OVERTRAINING: §2 Count your Losses
Training Peaks Metrics
If you can’t measure it, you can not manage it.
Luckily we live in the world where we have access to technology that allows us to measure different body metrics. This is especially helpful for athletes who are looking to understand their bodies more. Of course, you should not solely rely on your watch or some sensor data and primarily go by the feel. I use sensor data to find correlations between the way I feel and perform. It also allows me to learn my body faster, rather than going blind, solely relying on my internal subjective data.
I gather all my data from the following sensors:
TrainingPeaks is a software platform I use to analyze the data collected and my training.
Performance decline I experience seem to be mostly noticeable in my cycling training.
My bike performance peaked around March 19′ and after that gradually went down. The screenshot above shows my 1 hour peak power for each months, starting from February 2019.
60 minute power
March: 270 Watts
Today: 189 Watts
Power Loss: ~80 Watts
March vs August
According to Training Peaks, my Power profile is at the world class level. This is definitely encouraging, but I definitely don’t feel like International Pro at the moment.
Around April, after few miserable workouts, my coach started to reduce my Training Load gradually, hoping that it will give my body the opportunity to recover. Since then my overall training load was cut more than in half. Did not help and we’ve got what we’ve got.
VO2 Max
This is another metric that worth paying attention to. The trend here is not as promising as I would like it to be either.
It is obvious now that I am doing worth than in early Spring. Slowly, over the span of 5 months my performance been into the free fall. Something needs to change.