I just bought the 10-week resistance plan. The question I have is about overall CTL during the plan. I realize the goal is strength training, not increasing CTL. But TrainingPeaks shows my CTL dropping from 77 today to 52 by the end of the plan. That’s a lot of work to catch up on during base training… Is that to be expected, or should I be adjusting the cycling workouts to some extent to shape a more desirable CTL curve (even if it does go down somewhat). Thanks for the advice!
Your CTL will drop and be lower and that is normal. Being down to a 52 is just fine. You don’t want to keep a steady CTL all year round. You have no peaks or valleys. You just get stale. Like you said the important part of the resistance phase is strength building. So you do that at the sacrifice of aerobic building and CTL building. Same thing happens to a point with interval training. The more intervals, high intensity training you do, the likely hood of your CTL going flat or dropping as you decrease workload to increase intensity. But once you start your base period than your CTL will increase. Another reason you want to give yourself 12 - 16 weeks of sweet spot training.
Think of it as math problem because that is all it is. To go from a 52 CTL to a 85 (which looks like was your peak last year) you need to average 595 CTL a week for 42 days (6 weeks). Typically you would like to have a ramp rate of 4 - 6 CTL per week during the base period so you could go from 52 to 85 CTL in 5 - 8 weeks based on those ramp rates.
Here is a good representation of a training cycle through the year. Orange line being CTL. So we do expect it to be lower during the resistance phase as you build up. Not jus ta flat line all year long. Each training phase as a specific goal and its not always about CTL and building CTL. Bigger picture objectives.
3 Likes
I think another thing worth noting here is that the weight lifting days each have 1 hour of Z2, at least on the intermediate plan. These workouts don’t have any estimated TSS and thus do not get included in any CTL estimates in TP.
3 Likes
@kylev I had not noticed that. Thanks. If I add those zone-2 bike hours that are part of the lifting program into TrainingPeaks, it changes the performance management curve significantly. CTL still goes down, which is fine as @Jake says, but it looks more like what I would have expected now.
1 Like
Makes sense Jake - thanks. I’m trusting the plan works. I guess if I want different results, ultimately something’s got to change compared to the last few seasons!
2 Likes
I am a numbers guy too. Put a number in front of me and I want a bigger number. Number drops, I start to freak.
Don’t do it. Trust the process. This crew knows what they are doing. You can make up CTL in huge chunks when it is the proper time, AND you have the benefit of knew found strength.
Translated = more power. You will be giddy.
3 Likes
If the MTIs cause knee pain should I skip them and just do high Z2 endurance instead?
never keep doing something in cycling that causes pain (except intervals)
Indentify why there’s pain:
Clear position/bike fit
It bands
Analyze your data - too low cadence/ too steep of slope?
1 Like