Estimating TSS for reduced workouts

Inspired by Neil Doering’s gallant Knighthood attempt (shared on the Facebook page), an idea to do this myself began to germinate in my mind. Starting with the upcoming ToS I have to understand how much I can handle. I have faith that the prep plan will get me to the starting line, but I’ll need to plan my workouts, so I have this question.

Each plan has an expected TSS, if I reduce the IF of the workout, should I expect the TSS to be reduced by the same amount? For example, if a workout has TSS of 80 and I reduce the intensity to 75%, does that mean the planned TSS will be 60?

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TSS scales by square of IF (NP/FTP). 75% intensity would lead to 56% for TSS. But then TSS is a Totally Silly Score so don’t pay too much attention to it if HIIT workouts are in the mix.

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While it is true that TSS is misleading with HIT workouts, I have found that TSS is, for me, a useful indicator to predict fatigue several weeks in the future.

If a future TSS score corresponds to a level that I know will fatigue me, I will be fatigued. I will then adjust my future plans. Depending on the amount of HIT training, I might fatigue earlier, but at least I have an upper limit for planning.

@Heretic , you captured my thoughts perfectly. TSS is not a perfect measure but I find it a useful guideline for predicting fatigue associated with workouts in the future. I’m just looking for a way to predict the TSS from workouts if I reduce the intensity.

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