Managing Deficit, Freshness and Improvement Rate

General
1

After a bit of advice on how to manage my deficit, freshness and improvement rate. I’ve been following a moderate -1 improvement rate recently and I am now at 3.5 stars. The races I’m training for are four 2 man team trials spread over two weeks towards the middle/end of May. Things had been going quite well until this last week. I unfortunately injured my sacroiliac joint lifting at work, so I haven’t been able to spend any time outdoors this week, I also had the Astrazeneca Covid vaccine on Thursday. Since then I’ve felt tired and my HRV has gone down and my heart rate has increased when I take my reading every morning since.

I would normally do a long endurance ride on a Sunday which would take care of most of the deficit, this currently stands at 270 today, but given all of the above and the fact the weather is awful I don’t really think a four hour ride outside is the best option. I’m curious as to how other people would manage this situation, I have my first time trial of the season next weekend , a 10 mile flat affair, which I’m only really using for race practice (but still would be nice to do well) so would quite like to be in reasonable shape for that, I’m okay with carrying some fatigue in to it though.

As I have been following the Xata advice quite closely over the last few weeks I’m not sure now exactly how to proceed, my freshness has now been yellow for more than a couple of weeks, on the days it is blue I have done a HIIT session as recommended but then it turns back to yellow again.

My thinking is to reduce my improvement rate, or even take a couple of days off, and then ramp it back up again to peak for the end of May. I’m not sure by how much or how long though, so any suggestions would be most welcome.

Screenshot (37)
Screenshot (37)1366×768 84.3 KB

2

I would take days off until your HRV and resting HR are back to normal and then do a few easy days and see how it feels. Your body has to learn to fight a virus and repair your injured joint, training on top of that does not seem wise. Some more recovery time could be good for your performance as well.

Just my 2c, I’m not training for races so what do I know? But I think being healthy might be good for training for races :wink:

I wish you a speedy recovery and fun racing!

1 Like
3

You could dial down IR so you don’t have to stare at the deficit :slight_smile: then dial it back up when recovered.
Keep in mind the way XATA works is any deficit is absorbed within the rolling seven day cycle so if you ignore it and keep training the figure doesn’t carry forward as something you need to make up.
How often have you used the freshness feedback slider when predicted freshness doesn’t match how you actually feel?
At 3-1/2 stars With four BT’s in 4 weeks you can probably afford a few days off. :wink:
Or consider active recovery workouts (search the library for “active”) or just ride well below LTP in Slope mode.

1 Like
4

Thanks, I’ve dropped IR down to maintenance. I managed to get out for a decent couple of hours when the weather broke this afternoon, felt okay. I usually have Monday’s off anyway so I’ll see how I feel on Tuesday. I think I’ll most likely leave IR at maintenance next week, consolidate what I’ve got ahead of next weekends TT. That’s one of the great things about Xert compared to a cookie cutter plan, despite making changes I don’t actually feel I’m behind or missing workouts, rather using the flexibility of Xert to get the best training possible despite having to make changes along the way.