Chapter 07Field Notes
The science behind your riding, one principle at a time.
Every week has a job.
No ride makes you fit. No week does either. Fitness is built in blocks of weeks, each with a job, in an order that matters. The order has a name. Periodization.
01 · The principle
Four kinds of week. One job each.
Base builds the engine. Build raises the ceiling. Peak sharpens it. Recovery lets it all land. Put them in order, week after week, and fitness compounds. Ride the same week every week and it stalls.
Base
Build the engine.
Long, mostly easy hours. The ability to ride all day.
Build
Raise the ceiling.
Intensity arrives. The hard days start to count.
Peak
Sharpen.
Less volume, same intensity. Fatigue drains, Form appears.
Recovery
Absorb.
Half the load, nearly all of it easy. Where the fitness actually arrives.
Race
Spend it.
The day you built the year for. Nothing new gets trained here.
Skip one and the next has nothing to stand on. Intensity without base is fatigue. Peak without build is just a rest.
02 · The unit of training
Three weeks up. One week down.
Inside every phase, the same rhythm. Three weeks of rising load, then one week at half. The recovery week is not a break from training. It is where the fitness arrives.
One block · weekly TSS target
Peak week = 720, this athleteEach build week asks a little more than the last. Enough to progress, not enough to spike.
The fourth week drops to half the peak. Scheduled, not earned.
Ill or travelling? No target. A week you haven't labelled is read as Build.
Load breaks you down a little. Rest rebuilds you a little stronger. Fitness rises during the rest, not during the training. Skip the fourth week and you keep breaking down without ever cashing in.
03 · Phase and shape
The same week can be right or wrong. The phase decides.
Chapter 06 gave every week a shape. A Threshold week is the right answer in Build and the wrong one in Recovery. Same week, different season, different verdict.
Base
Mostly easy, on purpose.
Long rides get longer. Intensity is a garnish.
Shape: Base or Pyramidal
Middle heavy is a question
Build
Now the hard days count.
Two or three hard days a week, easy around them. This is where the ceiling moves.
Shape: Pyramidal or Polarized
Threshold is legitimate here
Recovery
Less. Really less.
Half the load, almost all of it easy. A rest week that didn't rest is the one to look at.
Shape: Base
Anything hard is a flag
04 · Is it working?
Three checks the coach runs for you.
Fitness · CTL ramp
+5CTL points a weekRising too fast
CTL climbing 5+ points per week. You are adding load faster than your body can absorb it. It looks like progress, but it can end in illness, injury or overtraining.
Form · TSB
−30TSBToo deep in the red
TSB below −30 is overtraining. Fatigue has outrun Fitness by so much that the next hard session costs more than it returns. Rest, whatever the plan says.
Fitness · CTL ramp
0CTL change, 3 weeksFlat
Three weeks without a rise, outside a recovery week, means the load isn't big enough to change anything. The phase is on the calendar but not in your legs.
05 · How FORM does it
You name the week. FORM holds you to it.
Two settings, and the season is yours. In Settings you set your peak week TSS. In the Training Directive you give every week a type, in any order you like: stack Build weeks back to back before a big block, or cycle Base to Peak and start again. FORM works out the target for each week type from your peak, proposes the work, and reads the result against the week you chose.
Week type · Training Directive
One athlete's last eight weeks
Two Base weeks back to back, then Build, Build, Peak, Recovery. Then a single Build before resting again. All chosen by the athlete. All held to by FORM.
Periodization
×This week
183/ 360 TSS
177 TSS remaining to hit target.
TSS targets by phase
The target follows the week.
A Recovery week is measured against 360, not against last week's 720.
The workout follows the phase.
The coach checks your readiness first, the week type second. A red morning beats a Build week.
The shape is read against the phase.
Hard riding in a Recovery week is the only flag. FTP work in Build is called legitimate.
The calendar keeps you honest.
Four weeks without a Recovery week and the coach says so, unprompted.
Name the week and it works for you.
One word on the calendar and everything falls into place: the target, the workout the coach proposes, the way your rides get read.
Three weeks of asking a little more, one week of letting it land. Do that, and you'll be fitter and faster in no time.
Next chapter: Hit, drift, miss. What FORM estimates before you ride, what it saw after, and the gap between.
Field Notes · Chapter 07 · Every week has a job.← 06Next · Chapter 08 · Hit, drift, miss →