Tuesday, September 27, 2011

Log: 27/09/2011

Detraining (in brief):

There are a number of studies out there that have demonstrated the immediacy of detraining upon cessation of training. Detraining occurs as quickly as 3 days after training ends and within 1-3 weeks, performance can be expected to drop by 25-30%.

The mechanisms behind these fitness losses are equally interesting: In just one week of training, athletes can lose 50% of additional mitochondria produced during 5 weeks of training. Once lost, up to 4 weeks of additional training are needed to regain this mitochondria (Olbrecht, 2000). This 4:1 rule is pretty commonly touted among coaches and seems well supported by the literature.

Similarly, glycogen stores rapidly decrease upon cessation of training, with losses of 40-60% to be expected following 4 weeks of de-training (Wilmore and Costill, 1999). This has direct implications on the athlete’s work tolerance upon resuming training. Even following 1 week of de-training, the athlete will often not reach pre-break training volume until 1 month or more of training resumption. (These words are courtesy of Alan Couzens).


Progress (in brief):

In relation to the above, where used as a rough guide - I should take in the order of 8+ weeks (well, a minimum of 8 weeks) to regain lost fitness. I'm 6 weeks along that journey at present - and interestingly the average output in watts over threshold intervals for each given week has climbed by 2% week on week.

Note - week 1 there was no threshold work, week 2 serves as the baseline, so really it's a measured increase of 2% per week over the last 4 weeks. Average is based on ~two hours of accumulated threshold work within each week. To be more specific - only time during threshold specific intervals contribute - each of these contributing intervals is of a minimum 20min duration.

If the trend continues, then I will have regained the approximated 12-15% loss in another 2-3 weeks. I don't know if this will pan out - as experience has shown that as I get closer to previous performance ceilings, the gains get harder to yield.. Time will tell :)


Back to the Log:

Joe tweeted yesterday "In order to do really hard workouts you must first do really easy workouts. Balance is the key to training."


CTL has still been climbing fairly aggressively and am starting to feel it. Am just at the precipice of where CTL ramp will start to plateau given the average TSS/d sustained week on week. CTL currently 110 and will bring it up to 120 over the next four weeks. The ramp will tail off to +2 CTL per week soon so I hope to be generally a little more fresh and better able to smack down sessions as designed..

Saturday track racing resumes in 2 weeks - can't wait. Timing for the L5+ work (of which there will be plenty) is good, so it fits into the overall scheme of things. Downside is Blacky velo will now be regularly inhabited with ppl holding track dedicated training sessions - sprint or whatever, which means I'll no longer have free reign... Harsh. Really going to have to just get up early and avoid any clashes - which will beat the heat too, so is not all bad..

Club just reported that 130k has been allocated by the council to go toward track repairs, and that work will likely commence post summer.

Should have my Look 595 rebuilt this week. Have really settled into setup of Giant so will need to set up fit of Look to be as close to Giant as possible - at least to start with..


26/09/2011 - Trainer

Super easy 20min on trainer. TSB is way low after last week.


27/09/2011 - Road | Velo

2x20 scheduled for today. Got 5 min into 1st 20 and knew I was flailing around in a pit of fatigue. I generally start the 1st 20 at FTP to gauge where I'm at on the day and then adjust from there. Today I had bad feelings in the legs and decided to wind it back to 92%. Rode out the interval at 92% and then ditched the velo - headed for the road and tapped out the remainder of the session at AeT. Plan says Mid-Week Muntanyes tomorrow - sacrifice intensity today for better quality tomorrow..


2 comments:

  1. Great post Lumpy, very imformative & great food for thought. So much so I sending bighorn here to read it. Thanks for sharing the knowledge bro. :)

    Duke

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  2. Cheers Duke :) I reckon you are doing a great job helping BH realise his potential.
    Hoping I can keep turning over the right mix of work and rest to keep yielding the much needed gains on the road to recovery.

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