The accompanying Performance Management Chart (PMC) from WKO+ software is for a road cyclist I coach (click to enlarge). It shows his entire season from last September’s transition period (when he worked much too hard) until today. It basically tells the story of his season from highs to lows. In 2012 it will also serve as a model for how the previous season went and what he might do differently.
I just updated his PMC today with comments to help him understand where we are as he comes into an A-priority stage race this weekend with a time trial, road race, and criterium.
This chart also illustrates what training is like in the real world. It would be so easy to coach athletes if all they did was train and race. But that will never be the case.
Last week we spiked his fitness (blue line) and fatigue (red line) to high points with 3 hard sessions on Monday, Wednesday, and Saturday. As you can see, the last 2 were separated by 72 hours intentionally as we started his peaking and tapering for the stage race on Wednesday.
There are some very positive things that happened with his recent training, especially last week, as shown in his PMC. The best is that he had several critical power (CP) top 10 seasonal bests at important durations (see the brown circles and print)—CP0.1 (6 seconds), CP6 (6 minutes), and CP30 (30 minutes). CP0.1 is a good predictor of readiness for a criterium-style race. CP6 rising shows he is prepared for brief episodes in creating breakaways, bridging up to them, climbing hills, and riding into cross winds—episodes that so often determine the outcomes of road races. The CP30 tells me his time trial fitness is also looking good. Seeing a cluster like this in the last 2 weeks confirms that he is about race ready.
The other positive thing I see here is that his fatigue/ATL (red line) is dropping as we’ve started tapering. That means he is coming into form with a rising TSB (yellow bars) and fatigue (red) below fitness (blue).
The only downside is that his form/TSB is rising a bit too quickly due to 2 days off the bike for business-related travel yesterday and today. I’d prefer to see it just barely positive today and then rise to about +20 by Friday when his time trial takes place. But this is the real world and he has a life outside of bike racing.
On Tuesday (tomorrow) his TSB/form (yellow bars) will be +16. His last hard ride will be that day, a group practice race. He won’t do the entire race but only 3 or 4 of the laps in this multi-lap session, enough to lower his TSB a bit while maintaining fitness, but not enough to cause so much fatigue that he may have trouble being recovered by Friday.
On Wednesday he will ride easy for a couple of hours (intensity factor below 70%). Then on Thursday he will do some short (less than 90-second) intervals with long (3+ minute) recoveries on his time trial bike.
If everything works out as we have planned he will be ready for a great weekend of racing due to high fitness and form. But then racing is also the real world and unusual things can happen. Its unpredictability is one reason sport is so much fun.
Hi Joe,
For the training peaks software what exactly does an athlete need as far as equipment, ie power meter etc., in order to make it worth while to use the system?
Thanks,
Rob
Posted by: Rob | 07/11/2011 at 10:55 AM
Rob--For WKO+ software (resides on your computer) you need a power meter (bike) or GPS (run). HR is optional. To use the same features/functions on line at TrainingPeaks.com any one of these will do it. In other words, HR-based PMC is not available with WKO+.
Posted by: Joe Friel | 07/11/2011 at 11:48 AM
Hi Joe,
How do you show the CP.1, CP6, and CP30 on the performance chart?
Posted by: Nathaniel | 07/11/2011 at 01:22 PM
Nathaniel - On your PMC open OPTIONS (upper right corner)... CUSTOM CHART... DETAILS. Set CONTENT to MEAN MAXIMAL, CHANNEL to POWER, DURATION to 6 MINUTES (or 1 or 30 or whatever), UNITS to WATTS, SHOW BESTS to 10, COLOR whatever you want, FORMAT to LINE, SYMBOL to SQUARE, LINE STYLE THIN, SPORT FILTER ANY. Click OK and you've got it. There's one little glitch in WKO: If you do all of the above in zoomed mode the changes will only take in zoomed mode. A little thing that frustrates many users I've found.
Posted by: Joe Friel | 07/11/2011 at 05:06 PM
Hey Joe_
i understand from some of your previous posts that when peaking you don't want CTL to drop too quickly (i believe 10% was the target) but why would it matter if your TSB raises too quickly? or was is this basically another way of saying he'd be over the 10% drop in CTL? finally, why +20....i'm just curious if that number is a percentage increase from TSB when he started the peak or is it a number you arrived at simply through experience with this particular athlete?
thanks for a great blog/resource_
matt
Posted by: matthew emeott | 07/11/2011 at 08:07 PM
Hi Joe,
In ideal world training, what TSB would you like to see in the Transition period?
Was December a Preparation Block? Or another transition?
Thanks,
Madeleine
Posted by: Madeleine | 07/12/2011 at 04:00 AM
Hi Joe,
How is fatigue measured in training peaks?
regards,
Ronan.
Posted by: Ronan | 07/12/2011 at 05:53 AM
Ronan--_Everything_ in WKO is based on either power or pace. If you don't use either then I'm sure you won't understand. Athletes seldom do until they start using it. If you really want to understand all of this stuff read Allen's and Coggan's book, training and racing with a Power Meter.
Posted by: Joe Friel | 07/12/2011 at 03:01 PM
Madeleine - I'd prefer my athletes didn't look at TSB in transition. We started base/accumulation training in November and it extended into December and beyond. Scheduled surgery where the big fitness down turn occurs shortly thereafter.
Posted by: Joe Friel | 07/12/2011 at 03:05 PM
matthew emeott - a rapid increase in TSB accompanies a rapid decrease in fitness. I've found about +20 TSB works pretty well for most athletes who have high CTLs.
Posted by: Joe Friel | 07/12/2011 at 03:07 PM
Hmm. Maybe I should have put my question in a different way.
As I understand it, WKO is a useful tool in quantifying work for the purposes of plotting the trajectory to a performance peak. The ATL and CTL equations are all built upon experimental models of the rates of RISE of fitness and fatigue, but there is nothing to say that they also accurately reflect the rate of regeneration.
By your answer are you saying that you do not find TSB to have predictive power in determining whether your athlete is on the way to deep regeneration? Or do you mean that TSB might be useful in this way, but that ignoring the numbers for a while is part of letting go of the training mindset?
Just curious - there is a lot I have yet to learn about WKO !
Thanks,
Madeleine
Posted by: Madeleine | 07/13/2011 at 04:44 AM
Hi Joe,
is the WKO/ training peaks software a useful tool for marathon runners who use a GPS and heart rate monitor or is it primarily for multi-sport athletes?
Posted by: Bryan | 07/13/2011 at 10:07 AM
What happened with this athlete towards the end of May this year? It looks like the athlete backed off of their training load as the CTL started to decline for several weeks prior to the end of June, when it picked up again prior to July peak. Was this by design or was there an external influence on the training load?
Posted by: Self-coached Friel Disciple | 07/13/2011 at 10:57 AM
Self-coached--I think you must mean December. Scheduled surgery.
Posted by: Joe Friel | 07/13/2011 at 12:30 PM
Bryan--Yes, works great for distance runners, trail runners, road cyclists, mountain bikers, XC skiers, triathletes and duathletes. Any endurance sport that can use a GPS, HR monitor, power meter or accelerometer.
Posted by: Joe Friel | 07/13/2011 at 12:32 PM
Madeleine - The transition period is meant to be a time of rejuvenation. To me that means no "training." Watching TSB means one is training.
Posted by: Joe Friel | 07/13/2011 at 12:34 PM
Joe, I did indeed mean May, not December. It is the area below your purple paragraph. It seems that the athlete's CTL peaked at the end of May. It looks like they did a lot of work in May, there is a big "mountain" of ATL, then they lay off ATL as form goes higher in June, then drops again until just prior to the end of the graph. Shouldn't ATL make a continuous progression throughout the season(by designing workouts that continue to challenge the athlete), only to fall down a bit during rest weeks and a bit more when tapering for an A race? Thanks.
Posted by: Self-coached Friel Disciple | 07/15/2011 at 01:12 PM
Self-coached--He was peaking for another race then.
Posted by: Joe Friel | 07/17/2011 at 04:40 AM
Joe -
What is the most important CP value to track and monitor as a long course triathlete. I conduct regular FTP test per you protocol and that give me an estimate FTP (CP60) so is that what I want to track?
Thanks,
MM
Posted by: Miles | 09/01/2011 at 10:15 PM
Miles--I keep close tabs primarily on FTP for all of the athletes I coach.
Posted by: Joe Friel | 09/02/2011 at 12:48 PM
Hi Joe. In a previous post about peaking you recommend to do workouts with 3-5x90seconds race pace intervals in the race week (for example: 4 hours mtb-race on saturday, then doing tuesday 5x90sec, wedn. 4x90sec., thurs. easy 1hours and friday 3x90sec.). I am sure this is a very good race preparation, but is it not also important to empty the glycogen stores on tuesday (in this case) and after this eat carbohydrates to fuel the glycogen stores in the muscles very good? For empty the stores i need a longer zone1/2-ride about 2-3 hours which produce also fatigue - a conflict.... what do you think about this? Chris
Posted by: Chris | 09/04/2011 at 12:03 PM
Chris--Not a good idea to create a lot of deep fatigue that week, which is what depleting glycogen would do. If you've been training steadily and back of the last week before the race even more you will fill your glycogen stores quite nicely.
Posted by: Joe Friel | 09/04/2011 at 12:26 PM
Ok-thanks for information. So you mean the above described workouts which take a duration about 1 hour (with cool down and warm up) are enough? I did a tune-up race with 2 hours on Saturday (i am sure that this deplet the glycogen *g*), so it would be the best to do two days off or easy (sunday & monday) and than start with the short-interval-workouts.
Posted by: Chris | 09/04/2011 at 12:55 PM