TSS Ramp Rate

Most guys using power and WKO+ look at overall CTL and TSB and want CTL to climb higher and higher until they need to taper for a peak event. This means that TSB goes lower and lower (more negative). But there seems to be a fine line in everyone in how fast you can increase your weekly CTL by accumulating training stress each day. According to the wattage forum the range for most folks falls between 3-8 CTL points per week. For example, if my CTL on Monday is 60, then I would have to accumulate blank amount of TSS that week to raise it 8 points to 68 by the end of the week. The point being that after 8 CTL points difference (ramp rate) that week people often get sick.

Guys who are top caliber and rack up 100+ TSS per day can easily over extend and find themselves ill. But, most people using power know themselves and how much stress they can accumulate before this happens.

How do you ramp it up that much? Well you would have to do any type of workout that would give you a significant amount of training stress on average each day to move it blank points.

Right now I am at a CTL of 73 tss/d. If I want to ramp it up to 75 tss/d by this Sunday, I have to average at least 84 tss/d for the 7 days. Depending on workout goals and ride length/intensity this can be accomplished. But if the goal is to increase CTL over a short period of time it is a risk to ramp up at a maximum amount and chance getting sick or burnt out.

In looking back in my log since January, there has only been 1 week where I ramped at 5 CTL/week. Most of the time I ramp at 1-3 CTL/week and sometimes if it is a rest week or I get sick, the ramp rate is negative.

If I want to have a chance to do well in a peak event and understand from previous experience how much CTL I need before a taper, I could map out my CTL ramp rate and TSS/week just like many folks use periodization (base, build, peak) and get to my goal before the event at my pace.

Now throw on top of this being able to increase your FTP over time as well and you have to superimpose the correct workouts.

For example, I raised my FTP last summer for cross season from 300w in June to 315w by September. That is pretty slow and if you look at my log my ramp rate was also really slow. But for me it was based on the amount of time I had to train and what my 41 year old body could do. I was using specific workouts designed to prepare me for cross and the goal was not really maximum CTL before cross season since I trained all season and peaked in December.

Personally, I would like to see my FTP at the same amount but I would like to increase my CTL to 80 by the end of the summer. These are silly statistical goals but fun to experiment.