They're all key.

Some believe in a deep taper, other respond better to a shallower taper. Better to measure in terms of TSB. CTL might only come down a relatively small amount in a well timed taper with a deep sustained base and build. But I like about a +25-30% TSB for an "A" race. only 0-5% for a "B" race.

The CTL may come down slightly during both the build in taper. In some cases CTL might peak in a late base or early build period.

if 130-140 includes swimming, I think that's a little light for Elite Amature Ironman athletes. 160-180 will have you better prepared I think. I'd say 130 is the minimum to race well.

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TrainingBible Coaching
http://www.trainingbible.com

Have you considered the ASB and BNZ though?

Could you give an example of 17 day plan please ?

This would probably provide a lot more flexibility and consistency like you mentioned for a lot of people.

Thanks in advance !

Be careful with CTL, it's predicated on a concept that on rather shaky ground at the moment. This point system does not reflect nor scale to our current understanding of human adaptation to the intensity spectrum.

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36 kona qualifiers 2006-'23 - 3 Kona Podiums - 4 OA IM AG wins - 5 IM AG wins - 18 70.3 AG wins
I ka nana no a 'ike -- by observing, one learns | Kulia i ka nu'u -- strive for excellence
Garmin Glycogen Use App | Garmin Fat Use App

If you add run 100 CTL to 100 bike CTL are they = to each other? Does it = 200? Could it really = 220? 180?

Does one it cost more to get 1 CTL run vs 1 CTL bike or 1 CTL bike vs 1 CTL run?

Do you get more benefit from 1 run CTL point or 1 bike CTL point?

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Brian Stover USAT LII
Accelerate3 Coaching
Insta

I agree and that's actually what I do. I only put that in there to keep my inbox from being jammed by the annoying-as-f*ck 3-1 brat pack. Looks like the pendulum has swung back and the world is ready to drop that junk. You need rest when you need rest. It could be Tuesday because you ran really hard on Monday, or it could be Thursday because you had a stressful day at work on Wednesday.

Somebody asked what your CTL should drop to during taper. It depends. But a good rule of thumb is to reduce load by half 2 weeks out, and then half that again for the last week. That will keep everything moving but also have you bouncing off the walls ready to race. If you're actually excited to do 112 miles on the bike the day before the race, then you're really rested and ready to rock.

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Zen and the Art of Triathlon. Strava Workout Log
Interviews with Chris McCormack, Helle Frederikson, Angela Naeth, and many more.
http://www.zentriathlon.com

i'll echo BS/DD here: You got more key sessions than my peeps have rides in a week. Right now we're doing run blocks... so we swim 1-3x a week, run 5-8x a week and ride twice a week (roughly). Long ride is done at <50% of critical power and is just a lolly gagging session. About 4 hours (depends on climate) and then one day a week we've got a VO2 session where our lungs end up on the wall opposite our trainer. Total _real_ work time in that sesh is maybe 10-15min.

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36 kona qualifiers 2006-'23 - 3 Kona Podiums - 4 OA IM AG wins - 5 IM AG wins - 18 70.3 AG wins
I ka nana no a 'ike -- by observing, one learns | Kulia i ka nu'u -- strive for excellence
Garmin Glycogen Use App | Garmin Fat Use App

Hello desert dude and All,


Quoting your reference to Seiler et al ......

"Endurance training involves manipulation of intensity, duration, and frequency of training sessions. The relative impact of short, high-intensity training versus longer, slower distance training has been studied and debated for decades among athletes, coaches, and scientists. Currently, the popularity pendulum has swung towards high-intensity interval training. Many fitness experts, as well as some scientists, now argue that brief, high-intensity interval work is the only form of training necessary for performance optimization. Research on the impact of interval and continuous training with untrained to moderately trained subjects does not support the current interval craze, but the evidence does suggest that short intense training bouts and longer continuous exercise sessions should both be a part of effective endurance training. Elite endurance athletes perform 80 % or more of their training at intensities clearly below their lactate threshold and use high-intensity training surprisingly sparingly. Studies involving intensification of training in already well-trained athletes have shown equivocal results at best. The available evidence suggests that combining large volumes of low-intensity training with careful use of high-intensity interval training throughout the annual training cycle is the best-practice model for development of endurance performance. KEYWORDS: lactate threshold, maximal oxygen uptake, VO[/url]2max, periodization."

And a possible addition of specificity for the interval training portion ..................


https://groups.google.com/...ysiology/M8Ab5o7xCCo

Nathan Townsend excerpt:

"Keep an eye for another study by Seiler's group that should be coming out soon in MSSE. They examined 4x4min, 4x8min, and 4x16min intervals. The 4x16min intervals tended to lead to best improvement in VO2max and pwer at 4mM lactate. So, i don't think it is so simple as just training in such a way as to generate a metabolic mileau that stimluates adaptation, but probably the volume (ie: time) that those conditions are sustained might also be important. So for example, something I've been recommending for years is to conduct interval training sets somewhat similarly as we we do a time trial, ie: go out quite hard and then ease into a target power, rather than always just sitting on a constant power. I think this may also be a reason why these microintervals seem to work well also, it's possible to sustain VO2max (which implies very disturbed intracellular homeostasis) for longer durations than we can for continuous work." [emphasis added]

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Cheers, Neal

+1 mph Faster

In general ...

- Roll a normal two week block (whatever that is for you)
- Days 15 & 16 are VERY light ... For Example:
** Monday ... Swim --> 1000 easy (broken as 20 x 50, Lots of Band / Buoy or Neoprene Shorts
** Tuesday ... Indoor Trainer @ 30min EASY spin (<50% FTP) ...building cadence to 90 ... +15min EASY transition run (jog) finish with 4 light strides
** Wednesday ... Swim (as normal) ... Run as normal OR for most use "normal" volume but low intensity (AET or <AET)

REALIZE that the next 14 day block starts on that WED (or THURS if Wed is very light) ... so, your next two day easy block sits differently in the week than MON & TUES

IN REFERENCE FOR ABOVE:
A "Normal" M - W might be:
-Monday would be a 2.5-4k swim
-Tuesday might be an easy morning run + evening ride (indoor or out) ... or vice versa
-Wednesday might be 2.5-4k swim + "key" run that includes a specific focus pending time of year

KEY for my script is getting athletes to REALLY back down on day 15 & 16 (at certain key points we'll go VERY easy / short for WED runas well). So few athletes want to script their own 20min of easy swimming and then the 30+15 easy on Tuesday. The value of these CORRECTLY executed 2-3 days done consistently provide massive return in the long haul. .... and those two days done properly my friends are "key workouts"


Hope that helps

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Dave Latourette
http://www.TTENation.com

Nealhe, when I read your post I thought that this thread was gravedigged. I've read that article where Seiler et al compared 4 mins, 8 mins and 16 mins intervals and 8 mins was superior. Threshold is not an optimal place to be. I'll attach the results:

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Endurance coach | Physiotherapist (primary care) | Bikefitter | Swede

At what % of FTP are those different time work intervals at? Did they make sure to generate the same total 'training load' even though the time was different? I.e lower % of FTP for the longer intervals and higher for the shorter?

Hello mortysct and All,

Thanks for posting .... ..... Nathan Townsend appears to be referring to something newer in the offing?? ....

The reference came up in discussion following this lecture: https://www.youtube.com/...amp;feature=youtu.be

I don't think there was any intention of deceiving .... and I learned a new colloquial forum term ....

grave digger. One who finds out dated threads that are unlocked therfore still live and adds post(s) to them often deceiving other forum members ...

This 2013 study appears to be the one you are referring to .....

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21812820

Those look like killer workouts ...

Which workouts of that type do you like?

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Cheers, Neal

+1 mph Faster

They are not done in % of FTP. They My best guess is ~106% for the eights, ~120 for the fours and ~100 for the 16 min intervals. The point was not to equate training load but session RPE; ie more like we usually train. When we do our quality workouts we dont shoot for a set TSS point, we try to make the best of that session. The instruction was to go as hard as possible over the intervals they were assigned to do.


Nealhe: Thats why I thought this was gravedigging, that study has a few years on its neck already. If Nathan knows about a new, not yet released study that shows superiority for the 4x16 protocol I'm going to be sad: I hate those workouts. For me and my clients, I try to make sure that we get about 30 mins of work above FTP per quality session. Less earlier in the season, at higher intensity. One example is three sets of 5 60"/60" intervals at best possible power, often ~135% FTP. The weeks before a prioritized long course tri I would try to get 5x8 mins at 103-107% FTP with 3-5 mins rest.

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Endurance coach | Physiotherapist (primary care) | Bikefitter | Swede

IMO 160 - 180 is a huge number to shoot for, what sort of hours would you need to attain this?

I've heard more like 110 is typical for KQ...

Hello mortysct and All,

Nathan sends:

"Hi Neal,

That study is an older one from SJMSS. I'm referring to the newer stuff from MSSE....

Effects of HIT on Physiological and Hormonal Adaptions in Well-Trained Cyclists
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28121800


The Effect of Different High-Intensity Periodization Models on Endurance Adaptations
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27300278


These two papers are from the same study. Note that most recent 2017 paper is a little more nuanced than the 2016 paper, they conduct a mesocycle breakdown and report VO2max etc at 4 and 8 wks, whereas the others only report pre/post.

It's good to include the SJMSS paper here, because when we put all this stuff together, it should become obvious to that there is no magical HIT program that is always the best. We must integrate sound principles of periodisation into any long term training structure. For example, imagine if duration was matched and instead of doing 4x4 min intervals, we did 8x4min intervals or even 16x4min intervals. The recovery was sufficient such that average power is greater in a 16x4min than 4x16min program. In that case, the overall load would now be greater. Would there be a different outcome? I think that question on it's own is sort of moot though. I would expect to see a worse outcome for a headless chook that goes off and smashes 16x4min intervals 2-3x / wk from day 1. However, done correctly, and periodised, a well trained cyclist can build up to that sort of volume and indeed, I've seen elite endurance athletes in top shape conduct similar sorts of sessions.

Something I've long been a critic of, is this idea that we can normalise all training to a single metric representing overall "load" eg: TSS. These studies clearly illustrate that we cannot simply assume that less volume at higher intensity is equivalent to more volume at lower intensity (on performance outcomes), yet the entire world of training load monitoring blindly follows this concept. It's just too vague IMO to be anything more than a rough guide."

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Cheers, Neal

+1 mph Faster

Neal-good stuff. I think this is why you need to mix things up a bit. Low volume/high intensity, high volume/low intesisty, Vo2 work, tempo, endurance, etc. You really need to train different systems to get more fit. TSS doesn't tell the whole picture. I can tell you right now my weekly volume is lower compared to last year and my overall CTL is lower but I'm more fatigued (not TSB but my body/legs telling me/RPE) than last year. Why? I'm doing more intensity.

About 25 hours a week.

I do the 3 week on / 1 day off rythm and I like it. I recover during the recovering week, not only physically but also mentally and find some time for things I can't do in the other 3 weeks. After all I'm not professional but have family and work. Why should this rythm at once be wrong? And: I do not only recover during the recovery week, I might do 60-70% in time compared to the other weeks.

Concerning the key-sessions, I regard a key session as a planned session which I really should do. If e.g. I feel too tired, or if other circumstances force me to skip some planned training sessions, I start skipping those sessions which are not key sessions. I only skip a keysession if there is no other way. Therefore I indeed think that the threadowner defined too many sessions to be key sessions, generally I define 2 or 3 per week.

For example the next three weeks I have per week 2 key-sessions: Tuesday 4 hours bike 85 % FTP, Wednesday 4 hours bike 75 % FTP. This is always my serious start of the training season, and the key sessions in the last two months before an IM look way more different.
After the three weeks I take indeed a recovery week :-)

Solid post Neal. Great to hear your thoughts and thanks for getting those papers from Nathan. It will be an interesting read.

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Endurance coach | Physiotherapist (primary care) | Bikefitter | Swede