Hey all
So have just signed back up for Traineroad and i am wondering what a good weekly TSS is for a 50 yr old man to improve my FTP and overall speed on the bike? I have been averaging around 400-500 the last 6 weeks and wondering if thats too much or too little? My fitness has improved but i have injured my lower back again and off the bike now until it is better, could i be doing too much at my age? Any help or advice greatly appareciated.
Thank you.
Iām 60 years and never even thought of weekly TSS as a factor to consider. General stress on the other hand ā¦
Iām 56. Training age is much more of a factor than how many trips round the sun weāve made, I think.
And the best time to start strength training is when youāre 16. Second best is now.
You can push TSS wherever you want but you need to consider some factors:
I started structured cycling training at 45y, with around 500-600TSS/week, 5y later pushing 1100TSS/week during outdoor seasons, 500TSS/week during winter
As others have mentioned, it is less about the absolute TSS value, but more about how quickly your TSS is increasing and what work is creating that TSS
As a general recommendation, stick with only 2 higher intensity sessions per week and ride lower intensity (<0.65 IF) on the other days. Aim to increase your TSS by only 5% (or less) per week.
Like all generalisations, that one fails many tests, but it isnāt a bad rule of thumb to keep in mind.
Similar to others, if you want to increase fitness, then TSS is almost irrelevant to begin with. Progressive overload is more important - where you started from, how you can do a little more each week, and what you can recover from.
I race with mates in their 50s and never is a TSS number a point of discussion whether theyāre going well or not. The types of sessions theyāve been doing is more of a conversation. Whether thatās a VO2 block or getting in some monster length rides.
Bigger volume seems all the rage at the moment, but equally, you can still progress for quite a while with much less volume depending on your starting point of fitness.
Iām 54 and tend to do about 400 TSS per week. (and a couple of 5 mile runs). This is about 6 hours and gets me to 315W FTP @ 75 kg.
HTH
Volume has always been king, definitely not just the flavor of the day. But I agree that you can build a lot of fitness without racking up a bunch of hours. Volume increases have diminishing returns. Going from 2 hours a week to 4 hours a week is going to drive a big increase in fitness. Going from 18 hours a week to 20 is likely small marginal gains. But if you look at all the strongest cyclists in my local club, none of them are training less than 10 hours a week and a lot of them are at 15+ hours a week (often much higher in season). There are always the super-talented outliers crushing it on 8 hours a week, but most of the strongest riders are pushing a lot of volume.
Iām 56 and have ramped my volume up quite a bit over the last couple seasons. Hasnāt moved my FTP that much, but Iām a much stronger cyclist and itās resulted in some solid race results. I focus on longer events, so I think thatās a consideration as well. Ramping the volume way up may not translate to a big improvement in results for someone focused on 60 minute crits.
Iām usually around 1000tss weekly during the meat of my training and Iāll have a couple āpushā weeks quite a bit higher. As others have said, there isnāt any unique limitation based on age here. The key is keeping a reasonable ramp rate that you can absorb and not become overtrained (ie- progressive overload). You could absolutely wreck yourself with a 600tss week if you are accustom to low volume and you could be totally fine with 1200tss if youāve been rolling along at 1000+ every week.
Intevals.icu is a nice tool for tracking weekly TSS, training load, ramp rate, and stress balance. The red/yellow day alerts from Trainerroad also do a nice job of watching your stress balance, I just find that Intervals.icu gives a better picture of all the moving parts and where you are trending.
Iām just trying to get to grips with all the intervals.icu bits and pieces. How do you interpret/use the training zones chart as youāve posted? It looks like the time you spend in the āHigh Riskā zone corresponds to fitness gains (unsurprisingly) but it looks like youāre happy to spend time there rather than backing off. Curious to get a take on this, as it seems pretty hard to hit that āoptimalā zone consistently (for me, at least).
400TSS for 6 hoursā¦ 1000TSS a weekā¦I struggle to get 400TSS -500TSS on 8-12 hours! Admittedly I havenāt done much recently in the way of sweet spot, tempo or sessions that accumulate a lot of TSS per hour, but solid zone 2 still seems to make me tired enough.
Yeah, Iāll dip into the red, but try not to do it for an extended time. Early last year was trying to make up fitness after an injury (can be risky, but worked out). And the ~2 weeks playing in the red this Jan. are not as red as they look. I did a bunch of rowing in December, so I was quite a bit fitter than intervals.icu reflected since rowing doesnāt come over as TSS. Iāll do a deep dip into the red intentionally about a month out from my A events and then back off to absorb (the 2 deep dips last year). Any time Iām in the red, I just make sure Iām honest with how Iām feeling and back off if feeling fatigued. Also, times in the red often correspond to times with less intensity. Iām in base right now and can mess around in the red without much worry. If Iām in the middle of a v02 block, Iām much more likely to feel fatigued even if not getting into the red. Like anything else, listening to your body should trump any app or metric you are following, but the metrics can help inform.
400 TSS in 6 hours is .82 IF. If you include 20 min warm up and cooldowns for say 4 sessions, thatās roughly 65 TSS total. For the remaining 50ā of time, you have to do 1.0 IF for the entire work portion of each workout. Seems like a recipe for disaster IMO.
51 (and a half!) and averaging 300TSS on āeasy weeksā. Big volume weekends (2x 3hr+ hour days) push that closer to 600 with 1-2 days off a week.
That comes out to 12-14 hours a week, maybe 16 depending on how long the weekend rides are. Kids are away in college and my parental responsibilities have changed enough that I have extra free time.
If you have your FTP set roughly correct then all you really need to do to improve on paper is keep the purple fatigue line above the blue fitness line and make sure to get enough rest when you can.
Well exactly, thats what I was thinking! Just over 400TSS would more like 10hours for me.
How much weekly TSS on average is entirely dependant upon what you have built up to, and how well you recover. This is why overload is progressive, you build up gradually to a certain amount of load as your body adapts and is able to handle it.
I agree with @tomaslvarsson
Use TR plan builder and it will recommend a schedule and workouts for you based on your training history - you can take the TSS summary from that if you still want that number?
This is very different from person to person. The only big thing I notice having to adjust is recovery from intensity sessions. You can still do large volume and high TSS but have to adjust the timing and intensity of hard workouts/rides.
Iām in my 70ās . Right now Iām doing about 7 hours a week. 400 tss average. Itās 1 - 90 min vo2, 1 - 90 min sweet spot and a 3 to 4 hour endurance ride. As the weather warms Iāll. Get that up to about 600 tss with a second longer ride. Iām getting a bump in ftp with AI detection each block.
Like everyone has mentioned; as long as you are improving and completing workouts. Avoiding on the bike injuries. Not feeling overly tired I think youāre good.
As far as improving speed. Look to where you are the weakest, and work on that.
Plan builder is great for some situations, but it is mostly designed around a fairly fixed training schedule (which is great for folks on a rigid schedule and limited hours). Plan builder will gradually increase TSS, but mostly by increasing intensity. For someone with more time and flexibility in their schedule, a bigger ramp of volume (along with some intensity ramp) can often build more fitness with less risk. No right answer for every situation, either approach can drive improvements and both have trade offs.
