CTL measures fitness sort of but it is a relative number that is meant for you based upon your thresholds.

For front of the pack male athletes 30-50 years old the thresholds from another thread revolved around a CTL of ~150 across three sports AND

4000 meter swim TT = ~55 minute
FTP= ~4 watts/kg
vDot= ~56-58

So the CTL measures your fitness but the the thresholds measure how fast you can go.

CTL is representative of how much work you are doing based on your threshold. It is not a measure of your fitness.

You might want to think about that a bit. If you don't have decent level of fitness you aren't going to be able to carry a high CTL. Just try putting in a a 700TSS week after taking a couple of months off then tell me how that goes;)

Hugh

---

Genetics load the gun, lifestyle pulls the trigger.

This is true, but it is proxy of fitness. More work done equals more fitness accrued in general. I also agree with your point about threshold which is why in my post I put that it is relative to the athlete's threshold levels AND how fast they go is also related to their threshold levels.

Just because one person does 1000 TSS per week doesn't mean they are fitter than someone doing 700, it just means they have been doing more work. That could be good, indifferent or bad for fitness. Having a higher CTL just means they might have been doing more work for the previous 42 days but also may have had a higher/lower starting point.

Yes, a person needs a decent fitness level to attain either one of those but I still don't think it's a measure of fitness.

Second, what's this "taking a couple of months off" thing you're talking about :)

jaretj

Agreed. I had just got back into training in January where my CTL was 42. It's now ~104, almost 6 months later. If you train year in and year out without big breaks, your CTL is bound to be higher.

---

blog

You make some good points.

I agree with this. But - If an athlete is doing many back to back 1k+ TSS weeks without burnout or symptoms of overtraining, that athlete is going to be carrying a fair amount more fitness than the one doing 700/week.

This doesn't mean that athlete is faster, but can't we say that the one doing more work is, in a way, fitter?

---

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
New Training/Racing Log - http://www.earthdaykid.com/blog --- Old Training/Racing Log - http://colinlaughery.blogspot.com

I skimmed this thread.

What matters more than your CTLm is how you got your CTL. CTL is but one part of the story, the smaller & less important part. What your workouts are like matters more. Are you doing the proper work? Are you doing work to just chase/increase CTL?

I'll give you an example from one of my athletes. New to me run CTL lower than when he was coaching himself. But his runs are near if not PB's even though his run CTL is 10-15 points lower vs his fastest previous run times.

Anyway something to ponder.

---

Brian Stover USAT LII
Accelerate3 Coaching
Insta

Curious if you track weekly IF as well or do you just have them execute your workouts as planned?

If so, what do you typically see for an entire week (S/B/R) per 1,000 TSS when building for an A race? 75% 80% 85% 90%? I know it depends but generally speaking.

I find IF trends and more diverse zone diversity to be a better indicator for performance than just CTL/TSS (hence my earlier argument that 128 CTL can and has beat my 145 CTL).

I find that you can get some "hollow" CTL points once the base is already established with relatively low IF stuff and it's an easy rut to get caught in.

Wonder if an IF to TSS per hour pin map might be more telling than just CTL.

Thanks a lot, Jim!

I will buy the book ASAP, during my next trip to the States.

---

Love the Pain!

Quito-Ecuador

a few pieces of feedback from me

- TSS was designed for biking, and it's ok for running, not that useful for swimming
- So I use bike+run CTL in the PMC to make decisions around training load
- In the final race build, I forget about CTL and focus on race-specific training. So I build up CTL until the final race prep period, after that I don't focus on it, I just focus on doing the race-specific prep that is going to help me on race day. I rest as much as is needed in order to be able to train well, and I don't look at the CTL number.
- I do use it as I go into my taper, just to make sure I get a TSB close to zero before ramping up the load a bit as I enter race week. (note, that "close to zero" is what works for me, you need to do some trial and error to figure out what works well for you)

---

____________________________________

Are you ready to do an Ultraman? | How I calculate Ironman race fueling | Strength Training for Athletes |

WKO has a metric for that too called Chronic Intensity Load.

You mean ~3 months.

Execute as planned. I do have pretty decent guide lines for the different exercise intensities that I use with athletes. Such as this means that you should be doing this it should feel like this you shouldn't be able to do that if you're doing that intensity.


No idea, I also am failing to grasp exactly what you are asking. I don't get wrapped up in CTL/TSS/ATL/IF as much as I used to say 5-8-10 years ago.

---

Brian Stover USAT LII
Accelerate3 Coaching
Insta

The more I dig into CTL and fitness the more I realized how skewed it can get if you are simply just chasing the CTL number.

For example, you can go out and and do a z2 ride for 90 minutes, add in 8x30 anaerobic top end efforts and easily get a TSS number of 120+. Now, you can also go out and ride z3/4 for 90 minutes and get a CTL of around 120. The end results over time will be drastically different given the same CTL if the athlete continues with this training.

I'm responding to Desert Dude because he said it perfectly. It isn't about the CTL number only... but rather how you obtain that CTL. Mix CTL with specific training and that is when I find it most useful.

---

--------------------------------------------------------------------
COROS Sports Science

I've read countless times that tracking swim ctl is pretty useless, meaningless, unreliable. I only track bike, run, and bike/run. Also, a key, as others have noted, is that not all ctl points are created equally. Coggan has discussed this extensively, including through comments in this forum. You can't just chase ctl points, as others also repeat here, all highly specific to the individual and the target event.

Yes, I know it still takes the values prior to the 42 days as a starting point for that time period. And that that starting value takes time to build, however i didn't realize it was 3 months worth and neglected to take that into account.

Thanks for correcting me on that.

jaretj

 
That is last year with my races on it and notes attached. Take it for what it is worth. My coach doesn't use the PMC at all. I use it here and there. I track all 3 sports together. Going to start experimenting more with the Bike+Run only PMC and see if it shows any trends. Of note, the PMC has been pretty good at indicating when I am vulnerable to get sick and when my immune system is down, and I have found trends of where I need to be careful of how much further I dig myself into a hole.

---

-Brad Williams
Website | Twitter: @BW_Tri |Instagram: @BW_Tri | Strava | Co-Founder & Coach at: KIS Coaching
Partnered with: Zoot Sports | Precision Fuel &Hydration | ISM