Couple questions… My coaches in the past always recommended a “rest and test” weekly focus… basically Monday - Friday would be slightly easier… then there would be primers/openers on the day before the test and then saturday we’d let it rip… then sunday we would make up for last volume with an extra long low-end endurance ride.
My other question:
we know that intervals done while MPA is reduced results in more XSS generate compared to the same interval with full MPA. Does a similar rule apply for when you do some intervals in a highly fatigued state? Important example question: It seems to me unlikely that doing a long endurance ride when you already have yellow stars will have the exact same training stimulus when compared to a long endurance ride done with blue or green stars?
It’s a bit more complicated than that of course… I am much more likely to get good adaptations when i do a workout and do a good job with recovery: if i always get massages, stay off my feet a lot, eat enough healthy food and sleep 8 hours a day, the XSS I do will result in more gains than if i do the same XSS and go out drinking late at night eating pizza afterwards. It’d be neat to be able to try to adapt the XPMC to weight the XSS in such a way that when the athlete indicates that they’ve had good indicators like a low stress life with good eating/recovery/sleeping habits would result in more heavily weighted XSS when compared to other rides with the exact same XSS but the subsequent life stress and poor choices were such that it perhaps reduced the amount of adaptions derived from that workout.
Curious as to the answer to your first question as well. , Anecdotally, I’ve seen bigger breakthroughs when rested.
Regarding the second question there are a number of topics open around using HRV what the focus of your training for the day should be. I think it is similar to what you are asking.
Rest-and-test is an old-school guideline for old-school FTP testing protocols (strict intervals).
With Xert your signature is being validated and re-calculated after every activity.
You want to be blue form (fresh) when tackling a BT workout in slope mode, but there is the potential to “test yourself” during any high intensity workout or outdoor ride when the moment presents itself. IE, MPA drawdown during a maximal effort. The rainbow gauge lets you know.
I don’t wait to go green (very fresh) before a BT attempt. I doubt there is a significant difference between fresh vs freshest since Xert doesn’t require a long hard test to validate your signature.
Xert captures what it needs based on how well you perform during maximal efforts when fatigued (TP/PP) and how quickly you recover from those efforts (HIE).
I planned to hang in and just endure the group ride… but felt excited enough and carbed up enough to practice my all out climbing and sprinting techniques on gravel! This resulted in a bronze BT for sprint… woohoo… but my TP still looks ridiculously low…
I went into this ride after a recovery ride saturday but overall high volume and 3 weeks of an aggressive to very aggressive ramp rate. so i’m due for a recovery week. I hope that after letting myself have this recovery week, that my C priority gravel fondo event on 3/19/2022 will let me get a BT that demonstrates my true current TP just trying to hang in with the front group as long as possible!
As you perform the interval (above TP), you become fatigued and Strain rate increases as in the interval progresses. At this time, there’s no difference between doing sub-TP intervals (assuming MPA == PP) in the model, nor is there difference between doing an endurance ride with Yellow stars versus blue/green.
In general, I’ve always thought that carrying too much fatigue will impact an athlete’s ability to express their fitness. Taking a week to freshen up often results in a nice big BT (or feeling really strong on a group ride).