I started with breakfast, after the gym spin bike in 2014-2015.
He has workouts and training plans examples in his book, no need to interpret anything
His point is that Coggan’s co-authors provide those training plans, not Coggan himself. The point is largely academic.
Coggan - physiologist
Hunter Allen - coach
McGregor - both
@nexusone2012 And if you want to really be fluent in this stuff, you need to read or revisit that book. Just don’t stop there because one book is no exhaustive
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You still aren’t 100% sweet spot. You must have some zone 1&2 in the total intensity distribution.
I’ve been doing about 2.5 hours of sweet spot per week within a total of 8-9 hours per week.
Learning is definitely a continuous and never ending process. I think I exhausted myself today scanning the forms and debates on training methodologies. I especially appreciate the podcast recommendations and further books to read. I’ll be busy for a while.
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The amount of seemingly conflicting and authoritative information is overwhelming. It’s why I return to the fundamentals and try to focus on that.
I think the rabbit hole of literature I went down today left me feeling that way. But to me that’s good science, once I think I have a good idea I surely don’t. Being new to the form, I think this place is one of the most awesome collection of some of the most dedicated cycling nerds around. Definitely love the debates!
I guess my question is “Is the Sweet Spot power zone really threshold training?” Like I guess, what makes it threshold training? I understand the %FTP of sweet spot is close to ones FTP, but if I think of my heart rate when doing some of these intervals, it seems like Zone 2.
I’m not claiming to know precisely what my max aerobic heart rate is, but I estimate it to be 159 (MAF method), if it’s said that under these bpm, I’m in Zone 2 for running, is it not fair to then say during a Sweet Spot session, if my bpm is under 159, then I’m in Zone 2? I assume biking and running are different, but I guess what does Zone 2 look like?
I’m doing a plan of my own design.
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When Peter Attia is talking about Zone 2 he’s talking about physiological lactate zones. He’s not referring to the Coggan 7 Power Zones we talk about in cycling.
Peter Attia has a Q&A on Zone 2 exercise where he talks about how the physiological zone 2 he talks about maps to Coggan Zone 3 at approximately 19:10 and 28:00
I mean, I don’t know for sure. But doing a 5K time trial average was 184bpm. And doing a 1800yd time trial for swim it was 170bpm. I don’t really have a cycling hard effort.
I recently did Spruce Knob abs for my first interval at 85% of FTP heart rate bpm was 161, abs for the second it was 157 average. I understand that 85% is much different than 90%.
So I very much can be wrong. But, if one sweet spot workout requires 85% of FTP abs another 90%, are they both not Sweet Spot. Thus, depending on which end you are at, is it not possible for it to be in Zone 2? But please let me know what you think! I think this is a topic of relevance.
The test in the book is 5min all out, short recovery and THEN followed with 20min. That is quite different from standalone 20min effort and is often forgotten.
If we look at most systems/zones, all of them makes sense from the standpoint of their creators, the knowledge they have and the athletes they have worked with. It’s more of a question of accumulating knowledge of different perspectives and making decisions of it rather than focusing on one study or one guru that is hot at that point of time.
Indeed, the first thing I found he wrote in 2003, before the book:
It seems everyone jumps to the shorter 20-min time trial. Because it’s easier.
Looking at the 3rd edition of (I assume latest) Training & Racing with Power Meter, the 5min all out effort is present in testing protocol. It also states, that depending on type of rider you might subtract anywhere in 2-7% from the average 20min power.
Note that this protocol is only one of many ways suggested to establish FTP estimation in the book. Authors also recommend Power Frequency Distribution charts, ie looking at bar chart of athlete’s data and identifying the area of drop off where achieved power becomes much less common; Routine Steady Power, ie steady power that athlete can routinely produce on longer intervals; Normalized Power of races of approximately 1 hour; One Hour Time Trial; Mathematical Modeling, ie CP or Power Duration model.
From my standpoint pretty much any testing protocol will be good as long as one is using it consistently. The longer ones should be better and more precise but then they are also often more draining mentally and might not be something an athlete is ready for early in the season or just after offseason when the ability to suffer is not yet established.
For the ease of use and (low) effort required, I prefer the step test, however, with 2’30" steps of 25w ala Tales from the llama...: How to do a STEP TEST on ZWIFT p/b HPTek instead of 1’ steps. I think MAP from this test is a good enough estimation for VO2max power, ie the value is something majority of athletes should be able to maintain for 5-7min whereas MAP power from 1’ step test is more of a 3’ power.
82.5% of the MAP which is the best 2.5min power from the step test. From my point of view, the % of MAP can be quite personal depending on athlete’s strengths and weaknesses. Longer duration of steps in the test should help somewhat minimize potential high anaerobic capacity’s of an athlete impact to test compared to 1’ step test, however, it’s obviously not nearly ideal.
What I do like is that the MAP power is a valid approximation for VO2max power, and 82.5% of MAP is good enough for me (and probably most people) for FTP as well. Test gives two pretty valid numbers that then can be used to base VO2max or threshold workouts wattages off. I would not use MAP from 1’ step test as a proxy for VO2max power as it is too high for majority of people in my opinion. It should be noted though, that for threshold workouts where goal is to improve lactate clearing capacity, my prescribed target power will be few percentages or just straight 10w lower than 82.5% of MAP. This is because the clearing is already pretty much maxed out this close to threshold and I generally do not want to mix lactate clearing and tolerance workouts (where clearing is ability to reuse lactate as a fuel and tolerance is ability to continue work while with high lactate levels).
To reiterate from my previous post, I do not think that step tests are the most precise way to determine FTP, I do think that longer step tests are good and easy/not very demanding way to get a good enough approximation for FTP and MAP.
I would not use any of these numbers to base wattages for anaerobic capacity training as it is different beasts altogether. Ideally, for a good training prescriptions I would think that an athlete/coach should be aware of their LT1, LT2, VO2max and ~1min max power, this test would only provide approximations for 2/4 numbers. 5" power is useful as well but in shorts sprints, there is not really a pacing aspect, it’s either all out or close to it.
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I would like to try and implement a workout structure/plan along the lines of what they were speaking about in the podcast following this season (as I am committed to seeing how far I can get on my current plan builder efforts for this year) and am looking at how I can go about doing this. The benefits of what they were speaking about are appealing to me at my age and why/how I ride bikes. I ride for fun and gran fondos. I would like to get faster if I can and I can see a means to this end is to become more aerobically fit and an improved aerobic metabolism.
I heard Peter Attia say (in his 3+ hour youtube video in their full discussion) that he does about 6 hours a week of cardio/endurance I believe and 10 hours per week total of exercise. I presume the balance of 4 hours is made up of strength training and a bit of something else maybe.
For the 6 hours per week of endurance I think he does 4-5, 1 hour trainer rides in zone 2 (not including warm up and cool down), then 1 trainer ride where he does 1 min max effort followed by 3 minutes recovery, then repeats that 4-5 times. This all in I can see taking 5.5 - 6 hours with warm ups and cool downs which matches what he said.
This Fall, after my season and a short break, I was planning to re introduce running and swimming into the mix for a bit of a change to keep things interesting.
For the swim and the run I was planning to just do easy for both, all zone 2 only.
For running I was thinking to follow the MAF heart rate guide for running and similar RPE for swimming. That’s it, nothing fancy, all nice and easy steadystate.
This may be 3-4 hours per week.
For the bike I was hoping to do 2-3 TR rides per week. As I will be doing all zone 2 for running and swimming I thought the bike is where I can do some intensity. So for the bike I was thinking I could do:
- Train now and do 1 VO2 session and 1 sweet spot per week
- Or, I could try and do 2 VO2 sessions (this may be possible if the swimming and running are done easy enough and if I can recover)?
- Are the above too much intensity based on this podcast and would I be better just doing 1 VO2 and 1 endurance ride per week?
- If I had time for a 3rd ride I could use train now and do an endurance ride
- I am leaning towards train now vs a training plan/plan builder as 3 rides per week, every week may be too much as I am also hoping to do 2 strength sessions.
If the above “works” I could just do it all year and not change anything. I guess I could wait and see how it goes.
I could do a ramp test, real or via AI detection.
Any thoughts or comments are appreciated.