I don’t know what Strava is doing, but it’s not the same as CTL. Not even close. I use intervals.icu to track CTL, or Training Peaks of course if you’re willing to pay.
Ok, the above numbers I quoted were from Strava, and the manually entered FTP. From intervals.icu:
Second peak of 2019 – the CTL was high, as was the FTP (I also did that at 71 kg). But, I felt fried.
End of 2019-20 Winter Base. Muscle added from rowing and the gym. Lots of volume, but not a ton of fatigue because of the gradual ramp rate.
First peak of 2020. FTP a little lower (but within the model’s range of error, so really no different), but 5min and 1min power are up from more muscle mass. I needed that CTL drop because the hard days were darned hard.
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I’ve peaked in July 2018 just past 100ctl. I had done mainly TR but did some long group rides in May and June to really get up there. I’m currently in the 70’s and I would say for me I start to really feel like me with my CTL in the 80s and above. I know they say CTL doesn’t equal fitness, per se, but I think everyone has a rough area of CTL (assuming not too deep in the TSB hole) where one really starts to feel in form compared to themselves at a lower CTL. For me, ideally I’d be in the 90s range for the summer riding season.
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My CTL hovers at about 125 and has been pretty consistently in the ballpark for the last 6 months. Coming from about 110 at the beginning of that period.
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Ah, I see now. This is completely new to me, this is mine:
You guys are all so much more trained than I am. I am jealous. But to my credit, I have only been doing TR since October 2019, so only recently I have been training very structured and systematic. Hopefully the gains will come!
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It should also be noted that CTL is category driven, if you will. A Grand Tour rider will have a much higher CTL than a World Cup track racer. Just like it’s not all about FTP, it’s also not all about CTL.
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Correct.
@iLLucionist driving CTL up is something done more in base and build. The intent is to drop a rider off with as high a CTL prior to speciality training (race specific intervals) to get the most out of that phase. You may see a drop in CTL and as @Captain_Doughnutman stated winning races is not determined by this number just as FTP doesn’t predict the race.
With that said, for each individual, it’s more advantageous to have a higher CTL prior to starting intervals. Same is true for FTP.
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highest was low 90s about 3 years ago. Then fixed some non-cycling issues and lost a bit of focus. Working my way back up the CTL ladder!
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Is there a way to get your CTL number from TrainerRoad?
CTL is an exponentially weighted moving average from the last 42 days. So the workout you did yesterday will affect it more than the workout you did 42 days ago. If you look at the TSS chart in TR it will give you a 6 week (42 day) rolling average for both weekly and daily average. The daily average will be roughly similar to your CTL but not quite the same because on TR all of those 42 days are going to be weighted equally in the average.
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There are excel sheets out on the internet (see two links below, there are others) that you can manually import past/future rides into. I use it more for seeing what my upcoming work load looks like (am I being too ambitious or am I not putting in enough work). I generally go by feel, but its a nice way to plan.
As for me, I try to ramp as high as I have time for. This year I actually started early and hit 75 (plan to go higher since there is no racing in sight), but past years I peaked at 60 and then dropped to 6-12. Lack of consistency has killed my gains/race results, but hopefully I can maintain the motivation.
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I am right there with you. Current fitness of 47 at the end of SSB2. Starting general build LV + 1 extra z2 ride and a couple short runs a week and intervals.icu has be getting up to 53 or so. Figure it will go up a bit more when outside riding is a bit more of my time.
I ditched TP in favor of using the TR calendar about a year ago, and honestly, getting away from tracking CTL was one of the best things I’ve done for my training (IMO). Way too easy to get caught up in pushing up a number that really doesn’t mean that much. Just my 2 cents.
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I’d say ramp up the CTL to 10-15 points higher than it would need to be for your goal race – presuming that doesn’t dig a fatigue hole that you can’t get out of, and then hit a nice positive TSB, after a rest week. Hit that peak at the end of base, take a week to shed fatigue, then work on peaking – power should go up as freshness gradually increases and CTL goes gradually down over the 8 week Build.
CTL is a proxy for fitness. How much TSS/day you are managing. Managing being key.
Pushing a number up just to push it up is not productive by itself, true. What one does to peak for an event is critical. CTL is one component of this. Not perfect but, an awesome piece of information to help paint the bigger picture.
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Where do you find that fitness summary report on TrainingPeaks?
So much what @KorbenDallas said.
You can’t look at CTL in isolation. Ok, CTL may be 130, but if you’re unable to hit high wattages in workouts, you’re getting ground down, and your TSB is -40, all that CTL means is that you’ve loaded yourself silly and you’re probably riding like crap.
CTL is meaningful only in its relation to ATL, and the resulting TSB. CTL of 130 and your TSB has not gone under -10 for two months? That might be a sign that you’ve built great fitness. Or it might be a sign that you’ve carried too high of a CTL for too long and you’re going to crash – you also have to put CTL at any point in the year in the context of the whole training year.
Ramp depends on so, so may things.
Best to see CTL as a result, not a goal. Take on a load that you can adapt to, recover regularly, vary the stimulus every few weeks, and let CTL manage itself. Like all power numbers, it’s descriptive, not prescriptive.
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It’s at the top of the feed on the iOS app. You can set the date range however you want.
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Relating back to own scores:
99 CTL built on SSBHV and SPBHV – TBS range -30 to -70 (trending down) for 1 month
86 CTL built on Z2HV – TBS range 0 to -30 (stable oscillation) for 4 months
One was completely sustainable, the other was out of control.
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