For the past two months I have been doing a bit of a cycling focus and logging the data in Trainingpeaks. Now looking at the Perfomance Chart I think I may have an issue, I wish I could just past the chart, in any matter since week one 11-1-13 my TSB- Training Stress Balance has been negative, average around -30 with fluctuations up and down from there depending on previous day. This would suggest that I am not properly recovered? I say this with a strong question mark as I “feel” I have been getting stronger and stronger each week. What am I missing?
Note: Acute Training Load is Peak and Valley trend gradual up to weekend group rides and down Monday and Friday, recovery Rides. Also Chronic Training Load has seen a gradual uptick thru the entire two months from 0 up to 80 now.
If your training loads are generally moving up, then your TSB will stay negative or close to it. When you level out or taper your training, then your tsb will turn positive.
You can take a screenshot (PC: alt+printscreen, Mac: cmd+shift+4) and post the image.
In the chart TSB is typically negative unless you take lots of rest days. Think of that plot as “freshness” where you’d want to be anywhere from -10 to 5 for a race day. It different per person. It’s simply a unitless attempt to quantify the balance of your training load and rest. You need to figure out what TSB values work for you in terms of what “recovered means”. I only train for an hour or so per day and my TSB hovers around the negative high teens and 20s.
Is your FTP set to low? 80CTL build in 2 months is a lot. If you are able to handle a -30 TSB and feel “fresh” I reckon your FTP is higher than you think. Have you done a FTP test lately?
I tried that but nothing gets pasted into the window from the clipboard, and insert Image needs a URL Image.
That said I guess I would have just expected a little more "freshness’ to be reflected in the chart after recovery days, as the training peaks guide shows pretty large swings.
Your CTL was zero two months ago? Were you training before that?
I took time off after the Soma Half and did not log any workouts. So I dont know if it was truly zero but one would think it should have been pretty low.
Is your FTP set to low? 80CTL build in 2 months is a lot. If you are able to handle a -30 TSB and feel “fresh” I reckon your FTP is higher than you think. Have you done a FTP test lately?
To be honest I have not done a test in awhile that said my Threshold is set to 300W within the settings which I thought was more of a goal/ perfect day threshold
You had your CTL set to 0 to start which is almost certainly wrong unless you had been completely sedentary for 3 months.
Because you CTL was set to 0 it will be like 50 days before your CTL begins to reflect reality, and as such your CTL will be steadily climbing, which means balance will be consistently negative.
You can estimate your starting CTL with this rule of thumb:
A good rule of thumb is to look at the average number of hours you train per day and multiple that by 50 to 75 (for more intense ‘trainers’).
Don’t worry too much about TSB being negative, you can still feel quite good and get stronger while it remains negative. The PMC is part art, you use it for a while and start to learn what patterns emerge. There is no rule about what TSB is good for everyone.
I tried that but nothing gets pasted into the window from the clipboard, and insert Image needs a URL Image.
That said I guess I would have just expected a little more "freshness’ to be reflected in the chart after recovery days, as the training peaks guide shows pretty large swings.
You’ll stay negative so long as you ATL (Acute training load) exceeds your current CTL (Chronic traning load). -30 isn’t so bad, but for extended periods with no recovery, it could push you too far. It’s the -40 to -50 you need ot watch out for. That’s means you have very heavy sustained training load relative to yoru fitness.
As mentioned, it matters most when you trying to peak for a race. You also might find that you feel OK at -30, but crap at -40. So if your trending that direction, you could be in trouble. Injuries usually happen during periods of high training load, as fatigued muscles are more likely to cause movements that result in injuries as you technique suffers.
-30 cycling probably isn’t a problem, but -30 running could be an issue.
Also keep in mind that overall traiing load does not account for acute muscle fatigue, and if doing multisports, it adds all 3 together, so you could be well rested in 1 sports and overreaching in another and appear OK overall.
You’ll also notice that as you gain fitness (CTL) that you can handle a high training load on average. However as you get fitter, you shold get faster and you need ot reestablish your threshold paces and FTP so that the TSS values are accurate. Thsi is more of an issue with swimming and cycling. I don’t think your running Threshold HR changes all that much, so if you train by HR, not pace, TSS vales shold stay accurate… you’ll just progressively run faster as you get fitter… and be able to tolerate more volume.
I entered all my 2012 historical data prior to being on Training Peaks and found that I consistently managed to taper myself to a +10 TSB before key races. However, my race plan execution still have the largest impact on how well I raced.
what was your ftp? and go and change the initial ctl value to 50-60 and look at your chart then, as it will be more representative.
has your ftp ever been as high as 300, or as low as 300 as the case may be?
To be honest I truly do not know as I have never actually done a straight up hour of riding as hard as I can. The last Olympic Tri I did rode 276 for the hour.
Can you advise on how you adjust the CTL value in the settings of the chart there is a field for Start CTL which is blank after entering 50 into there was no change within the chart? Thanks,
More than likely your CTL was not 0 to begin with. While it shows a start of 0 it was probably somewhere in the high 30’s or low 40’s when you started unless you did nothing for the 6 months prior. If we guess it started at 40 you gained 40 “points” in 8-9 weeks which is on average 4-5 points a week which might be just a little high (3-5 is typical) so I’d check to ensure that your FTP is set correctly.
what was your ftp? and go and change the initial ctl value to 50-60 and look at your chart then, as it will be more representative.
has your ftp ever been as high as 300, or as low as 300 as the case may be?
To be honest I truly do not know as I have never actually done a straight up hour of riding as hard as I can. The last Olympic Tri I did rode 276 for the hour.
Can you advise on how you adjust the CTL value in the settings of the chart there is a field for Start CTL which is blank after entering 50 into there was no change within the chart? Thanks,
To adjust CTL click the little sprocket in the top right corner of the PMC chart. You can set a starting CTL here and then click Recalculate TSS.
right click, by adjusting the start to 40, it made the graph do alot of jumping I may just need to do a bit more research at this point as well as some legitimate FTP tests.
