I made a Structured Training for 2 Months, Is this Good? (Newbie)
 

I made a Structured Training for 2 Months, Is this Good? (Newbie) Because i really want to be really strong for Fixed Gear Crits. And i can't Practice for cornering since my country is in Lockdown and our president suspends all schools for 1 month. So i'l have a month of uninterrupted Bike training in my Turbo Trainer

Setup:
Magnetic Trainer bike
Cinelli Fixed Gear Bike with a 48x14 Ratio

And currently, I'm half way to my last Month of training and it seems the Data is improving from the previou months. On my First week i only managed to complete 1:10hr of training. And again as i said, it improved. Now last week i can now complete a 3:00hr training. And i saw Cam Nicholls' vid. To have a best advantage of a training it must be structured like zone 1 to zone 7.

And now i saw the Vegan Cyclist on how to Train Smart. And he said that i shouldn't go always too hard. But if you look at my chart here, i always go too hard and end's up in the floor gasping for air. But i always improve every week. (Yellow means DNF because i can't do it anymore cause i went too hard and Green means Finished)

https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...c964ffcde1.png
Training Peaks, March 9-15, 2020. And it also indicate which zone is which.

Btw, I use GCN Training Videos for my Training. (On the 11th Week, there is a Goal there but you cant really read it cause it Tagalog but it said that its my First time finishing a whole GCN Training Video without vicing up)

Now my Question is, I know that i'm improving every week while riding HARD every day, Should i continue this Training? Or will i improve more if i don't always PUSH my self to the limit everyday? or Should i change my training structure? I don't know honestly. I just want to become a aspiring Pro Fixed Gear Racer.

And i have no Heart Rate Monitor nor Power Meter and don't know my FTP.

Thanks in Advance!

Instead of trying to reinvent the wheel, why not buy a book with suitable plans in it? https://www.amazon.com/Time-Crunched...dp/193403083X/
It works better and is actually simpler for a newbie to get a HRM or a PM so you can figure out what hard and easy are.

As Carbonfiberboy says, get a power meter. Especially so if you're using Training Peaks. And get your FTP tested.

After doing a couple of workouts knowing your FTP and getting them on Training Peaks, you can start getting an idea of the intensity factor (IF) and training stress score (TSS) of the workouts you are doing.

Then you can start looking at making your training plan. Make plans based on duration and IF. Training Peaks will generate the TSS value from that. Make a plan for the whole week. Then look at your Overall Fitness chart (which, strangely, is easier to find and read on the mobile phone app than the desktop app). You can see how each workout you make affects your ATL, CTL and TSB scores. Keep making adjustments to your training plan and watch how ATL, CTL and TSB changes.

In very general terms though...

• When you want a hard workout, high IF (e.g. 0.8 and above)
• Easy workout, 0.6 and below
• Hard workout short duration, low TSS.
• Easy workout long duration, moderate TSS.
• Hard workout long duration, high TSS.
• For training you don't want TSB to dip below a certain value (which depends a lot on individual, but until you can get a sense of your own fitness, something like -10 to -12 is a nice starting point).
• Schedule recovery days (either completely off, or very light recovery rides at around 10-15 TSS) when your TSB gets that low, to reduce ATL and get TSB back up.
• To taper for a race or big ride, gradually reduce TSS around 1-2 weeks before the big ride until you get your TSB up to a nice positive value (again, how high depends on individual, but something like 10 or higher is a good start) -- but know that when you reduce TSS your CTL will also drop. Key to tapering is to drop your ATL in order to raise TSB, while at the same time minimizing loss of CTL. You do this by picking a TSS that is low enough to reduce ATL, but not too low.
• A very rough approximation, doing a workout whose TSS is above your CTL builds fitness, workouts below your present CTL is recovery or detraining.

But yeah... you can also buy a book and learn more. But eh... Training Peaks provides all the tools you need for some trial-and-error work. Just need to experiment and see how the Overall Fitness chart changes with your workout plans.

EDIT/NOTE: I'm assuming based on your post and screenshot that you are using Training Peaks with a paid account... otherwise you can't edit your own calendar and make your own plans.

That's Hard to Understand as a beginner 😅 But i'l research so that i can execute my training properly! Thank You so much!

You're absolutely correct, training from a plan is complicated, not so much the plan really, but how to get good results from one and to figure out how much is too little or too much. Especially that latter is difficult for the self-coached. You have to figure that if even elite cyclists hire coaches, that coaching is really important and takes a lot of experience and knowledge. So now you're going to be self-coached, which means acquiring the basic knowledge possessed by any coach. That takes a lot of research and a lot of experience.

While all that's happening, have at it and watch what's happening. For instrumentation, I suggest a cheapie bike computer like a Cateye with cadence if you don't have one already. For a HRM, I suggest the cheapest Polar with a chest strap, again because you'll replace it eventually.

Yeah it's really hard to self coach, But i'm now watching Dylan Johnson's Training Videos to Learn more!

Quick 2 Question guys! I'm now on my last 2 Days until i finish my first Proper Base Training from a Month of No Quality, All HIT Training Sched.

I just have 2 Questions, When will i Pause my Base Training or how long should it last

And When should i Train on a Specific Training Sched like Interval and Sprint Training for Crits! Thanks and Cheers!

Good idea. I'm a geezer, 74, so I'm really slow to recover. I've been running a weekly TSS of 350-500 this winter, that's like 6-10 hrs. IME the extra benefit over 10 hours is small, a few percent. OTOH, competition is all about that last few percent. So if you want to compete, you always push, but carefully so as not to overdo it. Starting out and young, the issue is probably more one of RSI rather than overdoing it. I don't see a TSS (training stress score) on your TP workouts. How are you measuring your efforts? HRM? PM? No instrumentation?

You don't say what your previous ride quantity was like, before the 2 months of structure. How many average hours/week of what sort of riding for how long? Can't guess without knowing total quantity.

Since i have no Instrument like Heart rate, power meter and such, I just use the perceived effort bar in the training peaks

The quantity the structured training schedule is like 40-60 mins long (Per week) and it is all like HIT and when i consulted to another cycling group they said that it has no quality, i'm just over training. Now currently, this since since monday i have now 5 hours of training (Per week but still not finish, 2 days to go). So my forecast total hours of this week is 7-8 hours

Currently, 2 Zone 1 Active Recovery. 2 Zone 2 and 1 Intervals 4x6mins Efforts. All of those 5 Workouts are 1 hour. And today, Saturday is again my Active Recovery day then on sunday, il try a 2 hour ride.

And it's on a magnetic trainer btw

But that doesn't help you keep track of your training effort over time. It's a lot easier to train efficiently if you have data. You might look at getting something like a Garmin Edge 25 and a Garmin HR transmitter with strap, and a Garmin speed sensor, so the thing will record distance on your trainer. If you did that, you'd also need to subscribe to TrainingPeaks Premium so you can use the Performance Manager Chart. Of course all that costs money, but it's hard to track progress or really anything without data.

Yeah, you just have to put in the hours. I wouldn't recommend any intervals now, just time in zone. Can you adjust the effort on your trainer since you can't change gear on your bike? That would help. Ideally, you want to put in a lot of zone 2 time for maybe a month, with some of that time pedaling fast against light resistance and some the opposite, maybe 1 day a week of each and 3 days just pedaling at 90 cadence, like you're doing, 7-8 hours/week total. Then you start adding zone 3 intervals a couple days/week, working up to say 2 X 20' X 10' over 3 weeks. Then you add in to that some hard Z5 efforts, like 3 X 3' X 5' and working up to 6 X 3' X 5', while adding in some zone 4 workouts after a couple weeks, say 2 X 10' X 5' and going up from there. There are many ways to schedule it. The idea is that over a period of several months one gradually goes from all zone 2 to a mix of zones 2, 3, 4, and 5, not every zone every week of course but worked in over a period of a few weeks.

But of course to actually do all this, you need data because otherwise you have no idea what zone you're working in and so you don't make the progress you could. There is a truism that says most cyclists ride neither easy enough nor hard enough, but you have to know that that means.

I Forgot to mention, i have a normal Cateye speedomenter!

Yeah, it just really hard to make all of this without proper instrumentation. Now i'm just all basing from feels and resistance from the trainer and yes i can adjust it from 0-7. 1 is like a slightly Uphill so mostly i just use 0 because that feels like a real road

How many gear-inches on that bike?

Its 90.21 My good sir

Well, that's a big gear. You might consider going down to ~50 g.i. Then you can practice high rpm work at low resistance and dial up the trainer for hard work. As it is, you're stuck with a gear that's hard to turn. I've ridden with a guy who rode a 90" gear in the mountains. He's a local legend, holds a few LD fixed records. You want a gear that you can spin at least 135 in for several minutes, well 150 really.

At the moment, i don't have any space cogs for me to play my GI. I only have 48x14 atm. And i once climb a mountain that is very steep but don't know it gradient, you you can really see its like a ramp until the end and i rode that until to the top with a 80 GI! it was very tough hahaha

It looks like you have too many intervals. They drain you. Rest is important, too. I mean even your shorter 4th day says HIIT.

Also, you don't have a single rest day, just one recovery day. Feels like you are trying too hard. Yes, almost everyone says that if you don't have hours and hours a week to train, it is better to use your limited time and train in Zone 4-5 as much as possible as you get more bang for your buck, but I would suggest you listen to your body and see if this regimen is not too much.

atwl77, I just got my first powermeter last week and am trying to figure out what TSS I should aim for. I came in at 836 last week which was sort of a normal in-season week for me; one long ride (8h 200k), two hard ~90 minute rides, two easy ~60 minute rides and two days off. Does that seem about right?

I think a daily TSS is a more useful measure than weekly, because big rides or events or races (such as your 200k) end up as spikes that skew the amount significantly. Here, for example, 836/7 = 119 average TSS/day, which makes it sound like you're doing hard rides every day but in actual fact, your actual daily TSS is probably on a much lower end with the big spike on the 200k ride.

What I found useful for me was to get a Training Peaks account and dump in all my past rides and workouts, and have it figure out my CTL, ATL and TSB scores. The CTL was a more relevant metric I could refer to when deciding what kind of workouts I needed to do. The TSS score for rides that are close or slightly higher to my CTL are good for maintaining fitness; doing rides whose TSS value is significantly lower than CTL would be considered recovery or detraining (or tapering, where relevant) whereas rides significantly above CTL serve to improve fitness.

For me, as an example, my current CTL took a dip from 60 to 52 after taking a break due to a cold. So I had planned to start back with some simple tempo efforts mixed with a sweet spot interval this week. So when I plan the workouts I do in The Sufferfest I search by TSS, looking for workouts around the 50-60 range that are based on tempo or sweet spot intervals. Then there'll probably a big, unplanned-as-far-as-training-is-concerned ride over the weekend which will show up as a spike, but I work around it in training by seeing how much ATL (and TSB) is affected and then start of my Mondays-Tuesdays with something easier, slowly ramping up TSS to Thursday, then rest on Friday, while evaluating my week to see how my CTL has changed over the week and decide what I should be focusing on the following week. Though this is just my current "eventless, just aimlessly but gradually improving fitness" routine; when we used to still have outdoor events to aim for, I would be planning and aiming for a specific CTL and TSB value for an upcoming big event but sadly, those times may not be happening anytime soon...

Thanks for the helpful response, but I don't think tracking the performance management metrics is going to work for me. I have a lot of bikes and just one has a powermeter, so I was hoping to get a sense for the amount of weekly training I should target for randonneuring. I've been riding the bike with the powermeter exclusively for the last two weeks since I got the meter, but I don't see myself riding the same bike all the time. It's really useful for indoor workouts and interesting to look at outside, but I probably won't be able to realize the full benefit of performance management because I like riding different bikes. I've been using the free combination of training peaks, strava, trainerday and golden cheetah which all work surprisingly well together.

This pretty much describes my training program in the spring and summer. In the fall and winter it's "spend enough time on the bike so I don't get too fat over the holidays". We're still able to ride outside here in Chicago. Riding a 300k tomorrow. Hope things open up for you soon enough.

That's understandable. But I still don't think there's a general guideline for what's a good daily or weekly TSS to aim for, I think that value is going to be entirely dependent on an individual's fitness level.

So in that case, since you've just recently got your power meter, one thing you can do is just ride as you normally do for a couple of weeks, taking note of the average TSS values for your easy and hard rides. Those can be your baseline to refer to for your longer term fitness plans.

This article is what gave me the idea that weekly TSS was a useful thing to track but perhaps not.