Training peaks as a tool not just a diary

Training peaks is the most commonly used and mis used software in the endurance world. It has amazing functionality and making use of it more fully will help you maximise training outcomes. Time is a major constraint for many and there is always lots of chat about how best to use the time. The subject can be confusing and in depth and the 'answers' are not the same for everyone. This post will tackle the 'big picture' using data from athletes that we coach. This may spark some interesting chat!

Lets take a look at CTL ( Chronic Training Load) as a marker or an estimate of 'fitness'. I would say that its more a measure of consisteny mainly driven by volume - hours spent vs intesnity. So you can drive a huge CTL with copious volume and be vey consistent but that doesn't always mean you are fitter than someone with a lower CTL.

CTL will of course move at different times of the year but the guys that built the idea have attributed labels to the levels :

Beginners <40

Recreational 40- 80

Competitive 80-120

Elite 120 -150+

Ironman (sic) 145 -185 ( with Kona Qualifiers regularly 175+)

This is fairly one dimensional so rather than using this as a rigid blueprint it can be a useful guide and it is multifactorial if we consider race distances, level of a race and of course age of the competitor. When I first came across this number the Ironman one kinda disturbed me - 175 CTL would be the equivilant of 17.5 hours at threshold intentsity which is a tad nuts so looking at it another way 25 hours of zone 2 work. Still pretty hefty.

So unless you are a professional or have the time to train like one then you aren't doing that. I took a look at our stable of athletes and split it into broad categories in a mix of runners, cyclists and triathletes and looked to see where the CURRENT CTL values are overlayed with where it would be in peak season from historical seasons.

March Peak

Juniors - Older juniors 100-124 130 Effectively elite athletes

Youths 65 - 75 90 All still at school 14 - 17

Top Age groupers 93 -123 130 25-65 including XTRI and Sprints

Good age groupers 65 -137 145 There is an outlier in here

IM finishers 76 - 93 130 As opposed to competitive

Recreational 47 - 72 80 Taking part

Beginners < 50

The numbers themselves only paint part of the picture - some are higher than others depending on when the winter base period started and how things have gone on building - illness, accidents etc.

The numbers then do appear to hold fairly close to the TP assertions and that does indicate that 'volume' does play a very significant role in 'performance'. There are several caveats and it is far more nuanced than a simple post can cover. It would appear that if you want to perform you must do the work ( who knew?) but lets have a look at some historical race results that may go slightly contrary.

In single sports such as running and cycling at Youth and young junior level we have seen literally dozens of race wins, podiums and national champions at CTL levels of 65 and 75. Older Juniors into seniors nobody wins anything under 100 CTL.

Top age groups - again national champs, Euro and Worlds medals, XTRI wins, Kona Qualification all achieved with CTL never having exceeded 135. My fav example is Chris who won 4 x XTRI races and his CTL was never above 122 - not even once. The other end of that scale out of hundreds of XTRI competitors only 2 finished the race with a CTL of less than 100. The two that did - both had pedigree ( years of experience with sub 10 hour IM in the palmares).

So what are we concluding here? Yes volume of training has a real bearing but the structure of that volume and people's ability to handle it varies greatly. Is it possible to perform well on lower levels of training - yes it is . Training consistently then is a good investment if you have goals. If you don't really have goals then whatever floats your boat is fine!

If you have a big goal- maybe an Age group podium or a medal at a national champs it does look like that won't happen with a CTL under 100 unless you are a youngster.

4 comments