that had an average of 13 hours a week and 0.7 IF over the preceding 4 weeks, tested at 4w/kg average at the end of this period. Same for 11.5 hours, 0.8 IF and 4w/kg.
Your personal training response can be better or worse, keep in mind this is averaged out over a large population. So it is not so much a lookup table/graph for your personal performance, but it is useful tool to understand the influence of intensity and volume on training response better.
Used the data AC published on his website and some interpolation to create it myself.
Perfect thank you.
You should be able to create a chart of weekly avg IF in intervals.ICU
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@Janhein Iâve only briefly been at 3W/kg (April-June 2017), otherwise always below and in the 2.7-2.9W/kg range.
Overlaying my data onto your chart, Iâm really having trouble figuring out how to reconcile my data:
Raw data, simplified:
- IF 4-week moving average = light gray dashed line
- FTP 3-week moving average = yellow line
- Duration 4-week moving average = dark grey solid line
With weekly IF:
With weekly duration:
Your thoughts?
edit: Answering my own question⌠if I dropped down to my âvery little upper body muscleâ weight at 18 years old, when graduating from high school, and my power didnât decrease/increase, my current W/kg would be 3.5 ish.
This is how I saw the most gains personally. I added more easy/ endurance riding and got rid of one of the intensity days. I was able to ride more than past years and my FTP kept going up. For context i was training using the Fondo plan for Leadville and other XC/M events.
not news around here, I know.
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Instead of average IF, it would be interesting to show the time in zone vs FTP. Or more specifically, time Z2 & below, time Z3 , time z3 & above
We all have the same guesses probably, but it would be interesting to know:
- How much more time is spent in Z3 and above as FTP increases?
- How much more time is spent in Z2 as FTP increases?
- How does the overall distribution of time in zone look with lower FTPs vs Higher FTPs
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Is that supposed to be average IF for the week on the y axis of the graph?
Sure that would be interesting. But keep in mind that the graph is based on a model with 22k (real) data points as input, so there will be lots of variation within that set. You are trying to go one level more granular. But at the same time this forum is filled with people that train a fixed number of hours per week, that expect to see significant gains by going from a very high average IF to an even higher one (=Adaptive Training). And as you can see in the graph at those levels the isolines are close to vertical, meaning no gain to be expected.
Its the average IF of the last 4 weeks, afaik.
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I still donât really understand the W/kg lines, to be honest. For example, if you did 10h/week at 0.8 IF, presumably you were close to burn-out, even if you were only at 2 W/kg? Or only if youâre over 3.8 W/kg?
Look at it reversed. All the people in the data set that were able to do 0.8 IF (average) and 10h/w over a 4 week period, tested just over 3.8w/kg on average. And only few were able to pull that off.
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I get your point, I think. Youâre saying that if youâre training X hours a week you wonât improve by making those X hours harder than they already are. Beyond a certain point youâre correct.
ButâŚthe part where you lose me is when you say that is what Adaptive Training does. Iâm under the impression that TR increases IF week over week, as does almost every training plan (automated or coach generated) that utilizes progressive overload.
Isnât AT supposed to help control and dial back (or increase) IF based on how workouts are going, not always increase it?
Are these stock charts in WKO or are you making them?
- Not much is explicitly stated by TR about AT and Ramp Rates (which likely drive IF changes over time), but this statement seems correct from what I have read.
- TR pre-AT would have a fixed plan and embedded ramp rate for all plans and users.
- TR with AT will increase or decrease Ramp Rate (from the baseline embedded in the initial plans) as a result of user feedback from the surveys. This means that IF and Ramp Rate are potentially variable over time for each user.
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Unless you sleep perfectly every night, eat perfectly every day, and have no significant physical or mental stress in your life other than training, things like this graph or TSS-based measurements are not very useful at predicting burnout or risk thereof.
My FTP right now is somewhere around 4.2-4.3. Iâve been doing 15-ish hours a week since the beginning of April and doing well.
Then last week I worked for ~70 hours unexpectedly, was only sleeping for ~5-6h a night instead of 8-9, and it was quite hot outside for the first time all year. I completely destroyed myself that week after riding only ~10 hours. To the point where I needed to take 3 days completely off training and am just easing back into things right now.
There is so many other variables that play into this beyond what is suggested by this graph (or TSS) that they end up being not super helpful.
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Not to say that the specifics of that week werenât awful and a contributor to how you felt afterwards, butâŚ
Youâve only been training 15 hours a week for 4-5 weeks total. It is way too soon to say youâre doing well with it - burnout and overtraining sneak up on you. Youâre coming in with a reserve of energy beforehand and potentially burning through it with that volume.
I donât know your historic training volume nor, really, your current volume - but Iâd strongly encourage you to dial it back below 15 hours for several weeks. Maintain a lower number for a while (months) before going back to 15 (how low that number should be depends on what you were doing previously)
Youâve only been training 15 hours a week for 4-5 weeks total⌠I donât know your historic training volume nor, really, your current volume⌠(yet) Iâd strongly encourage youâŚ
I donât think you can strongly recommend anything without knowing anything about my training history 
Iâm an ultraendurance cyclist⌠I do 10-12hr a week all winter, and then 15+ hours a week in season in the summer and have been riding that much for maybe 3 years now.
I appreciate your concern/advice, but I am doing ok, and will continue working with my coach!
Also: donât be so quick to dismiss the impact that poor sleep and off-bike mental and physical stress has on your training. To be honest, these factors anecdotally play a larger role than TSS does in how your body responds (or doesnâtâŚ) to training stress.
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Sure, lets assume it does that successfully. And you can easily track it on intervals.icu as well. It still means you are moving vertically in the graph above, and most likely somewhere in the upper left quadrant of that plot and in quite a contained range.
Just looking at the plot, would you say gains are to be found going up in IF, or going up in volume?