Large Power Losses Post Flu/Illness

spredy

Hi there,

Although this winter wasn't as miserable as some, I persevered and managed to build up a not too shabby 340 watt ftp by January. January and February weren't great training wise, so I may have gone backwards a little (work schedule, weather and minor illness).

Anyway, in late February I had most of the symptoms of flu, fever and roaring temperature, fatigue and the various stomach related issues, and so took a whole week off the bike, along with most of the week off work to really try and recover. The week after, although feeling better generally, I maybe logged like 4 hours on the bike, so as to not overdo it. Despite now feeling perfectly fine during day to day activities, my bike performance is shot. HR is sky high at all given given efforts, and while in January I was just shy of holding 300 watts for 3 hours, I can barely do 300 watts for 10 minutes before keeling over with exhaustion. Had to fight to hold 200 watts for an hour one day and nearly missed a train because of it, haha. Surely it's not possible to have lost all that fitness in such a short period of time?

I had blood work done for an unrelated issue, and all came back normal.

Has anyone else had a similar thing? Is it just a case of taking a few weeks to work back up to it? It's just I can hardly go to the doctors and use power data as indication that something's afoot, aha. I know it's luxury problem to have, I could be homeless or something, but would still like to get to the bottom of it.

Sorry, bit rambly and hardly concise, but any help/thoughts/speculation would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks.

AK_jnr

Get your PM serviced

timothyw

A couple of weeks off, particularly when ill, can have a surprisingly large effect especially on the first ride back - the body undertakes a range of adaptations in response to training, some of them take a while but have long term effects, other changes happen quite quickly but similarly can fade quickly in response to a lack of stimulus.

I'd give yourself a couple of weeks to get back in the swing of things, and in the meantime train according to perceived effort rather than the power meter.

If the numbers aren't coming back, then it might be worth considering if your power meter's accuracy might have slipped and consider other reference points (eg segment times on strava, performance on group rides/races)

Usually if I've had a couple of weeks off the first ride is particularly hard, but after a week of riding I'm probably back to 95% of where I was before.

jgsi

So your power went up by January? What was it in the summer? Not as good? Your enforced timeoff the bike resulting in much reduced performance is possibly explained by your fitness being based perhaps on a foundation of sand - i.e. your aerobic base fitness not as good as you thought it was and thus it crumbled away into nothingness.

jrich

I had similar last summer, although not quite so severe by the sounds of it - I went from doing 320W+ to barely scraping 270W for a 10. It lasted a couple of months too, but that might have been because I felt fine most of the time so kept riding, but just couldn't hit the numbers. It was real struggle to ride hard, my legs felt like they had no strength at all (yes I realise legs dont use much strength when cycling, but that is how it felt). I would suggest making sure you let your body recover fully before doing a large amount of riding. I didn't do that and I lost pretty much half the season as a result.

mamba80

Rather than JGSI 's dire prognosis, perhaps you r just suffering from the effects of a viral illness ie Flu. keep pushin and you ll end up really sick.

spredy

jrich wrote:

I had similar last summer, although not quite so severe by the sounds of it - I went from doing 320W+ to barely scraping 270W for a 10. It lasted a couple of months too, but that might have been because I felt fine most of the time so kept riding, but just couldn't hit the numbers. It was real struggle to ride hard, my legs felt like they had no strength at all (yes I realise legs dont use much strength when cycling, but that is how it felt). I would suggest making sure you let your body recover fully before doing a large amount of riding. I didn't do that and I lost pretty much half the season as a result.

Glad to know I'm not alone, but obviously not glad you lost half a season, aha. What did you do to get yourself back into shape? Just ride easy, sprinkle in a little intensity, go as hard as you could muster?

spredy

JGSI wrote:

So your power went up by January? What was it in the summer? Not as good? Your enforced timeoff the bike resulting in much reduced performance is possibly explained by your fitness being based perhaps on a foundation of sand - i.e. your aerobic base fitness not as good as you thought it was and thus it crumbled away into nothingness.

I've steadily improved for the last three or so years, so yes, my power was worse in the summer than it was in January, ftp was maybe 10-15 watts lower? Isn't that normal though, to get progressively better?

spredy

TimothyW wrote:

A couple of weeks off, particularly when ill, can have a surprisingly large effect especially on the first ride back - the body undertakes a range of adaptations in response to training, some of them take a while but have long term effects, other changes happen quite quickly but similarly can fade quickly in response to a lack of stimulus.

I'd give yourself a couple of weeks to get back in the swing of things, and in the meantime train according to perceived effort rather than the power meter.

If the numbers aren't coming back, then it might be worth considering if your power meter's accuracy might have slipped and consider other reference points (eg segment times on strava, performance on group rides/races)

Usually if I've had a couple of weeks off the first ride is particularly hard, but after a week of riding I'm probably back to 95% of where I was before.

Do you have any idea as to what is possible in terms of losing fitness as a result of lack of stimulus?

I'm not sure it's a calibration issue, I could normally roll about comfortably averaging 21-22MPH on solo flat rides of a few hours, but when 17/18mph becomes a struggle, I definitely think it's on me.

I shall take your advice though and go by perceived effort. If hypothetically things don't improve after a while, do you think there would be any grounds to use this as evidence of something being medically wrong, like a low lying condition when approaching a doctor?

Alex_Simmons/RST

It can take some weeks to recover from a nasty virus. Be careful and allow yourself some time to build back carefully - it's all too easy to do too much too hard too soon (big mistake). Doing hard training with a virus can be dangerous so take care.

Fitness is reversible and there are things like blood plasma volume that change relatively rapidly when de-training. With due care, the fitness will return in the short term (e.g. a couple of weeks) but how long depends on depth of illness, allowing sufficient recovery, how fit you were to begin with and how long you were laid low for.

timothyw

spredy wrote:

Do you have any idea as to what is possible in terms of losing fitness as a result of lack of stimulus?

I'm not sure it's a calibration issue, I could normally roll about comfortably averaging 21-22MPH on solo flat rides of a few hours, but when 17/18mph becomes a struggle, I definitely think it's on me.

I shall take your advice though and go by perceived effort. If hypothetically things don't improve after a while, do you think there would be any grounds to use this as evidence of something being medically wrong, like a low lying condition when approaching a doctor?

Just to preface this by saying I'm no expert, just a regular cyclist with an interest in sports science...

Pretty much anything is possible. Some people are super-responders, with low baseline fitness but great capacity to improve - others are blessed with excellent base fitness but have minimal response to training. In an ideal world, you have both, but some unlucky people have low baseline and poor response to training.

The thing to stress is that after an illness it is entirely normal for your power/fitness to be down. I had my wisdom teeth out a couple of years ago, and must have lost quite a lot of blood in the process - I was glad it was done in September, as it took me over a month to really feel back to my old self - it ended my season.

If by the end of the month you haven't started to pick up again I'd consider medical advice, but don't let yourself become preoccupied with that - you've been ill, it's normal that you've lost fitness. Take your time, it will come back.

fat daddy

mamba80 wrote:

Rather than JGSI 's dire prognosis,

... he might be wrong, but it's not that dire

There is quite a lot written about base mileage vs interval sessions for raising FTP the down sides of the latter bring if you take time off then your peak crumbles rapidly compared to the former where your fitness only dips by a bit .... possibly why training should include both

However in this case when I am ill my performance is screwed a good 2 weeks after I "think" I am better, then returns to normal practically over night ... mind you I am only ill once or twice a year so haven't paid too much attention to it