Cycling UK Forum

I have a question that is proving to be surprisingly difficult to get an answer to. I thought I would have a go here. (Previous efforts elsewhere have resulted in people either not understanding the question, or answering a different one ). However I am undeterred (at least for the moment).

Assume you have done an FTP test at the beginning of a block of training. You then accumulate fatigue as a result of training thereafter. The question is this: when you are at peak fatigue (which may have been achieved in 4-10 days, it may have taken six 4 week meso-cycles, it doesn't matter for present purposes), how many watts is your FTP suppressed as a a result of that fatigue (prior to recovering, at the end of which hopefully FTP will be higher than it was when you started).

The reason I ask is that I am about 40-50w off immediately before the rebound, and I am curious as to whether this is a lot, or not. Increases to FTP have been very large, but I am interested to see how "deep" people go. I am imagine the answer might depend on how long you have been training (and how hard).

Any constructive comments very gratefully received.

I doubt that you will get an answer on here.
Constructively, find yourself a cycling coach, take a look at the British cycling website for one in your area.

if you are accumulating fatigue you aren't doing it right.

The amount of fatigue accumilated would be different for each rider. It would also depend on how many time and for how long you ride at FTP in a given cycle. Fatigue will rise over an intensive training period but adaptation happens during the rest periods and recovery weeks, not while you are training hard and being tough on the body. I have a week with about 3 rides based on FTP( over, on or just under) then a week with 3 rides focussed on MAP or AC , then have a recovery week where I do not go harder than tempo, and do very little of that.

The old saw is you get fit from recovering, not as such from training.

In the old days (20+ years ago) I and my pals used to to hard bike tours in the Alps, Dolomites, Pyrenees. We would come home flogged.
I would take 3 days totally off exercise and go out and timetrial myself and just be way better than before the tour.
The old pros used to call this supercompensation. You will be a beast.
Try it.

As althebike explained, there’s no simple answer. Everyone responds differently to a block of hard training. The effect of fatigue on FTP differs too. And if you measure the FTP drop in watts as you’re doing (40–50 W) rather than per cent, then of course it also depends on your absolute FTP. 50 W would be a large drop for me, about double the effect of training fatigue. But maybe you have a 400 W FTP? You don’t say.

50 W sounds like a lot, though. That doesn’t necessarily mean you’re going deeper in training than the next guy, though. You might just be mentally weaker and find it harder than the next guy to push hard when fatigued. Etc.

What makes you ask the question?

Sufferfest do a 4DP test , in which you do 2 five second sprints to test neuromuscular power, a short rest then 5 mins at max effort to test max aerobic capacity, a short rest then 20 mins max to get FTP another short rest and you do 1 min at max to give your aerobic capacity. After doing the hard 5 mins, you will hardly feel fresh going into the 20 min effort. Mine was 50 watts lower than I expected, a very similar drop to the OP when fatigued. It is deemed a much more realistic figure than a stand alone 20 min test. How often do we go and ride for just 20 mins?

I think that you sampling intervals are too close together for a complex data model

Human performance is a complex data model with many variables. Some of these are not in your control and some of which are not fully understood and all of which interact with each other - like the weather.

It's like weight loss, you cannot judge it day to day, but you can make a meaningful comparison against yourself last year, or 5 years ago.

My advice would be think more long term

The intervals are spaced as they are for a reason. The ability to recover is shown when profiling a rider. I was considered a sprinter with sustained effort weakness. Training sessions were suggested to resolve this, based on the lower FTP obtained in the test. Using the higher figure I would not have completed many of the workouts because they were working me close to my limit at the lower figure. If I had taken each test on different days, it would have inflated my figures, but not given values I could maintain on an actual ride.

You can't profile a person to the degree that you can understand their changing need for adaption and recovery because it can't take into account ever changing variables that effect recovery and fatigue such as sleep, hormones, dynamic health (coughs, colds, allergies, etc), stress levels, well being, mental well-being, weather, nutrition, hydration, non-cycling workload, etc, etc

We're aren't machines, computers or mathematical models. Medical science doesn't understand how all of these things interact yet, let alone fitness companies selling training programmes.

I'm not saying they don't have any value, I use them myself (sparing), but I do so knowing the limitations of the system and the measurements. I measure my progress year to year not week to week

im a 15 year old girl that wants to start lifting weights as a way to lose weight , so my question is , is weight lifting or weight training a good way to go to lose weight at my age?

BarryFah wrote:im a 15 year old girl that wants to start lifting weights as a way to lose weight , so my question is , is weight lifting or weight training a good way to go to lose weight at my age?

Most definitely not!

At 15 you're still growing so although weight training is do-able you need to avoid the huge stresses on your joints from big weights. Lower weights and more repetitions is best for now as heavy lifting can do permanent damage to your growing skeleton and connective tissues. You'll still get a lot stronger. You won't gain a lot of muscle weight either, mind, as you don't have the hormones for that.

Weight training is not going to burn very much energy and, although it does increase your base metabolic rate a little bit following a session, as your micro-damaged muscles and sinews self-repair, it won't burn fat. You need aerobic exercise of significant periods to do that. Cycling, for example.

Aerobic exercise stimulates the appetite, though!. Diet is generally the key to weight loss, then. Plenty of nutriments, no rubbish. Avoidance of carbohydrate-heavy diets.

In truth, the best way to lose weight is to be very active for most of the day whilst not over-eating. In this day and age, easier said than done. It was a lot easier in the 50s when we then-kids had no money, no car to ride in, food rationing and the freedom to play out dawn to dusk without our parents feeling we were in danger of getting run over or taken off by a bad fellow from Bogeyham.

Cugel

I agree with Cugel on the last question (well it does happen now and then ). However my experience is that a bit of weight training seems to increase the side-effects of aerobic training, which include better moods, better sleep and less desire for junk food, all of which tend to make weight loss easier. So it might help, indirectly.

To the OP.
I'm not sure if you were expecting a mathematical formula answer. Surely the degree to which your FTP is suppressed depends on how hard you're training and for how long.
My gut response to your figure is that it represents quite a degree of ( over) training requiring between 1 and 3 weeks to recover from.
Or are you asking to what degree we train before undertaking a recovery block?
I've had a few illnesses over the last few years so I'm down from where I wanted to be. I had been achieving ftp of around 260W (measured over a real hour...) but I seldom ever trained to the point that it was reduced by more than about 30W for longer than a couple of days of recovery. I guess either my training wasn't pushing me enough, else 260ish was about my natural limit.
If I had a day when I was down below 200W for an hour ride, or 250 for 30 minutes, I'd self certify myself to a couple of days off
I used to do 10mile TT as a training aid and was always a bit of a hill climbing devil, and so could achieve much higher rates for 20 minute efforts than the official thinking would suggest. Hence my disagreement with the the 95% rule. For me, my real 1 hour ftp is more like 80% of my 20 minute effort. Maybe this points to a poorer oxygen transport mechanism, or indeed a change in training needed.

Perhaps you can first explain how peak fatigue is determined and measured? That will have a bearing on the answer.