Power is dropping. - Overtraining?

[willhub]

Hello,

I used to do big miles big hills some years ago, but it all came to a stop in 2016 really, since then I've just been commuting to work, 3-8 miles into work and then 17-20 miles home, not every day, some days I get the tram, but I'd be carrying heavy panniers.

Anyway, come to the lockdown and my cycling motivating has came back, working from home and reduced hours on a saturday mean more time for cycling and now I want to get back in it.

I've gone from above to doing 40-50 mile rides, usually at a minimum I'm doing 25 miles, generally in the high 18 low 19 speeds, and I've started doing hilly rides 30-50 with 2000-2500ft of climing.

My power averaged are between 200 and 245 at the moment, but I've had a quick look at Garmin last night and found, kind of what I felt, over the past 4 weeks my normalised power has been dropping, and it's not at the lowest.

Yesterday I went on a ride into the peaks, 50 miles just under 2500ft of climbing, and I absolutly tanked in the last 20 miles, my legs just wouldn't go and my average power just dropped to almost 200.

My recovery "appears" to be substantially quicker at the moment, I did 35 miles the day before yesterday, flat, then the 50 miles yesterday.

But even when recovered, sometimes if you're fresh you get a sense that you're legs are not tired but then you get onto the bike and you just can't get going, I feel that sometimes.

Is this a sign of overtraining? Not sure what steps I should take, it's hard to avoid cycling, normally I could just find something else to do on a rest day, or even take advantage of a rainy day and stay indoors, but neither of that is possible at the moment.

Any suggestions?

 

[screenman]

My resting heart rate is always a good indicator for me, I normally swim a lot, gym, yoga and cycle at 64 it would be easy to over do it.

 

[BurningLegs]

I agree with the point about heart rate.
I don’t measure my resting HR so while that may well be a good indicator, I tend to use my max HR as an indicator.
When over-trained, I can be pushing as hard as physically possible but my HR just never gets to my max. After a good rest (a few days minimum and no harm at all in a week off the bike) then max HR is back to normal.

 

[willhub]

About 3 hours after bike ride my HR was 85, this morning it's 56. I don't have HR on bike perhaps I should get a strap that works with my Garmin. Saying that I need a new Garmin equivalent to an edge 705 before this one falls apart

 

[wafter]

You're clearly a more accomplished cyclist than I am, but I think your issue is lack of down time / embarking on your climby 50-miler only a couple of days after doing 35.

My gut tells me you need a little more recovery time before undertaking sizeable rides. FWIW and not that it's necessarily relevant but I've cut my exertion right back to allow me to spend more time on the bike since sitting inside (esp. when the weather's so nice) drives me mental so longer, more frequent rides are the order of the day for me. Tbh it still surprises me how much my legs (and joints ) ache the following day after low intensity rides..

Conversely I'd guess if you're looking to up your power output / build strength rather than endurance you'll be wanting to go with fewer, higher intensity rides.

 

[Slick]

I would agree with the above, I tanked the last 10 miles of my usual leisure route at the end of a month long of doing additional rides due to lockdown and I just stayed off the bike for a couple of days and then had a couple of easy days on the bike before going for it again. Seemed to work for me.

 

[willhub]

I'm wanting to do 2 things really, solo endurance of 70 miles max, that would mean if I ever do a group ride I'll be able to do higher miles. The reason I was to be back to 70 miles solo endurance is so I can do my favourite route from when I was a student, 62 miles 3400ft climbing taking in the sights of the GOYT Valley.

But I do want to get my power output back to the 260 average which was around 300W normalised.

It doesn't seem I'm far off on a good say, but I'm 12.5 to 12.8 stone, in my prime I was whatever 73kg is in stone.

 

[Sharky]

11.5 stone

 

[willhub]

Only a stone not too bad then.

I'm just not used to this doing a hard ride that scrambles my legs then feeling I can cycle the next day, usually I'd need a day rest, my legs feel fine, I feel like I could do a 30 to 40 miles chilled flat today and that's a 3rd day on the trot.

The only difference is i feel i need to stretch and I'm stretching often now.

 

[Ming the Merciless]

Sounds like both your threshold power and endurance have dropped. You are pushing too hard for your current fitness and paying the price. Doesn’t sound like over training (yet) just sounds like you are out of shape in comparison to your expectations.

What happens when you don’t have endurance is that your HR decouples from your power after a time. So to maintain the same HR your power drops or to maintain same power your HR goes up. It can be trained so you can ride further and further before this happens. Long low intensity rides are the key for building this endurance.

For endurance get your long rides in but drop the intensity right down to somewhere around 50-60% of your HRR. Stay disciplined don’t be tempted to cane it to catch someone or get up a hill. Learn to accept these sessions will be slower than a slow thing for you. But they will get faster for same low HR. For the power you are going to need to do some high intensity , above threshold, for about 1/5 of your rides. Make these much shorter rides, no more than an hour. Try and average 21-22 mph or as close as you can during these sessions.

 

[T.M.H.N.E.T]

There's a name from the past

As @YukonBoy said