I’m going to be doing the 16 week resistance + base plan starting next Monday. What can I expect my CTL to reach by the end? I’m currently deciding if I want to do the intermediate or advanced plan (would like advice on the differences there as well). I know it says 12-16 hours/seek for advanced, but how much TSS is that on average? My plan will end pretty much right at my first race, and then I’ll go into a build phase. Thanks!
1 Like
Hi Carson,
So it is tough to say exactly what your CTL will be. First it depends where you are starting off at. Secondly there is 10 weeks of the resistance training phase in that 16 week plan. There you are not going to be building much CTL as the idea is to build strength that will carry through the season.
In the 10 week intermediate plan you are averaging around 375 TSS and in the advance you will be averaging 475 during these 10 weeks.
Then in the advance plan for the 6 weeks of base you will be doing roughly between 500 - 600 TSS, while in the advance plan you will be doing closer to 700 TSS on on average per week.
So between the two plans the difference is roughly 70 - 100 TSS per week, which would mean a CTL that would be roughly 10 - 13 points higher. But also remember what kind of time commit you need to complete the advance plan and also the recovery that you will need. For most athletes our advance plans are more than enough.
Also just 6 weeks of base is really not enough. Should be 12 weeks, and most our athletes do the Sweet Spot 1, 2 and 3 following the resistance phase. With your racing season starting soon really not much time for all of that. I guess it also depends when your goal event is. You would like that to be at least 12 to more likely 18 weeks after fishing the resistance training phase.
So if you are doing a plan that is between 550 - 650 TSS per week, plus regeneration weeks in that you would expect a CTL of 70 - 75.
Hope that helps clears things up.!
3 Likes
Thanks @Jake !
I guess I didn’t realize how long the resistance phase of the training plan was so what you’re saying makes complete sense. The advanced plan looks right up my alley TSS-wise as well. So I may modify my race schedule for next year because of this. If my #1 A race is early may (28 weeks) that allows: resistance -> base 1 -> base2 -> and some build (which I haven’t decided on). Is that how it should go? Am I missing anything? If I am missing something would I be better to do do all 3 Sweet Spot plans and then more build? Sorry if this is a lot to take in, i just feel as if its about time to make up my mind for next years goals. Thanks again!
Without having to count weeks, do resistance phase, then sweet spot and before your goal event you should save yourself 6 weeks of race intensity. So do the base and sweet spot stuff until about 7 weeks before your goal event. At that point start the one of the intervals plans based on the type of event. That 6 - 8 week window is when you want to get a bit more race specific. We have a few plans for that dependent on the type of event, such as road racing and criterium intervals, gravel grinder plan, hill climbing interval, or etc.
With the sweet spot plans you will get criss cross, burst efforts and group rides where you will get in intensity as well so it’s not like you won’t get any, it’s just a nice build up.
2 Likes
Hey Carson,
Also once you apply the training plan you can see what your CTL will be through TrainingPeaks. You can go into the dashboard view of TrainingPeaks and view your Performance Manager Chart. Make sure the settings is applied to where you can see dates in the future, either the standard 45 days or you can also do a custom range.
Here is what that chart will look like.
The projected CTL is the blue dotted line.
1 Like
Thanks! Just bought the plan. I noticed there isn’t a power test prescribed at the beginning of the plan because the first 10 weeks is mostly lifting. Should I still do one?
Don’t need to before lifting phase. Most of the riding is strength based efforts.
Unless you feel it is really far off there is no reason to. Wait till after the resistance phase.
2 Likes