Ha! This was the user that got me motivated to figure out how to ignore people on this forum 
It was funny to read a few threads and just see peopleâs responses to himâŚ
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What a coincidence that the GCN showâs topic this week is training at âZone 2â: Why Riding Slower Makes You Faster! | GCN Show Ep. 479 - YouTube
I thought it was good enough to tempt me into testing.
Iirc I need to download an HRV app to my Fenix, make sure my HRM is pairing over Bluetooth and not Ant+, and do a RAMP test which Iâm due for anyway.
Whatâs the mood of this thread?
See upthread (search âSeilerâ or srykeâs post).
TLDR; Marco Altini and Seiler are skeptical. Very wide variability.
@JoeX Also, if youâre referring to a TR type ramp test, that would not be what you would be doing with this. Just FYI. Separate thing.
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I think the most important question to answer is - if you repeatedly did lab testing and periodically had good estimates of LT1, how would you use it to guide endurance training?
Summarizing the thread as follows, there are several camps or schools of thought:
- âkeep stress lowâ camp that aligns with Seilerâs polarized recommendations to train endurance below the low aerobic threshold (where âmostly fatâ fuel switches to fat+carb fueling). Based on the âyou are training endurance too hard, and not hard enough above thresholdâ point-of-view
- âlab performanceâ camp that aligns with San Millan and focuses on the use of lactate and gas exchange testing to determine LT1 and do most endurance train right at LT1
- âpower-based performanceâ camp that balances recovery with slowly pushing up endurance performance
- âRPEâ camp that observes cardio and metabolic endurance training adaptations are driven by relatively low intensity and provided you donât go too low, just do more of it by RPE (along with recoverability)
- âLT1 proxyâ camp that will use any reasonable sounding proxy for LT1 to either train endurance at Seiler polarized or ISM LT1
Thatâs basically how I would characterize it. The DFA a1 stuff falls under the last bullet, and like many other low aerobic proxies it may or may not help you identify LT1 without lactate and gas exchange testing.
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The app can work with ant+ data but the app needs its own ant+ connection. So App through ant+ and watch over BLE.
Seems like .75 may not be lt1 but the number can still be useful to track to judge how hard to are going and how well you covered (low number during a workout the next day means not fully recovered)
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its metabolically demanding. If your FTP is 380, and you endurance train at say 70-75% FTP, that is roughly 270W for longish endurance rides of 3-5 hours. Which is roughly 3000kJ to 5000kJ of work. For each endurance workout.
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Iâve been wondering if pros get a better relative stimulus than amateurs at even lower levels of effort. I mean, take a pro with the hypothetical 380 watt ftp. At 65% of FTP (middle of Coggan Endurance zone) they are putting out 228 watts. Thatâs still a healthy dose of watts and metabolic churn for the muscles to do for some hours.
Then you take a lower FTP amateur (say 225 watt FTP) and they barely feel any pressure on the pedals at 60% (135 watts).
There is a concept of adaptation floor, which rises with increased training/fitness. For any athlete.
Not according to Bruce Rogers in the TTS podcast @bbt67 linked
Same podcast, Bruce Rogerâs is saying donât use ant+ for HRM connection because it creates too many artifacts.
Good question, it wouldnât change my bike training at all I donât think as Iâm not bike focussed at the moment. But I thought Iâd do it as I have a RAMP coming up anyway, and the TTS podcast specifically mentions using TRâs RAMP test.
Iâm more interested in it for my running, and establishing/affirming my threshold target efforts, maybe my easy efforts too. People I respect think my threshold HR is set too low, and we were talking about this podcast at the same time so thought hey - why not try LT estimation?
I agree that there is an adaptation floor but there is also a baseline/floor of energy use and the amount youâre going over that. If we assume able bodied people no one starts with a FTP of zero where walking 10 feet is a challenge. There is also the overhead of having a body and its upkeep (brain and other organs are constantly using energy) that overhead is a much higher percent of total work for low FTP amateur (good thing Iâm 226 and not 225 like the example in this threadâŚ)
So does seem like as the muscles for pedaling become a larger percent of what youâre doing they will get more stimulus. So the floor in adaptation should be a lower percent of FTP the higher your FTP is though this may be balanced by a higher training stimulus needed to sustain a higher FTP.
That was earlier data that was proved wrong. Look at the link I sent. Turns out Garmin isnât using the ant+ data correctly to deal with dropped ant+ packets so when a garmin is set to record HRV to the FIT file it will record artifacts. The connect IQ app handles the data correctly so wonât have that artifact issue. (the ant+ protocol makes this possible to correct without any loss in data, garmin is being lazy and not correcting for errors)
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I havenât done any research myself, and only rely on info in this Matt Fitzgerald article:
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I read this and many other articles last autumn and basically no one knows if there is a âtoo slowâ for easy days. Itâs a bit frustrating. Again, for me itâs a running question not a biking one. Biking easy Iâm fine with TRs power percentages not least because they are essentially the same as my Ironman racing paces which are agin generally agreed across the sport.
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To find AeT/LT1/lower threshold? You donât need to go to task failure for that (like you do with a TR ramp test). Thatâs what I was referring to.
I thought you were referencing the DFA1 stuff. For that protocol (to find lower threshold at .75), you would have longer stages and they are all sub-FTP.
Be that as it may, I think the feeling about detecting a lower threshold with this method is âmixedâ, at best. I thought thatâs what you were asking.
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There are some older Scandinavian studies where they had folks do masssive volume at fairly low intensity. They saw zero adaptions or improvements of performance markers. One study had soldiers hike with heavy equipment daily for hours for weeks. Fairly large energy turnover, ate a ton. Zero physiological improvements. Volume alone does not seem sufficient.
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My takeaway was different, bruce said you should have a stready increase over time with shorter interval durations so that hr can never steady. The early part of the tr ramp is quite easy with small but steady increases.
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I think that the elites show that the intensity floor is mostly limited by how much you can train.
The 68% of max in that tp article is only just below lt1 for me. Iâll average only about 115 at .7 IF unless Iâm going longer than i should relative to my fitness.
Iâm coming off of a lull, so that low of intensity is still effective for me at < 10 hours /week and week be effective as long as i can increase overall training load. Shooting for 10-12 hours this racing season.
I mean Coggan is supposedly going on KMâs pod at some point so I guess we will find out if he thinks KM is an idiot or not shortly!
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Did it. Didnât tell me anything new or particularly valid.
I think thatâs basically the mood of the thread, too.
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