I am few weeks into the 18 week course, my concern is that I haven’t been hitting the suggested TSS levels on my longer Sweet Spot rides and the time is going from 2.5 to 4 hours next week…I am spot on TSS levels sometimes just a little higher doing intervals and shorter rides; my form levels were in the -30+ but have since gone back to normal…on some days my wife would say just work harder; on others relax you are 70…
Just looking for advice…thanks and by all means stay safe so we can all support Fascat and the industry!
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So you are doing great on the weekday rides which is awesome! Sounds like on some of the weekend rides you just need to up the intensity a bit by adding in sweet spot intervals. We say group rides but at the moment most are not doing them for health reasons which is good. Another option is picking out climbs or segments and just hitting them at sweet spot. (8 - 20 minutes in duration). Maybe pick a segment or climb every hour of the ride. This should help bring up your weekend TSS.
Also with being an older athlete do not forget you don’t need a CTL as high as a younger athlete. Your goal should be around a peak of 70 CTL. So this can be achieved with lower TSS rides on the weekends. Focus on quality still. You still would want to get at least 45 - 50 TSS per hour on the longer rides. Don’t over stress yourself. The way you are doing it now you are able to recover after a longer weekend for your weekday workouts which is great!
Another thing to keep in mind is maybe adjusting your fatigue constant. You mentioned a -30 form level (TSB). This is probably based on a -7 constant and with being 70 you might want to set this to someting more like 9 or 10.
More on the performance manage chart
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Sorry to hijack the thread but I understand that the fatigue constant needs to be adjusted based on one’s age. So, how do I know what the constant should be for a specific age, in my case, 64. Thanks
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No that is ok that is what this forum is all about! Its completely on topic!
So its honesty tough to say on an individual bases but you could be between -7 and -10. What I would recommend is looking through your data and determining how recovered you felt at points. Do you feel good when you are in the positive range? Do you even get to the positive range? If you are feeling more fatigued than what your TSB (form) is showing you might want to lower your ATL constant. Typically as an athlete you will feel in peak form around +5 to +15 TSB. This is when you should see some of your better performances and peak numbers.
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Thank you for the quick reply. As I just came back to cycling after a long break, I just started with my structured training four months ago and now moving to FASTCAT. I am going to start with the sweet spot series tomorrow. However I see that I have never been on a positive form # for the last couple of months. I however do not feel fatigued and take a recovery week as prescribed. My form numbers have fluctuated from -1 to - 10 ( Current CTL is 48, steadly increasing). I have only had positive form #s during the recovery weeks. I also noticed that the estimated form # for my next 6 weeks of sweetspot 1 and 2 are always negative between -2 and -13, except during the recovery weeks when it does turn positive. Is this what is expected?
Hi @julio.gaviria - yes. Let the PMC chart do what is does while you follow the plan.
Then when it matters for a field test or an event or a race pay attention to your TSB, negative or positive. For the majority of your sweet spot plan you will be negative except at the end of rest weeks.
When you are raising CTL as you are doing in a sweet spot phase TSB will be negative. Here’s a graph showing how TSB is calculated:
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Very clear. Thank you.
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