Ive posted a few times here on how you can use the Performance Management Chart to

manage your training with topics on CTL (fitness), ATL (fatigue), and TSB (form). If you
are unfamiliar with these three TrainingPeaks terms you can find brief definitions here. A
topic Ive never written about before is how you can use TSB on the PMC to manage your
training throughout the season to achieve what you are aiming for at any given time.

The accompanying chart (click to enlarge) for Dave Schell, a TrainingPeaks employee, shows
his training for an entire year. The jagged lines are CTL (blue), ATL (fuchsia), and TSB
(yellow). What I want to focus on with his chart is TSB. Thats a proxy for form, or in
another word, freshness. Basically, it has to do with race readiness. As the yellow TSB line
falls on the chart Dave is becoming less freshhes losing form. As the line rises, Dave is
becoming more freshcoming into form. When TSB is above the dashed yellow line in the
middle of the chart Dave is on form. But if that line gets too high, as it was at the end of
his race season around 9/1 to 10/1 on the right end of the chart, then he is very fresh, but
has lost so much fitness (CTL dropped precipitously) that he is certainly not ready to race.
All of this is how TSB is typically used to monitor training. But Id like to show you another
way to think about TSBand help you manage your training.
On the right side of the chart is the yellow TSB legend. Notice that theres a 0 (zero) in
that legend about in the middle. Thats the balance point for TSB. Above that is positive
TSB/form ("fresh") and below it is negative TSB/form ("not fresh"). The more positive (the
higher above 0), the fresher Dave is. The more negative (dropping below 0), the more tired
Dave is.
Now notice the circles also on the right side legend. Ive put circles around five, numerical
TSB zones. Each of these represents a zone indicating a stage in the training process.
Those colored zones are also indicated by similarly colored straight lines across the chart.
Ive put a title in each zone. Ill walk you through each of them.
Lets start at the bottom with the red High Risk Zone. Back on the right side legend again
you can see this zone is below -30 TSB. I call it High Risk because if you spend much time
here you will create great fatigue and are flirting with extreme overreaching that would

likely become overtraining if continued for too long. Notice that Dave was in this zone
several times throughout his season, but only one episode was long enough to be riskyin
the last few days of March and early April. This represents a period of very hard training for
Dave. In early April he backed off by doing easier training and his TSB began to rise
indicating he was moving toward freshness. Thats exactly the way you should react when
you find yourself deep in the High Risk Zone. This is the time to reduce training so that you
exit the red zone quickly. How quickly you need to react depends on your unique capacity
for training stress. Its usually best to stay there no more than a few days at a time. You may
only get into this zone two to four extended times in a season with an R&R break ending
each of them.
The green circle and horizontal line mark the Optimal Training Zone. On the TSB legend
the green circle covers the range of -10 to -30. Notice that Dave is spending quite a bit of
TSB time here throughout the season. Thats good because, as the title indicates, this is
typically when the most effective training occurs.
Going up the legend, the grey circle (-10 to +5) and grey line indicate what I call the Grey
Zone. You dont want to spend too much training time here because theres not much
happening that will improve fitness. Youre sort of at a plateau in training. This is typically
the zone you are in during a rest and recovery week, when tapering for an A-priority race,
and when returning to hard training following an extended break.
The Freshness Zone (blue) extends from +5 to +25. Some place in this zone is probably
where you should be on race day when coming into form for an A race or at the end of the
season when taking an extended break (the Transition period). You can see that Daves
yellow TSB line is in this zone just a few times for races and when entering end-of-season
recovery (about 9/1 to 10/15). Freshness is fully realized when in this zone, but how high
an athlete may want to be here on race day varies. Some athletes race better when high in
the zone around +20 to +25, and others when low in the zone at about +5 to +10. Thats one
of thing you can only determine from trial and error.
The orange Transitional Zone is typically only entered at the end of the season when in
the Transition period. The only other times you may unfortunately find yourself in this zone
is when you have an extended break due to injury or illness. In other words, this is the zone
of little to no training. Its very safe, but fitness is also very low.
So thats it. I should also point out that the numerical ranges Ive described here for each
zone will work for most athletes, but there are many outliers for whom the zones are either
too high or too low. Adjustments should be made based on experience. This is just another
reason why having a smart coach is a good idea. He or she can manage all of thisand a lot
moretaking the burden off of you.