Improving One's Fatigue Curve

David Ambrose

 Let's assume myself (David A) and my twin (David have cycling fatigue curves (or power curves) such as:

David A:

1min = 400w

5min = 360w

20min = 325w

30min = 300w

60min = 280w

 

David B:

1min = 400w

5min = 361w

20min = 327w

30min = 305w

60min = 282w

While we may have almost identical FTP level, my twin's (David fatigue curve's slope (rate of fatigue) compared to mine suggests that over longer durations, such as 100+ mile rides, will yield rides many minutes faster than I, all other variables constant.

How can I improve (or lower my rate of fatigue) my sustaianble power output over longer duration rides in order to be competitive with my twin brother who has achieved an equivalent FTP level as I?

Tom Glynn

David,

As I see it, there are two ways to approach it. The typical EN thought is simply to raiser your FTP. Theory says if you can ride one hour @400 watts, you can probably ride 3 hours @200 watts. The other method is to maintain FTP, but work on maintaining a high IF for longer and longer periods of time. There was a good post on TJ Tollakson's IM bike and IM win a month or two ago. He works a lot on his 5 hour power number, riding 45 minutes on, 15 minutes off for 5 hours. The purpose is not to raise FTP, but to learn to ride at IF's like 85% for hours and hours.

http://blog.trainingpeaks.com/posts/2011/7/29/tj-tollaksons-ironman-lake-placid-winning-race-report-and-po.html

David Ambrose

@Tom - I hear you on first approach. In my scenario here, let's assume my twin's FTP will always mirror my own. I guess I'm really interested in improving my fatigue rate over longer durations, while maintaining my current Peak 60min power.

kurshing

I believe this is what RnP are doing with the FTP intervals in the training plans, right. We do 2 different kinds of work: 1 to "raise the roof" of our fitness, and 2 to "expand the useable space under that roof". If you are content with keeping your FTP near where it is, then I agree with Tom, you need to spend longer and longer periods of time at or just above that power level (effectively raising the IF for each session). So, I agree with Tom.

It should also be sited that an increase in FTP would likely lead to the same result as well.

The other side of this is that there are people that are more gifted with the ability to pump out quick bursts or power and others that are able to settle into longer intervals at high levels...which is why we see different roles within a cycling team. So, there are some genetic tendencies to consider as well I would think.

mancona

David, I think you are on to something here but I'm not smart enough to understand or explain it.

My experience has been that a few years of VO2/FTP work can be huge and really bump your FTP up but then the diminishing returns set in for BOTH types of work and your FTP starts to plateau. Maybe there is a good way to break that plateau but I haven't found it yet for me. I worked my ass of in the OS this year just like every ohter year and only got my FTP a few watts higher then previous OSs (but not higher then my 2010 season peak). But in my 4 hours rides I can hold almost 10 watts higher this year than last year. Therefore 2011 Matt has the same FTP as 2010 Matt, but I am 100% confident (as I have the data from the last 6 weeks of long rides) that 2011 Matt can hold more power for 4 hours then 2010 Matt could.

kurshing

Some of this difference that Matt is pointing out MIGHT really be a product of how we test our FTP. Since we really aren't doing true 60 min TTs, we may maintain similar FTPs while actually getting stronger due to margin of error. This could be similar to the fact that your vDot is likely higher if you test with a 5k all the time and never use actual race numbers from half and full distance events.

I am just thinking out loud here...

Gordon Cherwoniak

David,

Great question and I think Tom has hit on a great point.  I find that I have much better hour rides and get fatigued as I start to go longer especially over 3 hours.  I have found that the 80-85% stuff has really helped me lengthen the time I can hold without getting fatigued. 

Of course there has been many variable in here as I just came off the couch 2.5 years ago so the FTP has seen dramatic rises.

I believe for me that a bike focus during the IM plan would consist of 4th or perhpas 5th bike (say 3 hours each) if I could handle it with a large dose on this 80-85 % stuff.  I believe this would redue my fatigue curve dramatically. I'm not sure I can handle the additional volume or fit in this type of training over the IM 12 week plan  in two big weeks for example. To compensate for my limiter I plan on adding an additional 2 weeks (14 weeks) to the IM plan this year, mainly for the bike. 

Finally it comes back to the whole idea of trade offs from this type of training.  For most the money is staying in the OS for as long as possible.  Once you start seeing diminishing return or very little like Matt the challenge becomes finding a way to break through the plateau and/or maximizing what you have. 

Gordon

jburbatt

Posted By Matt Ancona on 06 Sep 2011 09:59 AM

David, I think you are on to something here but I'm not smart enough to understand or explain it.



My experience has been that a few years of VO2/FTP work can be huge and really bump your FTP up but then the diminishing returns set in for BOTH types of work and your FTP starts to plateau. Maybe there is a good way to break that plateau but I haven't found it yet for me. I worked my ass of in the OS this year just like every ohter year and only got my FTP a few watts higher then previous OSs (but not higher then my 2010 season peak). But in my 4 hours rides I can hold almost 10 watts higher this year than last year. Therefore 2011 Matt has the same FTP as 2010 Matt, but I am 100% confident (as I have the data from the last 6 weeks of long rides) that 2011 Matt can hold more power for 4 hours then 2010 Matt could.

 

To me, this makes the most sense- kinda similar to vdot tables where the higher your vdot # the closer together the paces get from distance to distance because you are closing that gap.  So maybe essentially at your peak your FTP won't be necessarily higher but instead the other distance power numbers come much closer to that FTP #.

Beth_S

This makes sense. I just had out good old Jack Daniels, and read his explanation of VDOT - which, to simplify, says that the same VDOT, derived from a 5k and a marathon from two different runners indicate an equal level of fitness. If your 5k VDOT is a 46, is means, with the proper training, you could run a marathon at 46 VDOT pace and vice versa. It does not mean I can expect to run a 46 VDOT marathon, if I've been in the Outseason, and haven't run anything longer than an hour and half.

So,we can probably apply the same logic to FTP. Over the long course, Matt A. and Dave B., are getting faster because they are probably riding longer.

Beth's real life data:
I had my biggest VDOT jump ever (5 points) after playing with Daniels' 5-15k plan for while, training for Ragnar. I ran a 21:05 5k as a brick, not trying very hard -- probably because I was specifically training for the thing. It was the least painful VDOT test ever -- probably because most of our VDOT tests are done without specific 5k training. The thing that's really made me faster over longer runs? Long tempo sets. May I grow to love these at much on the bike as I do on the run.

Those first volume bike rides off the OS always are a little painful. They are less painful if I work hard in the OS and it is easier to catch up. If I was an OS slacker on the bike, they hurt even more. I think working on the fast stuff and raising the roof, makes it easier to make the fitness barn wide and be able to reach those long, fatiguing ride goals more easily. But we all still have to ride long to get better and faster at riding long.

Steve West

Posted By Jennifer Burbatt on 06 Sep 2011 12:38 PM

Posted By Matt Ancona on 06 Sep 2011 09:59 AM

David, I think you are on to something here but I'm not smart enough to understand or explain it.



My experience has been that a few years of VO2/FTP work can be huge and really bump your FTP up but then the diminishing returns set in for BOTH types of work and your FTP starts to plateau. Maybe there is a good way to break that plateau but I haven't found it yet for me. I worked my ass of in the OS this year just like every ohter year and only got my FTP a few watts higher then previous OSs (but not higher then my 2010 season peak). But in my 4 hours rides I can hold almost 10 watts higher this year than last year. Therefore 2011 Matt has the same FTP as 2010 Matt, but I am 100% confident (as I have the data from the last 6 weeks of long rides) that 2011 Matt can hold more power for 4 hours then 2010 Matt could.

 

To me, this makes the most sense- kinda similar to vdot tables where the higher your vdot # the closer together the paces get from distance to distance because you are closing that gap.  So maybe essentially at your peak your FTP won't be necessarily higher but instead the other distance power numbers come much closer to that FTP #.

 

Makes sense to me too. 

 

OK – I’m going out on a limb here…. Talking about things I have no expertise in – only simple minded logic and speculation….. So if I am really out of line here feel free to be harsh…..

 

One way to quantify that metric may be to do a 90% test following FTP tests during the OS although I don’t know what kind of fatigue impact this may have on subsequent workouts.

 

What I was thinking was on Saturday’s following each FTP test, you do a steady state 90% effort to see how long you can maintain it before your IF drops below 0.90.  The better you hold your watts close to the .90, the better the test would reflect your ability to sustain your efforts. The metric you track is the total time in minutes from the start of the interval to the point where your IF dips below 0.900.  Kind of like an ABP test of sorts. It should be designed to last between 120 and 180 minutes on the trainer.

 

I don’t think this would be wise for BOP cyclist and may not be good for MOPer’s either.  But for the FOP crowd and those who have hit a plateau, it may be useful.

 

So, stupid idea? What say the WSMs?

 

______ Edit _____

 

After some thought..... yep, dumb idea.......

 

______ End Edit _______

 

Tom Glynn

I think the best way (in general) to do this is to monitor FT. If you read the Coggan stuff and skim the Google wattage forms, the message is that FT is the best predictor of success. There are plenty of metrics like VO2 max, 20 minute power, max heart rate and others. The person with the highest FT usually is the fastest rider. Also the FT is highly trainable and if you work at it, it does go up. Never as high as you want, but it will generally go up with training The EN coaching model focuses very strongly on this metric, as I believe it should. If RnP were to focus on 5 hour power or some other metric, my guess is there would be a whole lot less people around here. Working on FT works. Best way to increase FT per Coggan is to ride at FT a lot. He suggests 2 x 20 intervals at FT. Coggan also says the sweet spot / best place to ride is actually 88-94% of FT. I like the EN 80%-85% just riding around. It's hard enough Guess I'm riding too slow!

David Ambrose

Thx all -
So it sounds like, if one rides a lot at or near FTP, then this should lead to a more shallow fatigue curve, over time, for ride durations which exceed 1 hour. And raising one's FTP will raise one's fatigue curve higher on the y-axis for all durations AND tends to improve (lower) one's fatigue rate in general. Is that a generally accurate statement?

kurshing

It sounds like that is the consensus.

Nemo Brauch

Great discussion here folks, I'm just lurking and learning!

Matt Samojeden

I agree the general theme that focusing on raising your FTP level will resulting in your ability to ride at a higher output for most any time along the continuum. I think there is a secondary adaption factor that can come into play. This is the premise of training the muscles / fibers / systems specifically for the targeted activity. Implying that you will get better at holding higher watts for long periods if you have specific training sessions targeting higher watts for longer periods.

For us time challenged AG’s, I think the EN focus on raising the FTP is the best for most of us. If your FTP increases have stalled, then some long riding at the higher effort levels may break you out of the plateau.

 

One way to see if you are making progress is to use the mean power curve in WKO+ . Pick 2 time frames and see where you power curves have changed. Below is my avg power this season vs last season. The solid line is this season. I see that out in the 2-4 hour rides that this year was stronger than last year (218 w for 3 hr vs 206 w for last year). Other areas were below. Part of that is the difference on workouts this year to last. Last year was a power hack year. This year had some issues with the knee that impacted FTP tests. Knowing these 2 things I see the differences in the curves that reflect this.

 

The gains this year in the 2-4 hr ride section came from a review the power curve up to that point in the season. To this mixed in a review of Coggan’s book comments on what a typical power curve should look like when time period get longer.   I came up with a best guess as to what power levels I should be able to ride for the longer periods. I selected a 2 and 3 and 4 hour workout and did the EN work but stayed focused on hitting my goals overall for the time. Only on the 4 hr ride was I short of my target because of nasty heat levels.

Coach Rich

What we're talking about here is "raise the left, fill the right."



Open up WKO and look at whatever the graph is (mean maximal?) that shows a curve of your powers across all durations:

• Raise the left: do the FTP work that lifts the left side of this graph, raising your 60' power. Lifting this power lifts the height of the entire curve, at all ride durations.
• Fill the right: do longer, harder long rides, increasing the power you can hold for longer and longer rides, or the power at which you can ride a set ride time/distance: 4-5hrs, in our case.

Notes:

• Traditional training (Z1-2 stuff) doesn't know about this curve and just looks at the length of the x-axis -- the length of the ride -- with no regard for how hard/what power is held for that ride, lifting that curve, etc.
• You can lift the curve by riding longer but it is an extremely time inefficient way of doing it.
• Lifting the left is where it's at. There is no fast at 5hrs without fast at 1hrs. All things being equal and assuming a minimum of IM-specific training done by both riders, the rider with the higher 60' power will always win a 5hr TT.
• If you want to improve your power for 5hrs, in my experience you need to target riding harder on long rides. As an EN athlete, this 'harder' is built into your long rides.

Things I've done to improve/increase my watts over longer distances, on training rides, are:

• Lots of long climbs. Just easier, and usually safer, to hold higher watts on long climbs than on flat rides.
• Commit yourself to making the ride harder and harder in the last hour or two of riding.
• Pay attention to your IF and Pnorm on these rides, establish benchmarks that you try to meet or exceed on subsequent rides.
• Related, use ~275-300 TSS, typical IM TSS, as a benchmark. If you're getting in that level of TSS in a ride that's shorter than your typical IM split, you're working harder than IM. And the shorter that ride is with the same TSS, the harder you're going.
• The net is that the sweet spot is about a 4-4.5hr ride. If you're very, very focus, are smart with course (and riding partner) selection, you can get in IM-level TSS in 4-4.5hrs. By definition, riding longer than this decreases the intensity and lowers the watts of the ride. 4-4.5hrs is a good mental envelope to be comfortable with, as the phunometer usually is pegged at 4hrs and becomes more pegged at an accellerated rate as you go beyond 4.5hrs.

In short, there is no secret: ride hard for 4hrs, rinse, repeat. As a power athlete I'm constantly aware of the opportunity cost of admin time, noodling time, dropping in on a group ride I don't know and finding out that their goals for the ride are very different from mine, etc.

jburbatt

So is there a point where you can't raise your FTP any higher and all you are left with is "filling the right"? I'm guessing once you get to the pointy end of your own spectrum it makes sense to spend some more time working on the longer time/higher power even though it's not time effective.

Paul Scholz

when I joined EN almost a year ago, I would have had to get a translation of this string. I love this place and thanks for the insights gang.

Coach Rich

Posted By Jennifer Burbatt on 07 Sep 2011 01:17 PM

So is there a point where you can't raise your FTP any higher and all you are left with is "filling the right"? I'm guessing once you get to the pointy end of your own spectrum it makes sense to spend some more time working on the longer time/higher power even though it's not time effective.

Your FTP can never be too high . In the motorcycle world, the saying is "there is replacement for displacement," ie, engine size, ie FTP.

I'll let you in on a little secret, just between you and me: my FTP has been maxed out at about 300-305w on the TT bike since about 2003. I started riding a bicycle in June of 1999, didn't really train in an organized fashion until about...March or April 2000. In those three years, me and a friend, Jon Pedder, absolutely shattered ourselves 1-2x/wk on the Santa Fe Dam in Irwindale: 3 miles, horseshoe shapped, dead flat, can see for ahead of you for miles. We basically drag raced back and forth, many intervals ending with dry heaves, dizzy, gasping for air, etc. At the same time we did lots of long hard rides, usually a function of him needed to be back by 11a and us thinking we needed to ride 100-120 miles x 2 each weekend, so we'd pretty much TT 100-120 x 2 every weekend.

A few notes:

• All it takes to build your FTP is work. Hard, hard, eyeballs bleeding, tongue in the spokes work.
• Once you build it, you got it. For example, my current 305w FTP means my out of shape, start of the season fatass fitness FTP is about 270w, still pretty good.
• Once you got it, you can get it back much faster than it took you to build it in the first place. For example, I can go to 270w to ~290-295w in about 8-10wks. But eeking out those last 10w probably takes another 8-10wks and due to the length of the entire time span of going from 270-305w, me sharpening the pointy end of that FTP is happening around high volume, high intensity running, swimming, etc. It's tough. This is why it's very, very valuable to end the season, take 2-4wks sorta off, maybe lose about 10w and restart that building process at 290w vs 270w and push that FTP work in the OS where it only has to live side by side with OS-flavor running, not HIM or IM flavor. I've personally never accomplished that because my interest in my own training and racing comes and goes but I hope to keep the ball rolling this winter.
• At some combination of FTP, w/kg, absolute watts, relative run and swim fitness, you begin to reach a point of diminishing returns. We'll see how I do this weekend (on the plane right now) but I'm at 155lb, 305w, 4.3w/kg...but a 50-51 VDot. Clearly my bike is "strong enough" and I need to address my run as I have much more potential upside there.

This is why I think the next evolution of EN-flavor season planning is to break up a year long season as:

• 3-4mo addressing your weak sport, as soon after your current season ends as you are mentally able to handle (ie, before you lose a ton of fitness). Other sport (bike or run) is put in pure maintenance mode...if even that.
• ~3mo switching to your strength, put the sport above in maintenance or volume + frequency mode
• Exit that ~7-8mo block with a much improved former-weak sport, hopefully lifetime fitness in your former-strong sport (ie, I've pushed past my 305w FTP to 315-320w).
• Put your tri-hat on for the last 3-4mo before your race.

This is above is how I'm looking at my '11-12 as either focused on WI again or Kona.

brandonsaid

Does "lifting the right" side of the mean maximal curve mean you have the ability to run stronger off the bike?

When I first started riding with power I could never finish a ride with additional Z3 work because I was just way too tired after the Z4 intervals. This meant my IF would never exceed .8 on longer rides and kept thinking how in the world people could push a .85 IF in a 4 hour ride. Fast forward about 4 months and now I can finish with an IF over .8 and feel stronger when I run off the bike.

So during an IM training block when we are seeing a limited increase in FTP, should we see the slope of our mean maximal curve flatten out as we build endurance? Or am I just over thinking this whole thing? Probably just boils down to ride hard and run harder.

Coach Rich

Brandon, yes.

It stands to reason that if you want to get better at a thing, you need to do that thing. Ergo, if you want to get better at riding longer (which in our world means pushing higher and higher watts for your longer rides), you need to focus on pushing higher watts on your longer rides.

Two ends of this conversation:

• EN Athlete exiting the OS: no rides longer than about 1.5hrs, has made great gains in his/her FTP/60' power and those gains will absolutely express themselves in 2, 3, 4, 5hr rides, even though they haven't ridden longer than 90' all winter. This is the effect of lifting FTP = lifting the height of the entire curve = more watts at all ride distances. But the downward slope of that curve, from left to right, is steeper than it will be in on Sept 10, after months and months of tri-specific long rides. But the smart EN athlete knows the key, the root of all of this, is a higher FTP. Period, end of story. The rest will come later.
• The Outside EN Athlete: only measures/tracks one ride variable -- time. I sit on the bike longer and longer with no regard for how much work, am I doing more work, am I riding harder/at higher watts this week vs last week. Limited to no gains in 4-6hr power because they are basically doing the same thing, the same work, week after week, not forcing their body to adapt other than ass and neck getting better at sitting on the bike.

But come race day, in my experience, both athletes are pretty fit. Regardless of what they did, how they trained to get there, most athletes treading water at 6:58am are pretty fit. It's then all about execution.

Now, sit back and think of all the tools we have in here around race execution. Those are tools and, more imporantly, a perspective that most other athletes do not have. As such they most often attribute a bad race to poor fitness...something was lacking in their training. In my experience it's more often a result of poor execution, not fitness. So when you say "I can't run well off the bike," my first question is to ask how you paced the bike and the first x miles of the run, not to talk about some magical fitness adaptation that happens when you do double top secret workouts.

What you describe as getting better at riding higher and higher IF's for long rides and running well is called just becoming more fit. It just happens but we like to think that we (PnI, EN) do it in a smart, well thought out, organized, time efficient, don't do the stupid shit we did manner .

kurshing

@Rich - I would love to see some guidance on some single sport focus blocks like you mentioned.

I have finished my season and am really killing the bike, trying to let myself relax on the run (but am unsure how much I feel comfortable sidelining the run as I don't want to lose anything). I am doing IM TX next year and have been toying with how and when to put some run focus back into everything - yes...I realize I am a long way out - but since we haven't really has any guidance in this area, I have been tentative around pulling the plug on everything but the bike.

I figured, in the winter months (Jan-Feb/early March), I could get a lot of run focus work just via OS.

Keep us updated as to your thoughts/plans related to this sport specific training idea!