Freshness and fatigue advice (Strava etc).
Comments
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bristolpete wrote:OK great thanks all. So a remedial question. I did not ride to work today and may take the entire week off in an attempt to see how the fatigue falls as per the chart. Will it drop simply but not riding as the data is based on HR / Power ? Is staying off the bike the best way to drop the fatigue level and go again once the data has aligned. I do feel tired today but that's another story. Work, home life, missing cat, car to garage, new puppy, life - has taken its toll though I feel March went well as a recreational rider with decent base miles logged. Science !!!!
Not really sure what you are asking? If it's just about the charts, with no inputs the numbers will fall exactly as per the forward forecast on the chart.
In my above example if my fitness is 50 today, in 3 days time (Saturday) it will be 46.5. If my fatigue was 70, on Saturday it will be 44 (so I'd be back into positive TSB/Form). Strava chart already forward forecasts this.
If it's about the real world effects, not riding at all will certainly bring the fatigue number down fastest, but remember it's not all about numbers - a bit of light recovery riding might be better for you in the long term. If you look up tapering for events you'll see how people actively manage their fatigue in the run up to events (possibly overkill depending on what you're doing).
(edit for clarity): If my fatigue is 70 today and I do a workout with a suffer score of less than 70 tomorrow, then my fatigue will necessarily be less than 70 afterwards. How much less depends on how much less than 70 the suffer score is. By doing some easier or shorter workouts, you can bring your fatigue down in this way and keep riding.
The numbers only tell one part of the story.0 -
bobmcstuff wrote:bristolpete wrote:OK great thanks all. So a remedial question. I did not ride to work today and may take the entire week off in an attempt to see how the fatigue falls as per the chart. Will it drop simply but not riding as the data is based on HR / Power ? Is staying off the bike the best way to drop the fatigue level and go again once the data has aligned. I do feel tired today but that's another story. Work, home life, missing cat, car to garage, new puppy, life - has taken its toll though I feel March went well as a recreational rider with decent base miles logged. Science !!!!
Not really sure what you are asking? If it's just about the charts, with no inputs the numbers will fall exactly as per the forward forecast on the chart.
In my above example if my fitness is 50 today, in 3 days time (Saturday) it will be 46.5. If my fatigue was 70, on Saturday it will be 44 (so I'd be back into positive TSB/Form). Strava chart already forward forecasts this.
If it's about the real world effects, not riding at all will certainly bring the fatigue number down fastest, but remember it's not all about numbers - a bit of light recovery riding might be better for you in the long term. If you look up tapering for events you'll see how people actively manage their fatigue in the run up to events (possibly overkill depending on what you're doing).
The numbers only tell one part of the story.
Yes, I see, hence the question if I step away will it fall quicker. But I realise it is a juggling act and having looked at the data and how I feel, I know that 36/48 hours off after 'Fast Tuesday' ideal til later in the season as fitness grows. Many thanks.0 -
You are making the mistake of comparing one person's chart with another and assuming they tell the same tale.joe2008 wrote:lee_d_m wrote:Even if they could perform the same training to begin with, over time, one rider will improve more than the other one, which will affect their FTP. As FTP is a factor in calculating the TSS of a ride, then this will impact the CTL, ATL and TSB numbers of each individual differently and therefore the TSB/form will not stay the same for each rider.
Of course, if one does improve more than the other with training. However, my point is that TSB/form charts don't account for other life stress, so they are inconsistent at best.
The purpose of the chart is to identify training patterns and general guidance relative to the same individual and when you do that you of course consider all of the relevant contextual information you have.
No one has ever claimed the PMC is perfectly predictive or representative of every stress or performance factor. I suggest re-reading Andy Coggan's original article introducing the PMC and discussing the science behind it. It list quite clearly the limitations of the approach but just because there are limitations and it's not perfect does not mean it's not useful, provided you apply it with understanding.
The absolute numbers are not so important. Even if the two riders had the same rest of life stress, one is likely to be able to sustain a different training load, or increase loads at different rates than another. Individual differences exist even when external factors are the same.0 -
I don't use Strava and so my info may be out of date but from my understanding from a while ago, Strava did not permit you to maintain a calendar of FTP changes, only change your FTP value which would apply to all dates. So while that would still show overall patterns OK, it makes comparing what you did between seasons a little more difficult to interpret.bobmcstuff wrote:Alex_Simmons/RST wrote:
As to how reliable Strava's version of the performance manager chart is, hard to say. It depends a bit on the reliability of the daily stress score provided, although the overall utility of such tools is fairly insensitive to the inputs used.
I think it's OK - I made a spreadsheet version using the published formulas and it matches Strava - it seems really simple.
Of course if FTP and power zones are set differently in Strava then the numbers going into the chart won't be the same.
The other thing is the time constants they use, Strava's Fitness (~CTL) uses 6 weeks and Fatigue (~ATL) uses 1 week so if Training Peaks used different constants then that would also have an effect. As far as I can tell those are fairly standard though (?)
The time constants used in the exponential weighted moving average are typically 42 days for CTL and 7 days for ATL, however they can be adjusted to suit the individual, typically by adjusting the ATL TC for people that require less or more recovery time.
I did a video some years back to demonstrate the impact (sensitivity) on the chart of changing the time constants:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gRMoHt8Yp9E&t=5s0 -
No, it's not.bobmcstuff wrote:It's really not smart enough to know if you're ill.
However the PMC can reveal training patterns which lead to periods of illness susceptibility, or indeed a retrospective look at the training patters during periods that previously led to illness.
This can suggest what level of training load change you are best to stay within/avoid. These are individually variable, and as an example of the two athletes quoted earlier, one with a stressful rest of life and the other who can sleep and get excellent recovery, they may well find those limits are quite different.
Indeed for the same person when you go through periods of varying rest of life stresses, you learn about your own limits in these cases and it can very much help to ensure training doesn't send you over the edge during such times, but still enable you to get the most out of the time you do have.0 -
So going back to this, my form was at -1 today and I felt great aside from a mild head cold. Had a light week on the bike last week and evidence bore out the data and I am loving the appliance of science on the bike and certainly making headway. A snap shot of a segment from today shows a tempered improvement for the second 'fast tuesday' of the year despite it being windy as feck and bodes well. Thanks again for any advice offered on here. I will no doubt continue to ask questions as people with far greater knowledge than I have posting. I have not ridden hard since 2012 so many thanks to all. Power is everything and makes so much sense when you start to unravel it.
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This thread was a good read. Makes me want to buy this book everybody keeps talking about..Training with Power0
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Power to my mind changes everything you thought you knew.0
