I know. That’s why I referred to it as “FTP” 
1 Like
But FTP is a thing and it’s observable. It’s the methods of estimating that are bad. Ramp test (power only or only 1 slope), 20 minute test with 5 minute blowout, two 8 minute tests, etc.
If you estimate FTP properly, normal folks like me can hold it for 60-70 minutes.
Yes, I agree with what you’ve said. I can see how you interpreted my comment the way you did though so that’s my bad for not being clear.
(Though I think sometimes TTE @ FTP can be as low as 40min or so.)
1 Like
I obviously misunderstood what you were saying. In those articles, do the percentages of VO2 max they trained at equal percentage of FTP, or is it measured differently?
What would be an effective IF for shorter endurance efforts? Is it okay that they move out of Z2 and into Z3?
Well it’s not, because you don’t take your FTP to be your 20 min power, you take a percentage of it, 90-95%. Thus 0.88IF is not 88% of your 20 min power, unless you’ve misinterpreted the test result and used it directly as your FTP power. No one else has suggested that misinterpretation except yourself.
Riding at 0.86IF over 4-5 hour is a perfectly normal thing to be able to do. Unless you’ve misinterpreted what to do with your test result and thus inflated your FTP.
The average trained cyclist has an FTP of roughly 80% of VO2max. You can therefore approximate the percentage of FTP by dividing by 0.8 (or by multiplying by 1.25).
For example, if you read a classic study where participants exercised at 70-75% of VO2max for 4 h when fed carbohydrate at >100 g/h , that would have been approximately 88-94% of FTP. Similarly, Seiler’s “lower pole” around which training in his zone 1 (of 3) of roughly 60% of VO2max would be about 75% of FTP.
Less than about 70% of FTP is unlikely to induce further adaptations in someone who is already training regularly (unless perhaps carried out for many, many hours). As the intensity is progressively increased, so too is the stimulus for adaptation. There is therefore no downside to going harder (e.g., at level 3), except that it is more fatiguing. The latter is why when most people do an “endurance ride” (“LSD”, whatever) outdoors, they end up with an average power of 56-75% of FTP.* Of course, the longer the workout, the more likely it will be towards the bottom end of that range, and the shorter the workout, the more likely it will be towards the top of that range, even perhaps slightly above. For example, I did my 1 h (really 50 min once you subtract warmup and cool down) “moderate intensity filler workouts” at 83% of FTP. I never went easier than that indoors, except on the rare occasion that I felt like I needed a recovery ride, and/or I had a race in the next couple of days (then it was 50% of FTP for 1 h…never longer!).
*As discussed previously, when cycling outdoors, power tends to be highly variable, which pulls down the average. It’s really better to think in terms of IF in this context, i.e., by envisioning the effects of an isopower workout relative to FTP.
TL,DR: It’s your glycogen budget - spend it wisely.
6 Likes
I went back and had a look.
The longest I have held 0.88IF (by NP) for is just over 130m.
At 3 hrs, my best IF by NP was 0.84. That was in an event which lasted just over 3.5hrs. So with that in mind - as I was obviously riding in an event, rather than for a power target - I suppose 0.88 for 3 hours would have been possible.
“Fatigue” here means more than physical tiredness or wear? What about effects on hormonal system caused by high frequency going harder?
1 Like
By more fatiguing I meant more difficult to recover and back it up again (and more) the next day. (Eating a diet really rich in carbohydrates obviously helps.)
Thinking about hormones is overthinking/oversimplifying it. There is FAR more to the story than that, and if anything, altered hormonal regulation (e.g., “sympathetic” overtraining) is more of a symptom than a cause.
On a more general note: true overtraining is uncommon. That’s why the numerous studies conducted a couple of decades ago that intended to induce overtraining in athletes by doubling their load for 2 wk failed to produce it. Indeed, one exercise physiologist highly active at the time suggested giving up on the paradigm, and simply study the few cases that emerged naturally.
1 Like
But that is the argument against riding at that % of FTP isn’t it?
If I do an hour at 80% FTP, my subsequent hard interval day might suffer (and has in previous experience). If I knock it down to 2-3 hours at 65%, I have no issue with my hard interval days. So which is better? 2-3 hours at 65% FTP or 1 hour at 80%?
1 Like
Oh yeah, 2 weeks of doubling load is just decent training camp 
I meant more 2-3 months of 4xSS + 2xZ2 per week. I bring Sweet Spot specifically as example – for me it is “happy hard”, I really like and wait for those workouts, unlike Z4+ where there might be psychological aspect in play because I slightly fear them. And yet, for whatever the reason with such regimen, I do lose motivation unlike with 2xSS/Z4/Z5 + 4xZ2 approach where I can go through whole season.
1 Like
Only one way to find out: try both approaches.
Of course, that assumes you have the time (or desire) to pedal for 2-3 h on your “off” days (i.e., those not dedicated to higher intensity training or racing, or actual recovery rides).
If you don’t, your only real option* is to increase the intensity (and/the frequency of more intense workouts).
*The other options are 1) repeatedly jump from one training fad to another (e.g., polarized), in hopes of finding the “magic bullet”, or 2) accept that you’re as good as you will ever be, and enjoy your hobby as is.
3 Likes
And this has been the major driving factor in my training. During times where I work more and thus have less time available to train, I’ve always skewed towards harder but shorter workouts. My work has been light for now so I’ve had more time, thus I’ve been able to get in the 3 hour trainer ride.
1 Like
I think you’ve sort of explained the enduring attraction of sweetspot. I’ve heard it described as ‘fun fast’, and (as we all know) advocates will argue that it conveys many of the advantages of threshold training with much less anxiety before, pain during, and subsequent fatigue. The truth of that, of course, is a different debate.
1 Like
You mean good old school TR SSBHV? 
Great for those relatively new to structured training and the time to hammer and recover. Not great for anyone else.
1 Like
Indeed, I’ll be always fond of it – knowing nothing about structured training, jumped right in for whole year doing 1+2 on loop. Looking back, CTL was 6 month straight in overtraining territory
Anyway, about losing motivation regularly, it might have been actually still psychological: because I was in base+build loop, never in specialty with taper, I never got any break. Also, as I did SS workouts always on same safe roads, it might have been simply boredom. With longer Z2 there are more discovery rides and motivation remains fresh
1 Like
Just glancing at a few threads after this one and I’m starting to understand why The_Cog seems so cranky at times. The scales have fallen from my eyes.
I think I may at heart be an experimental physiologist, or at least an avid neophyte amateur (read fitness halfwit). I’ve spent the last 18 hours coming up with ways to test out my new knowledge. So far as to fantasize about writing an app to generate workouts and then use an mlm to analyze my own data to look for trends to inform that app. I realized immediately that I’ve not kept good enough records to use most of my own data. I’d have to backfill derived ftp data, since I never really kept clear records of my estimates in the apps that hold my data.
And now I’m reading about counterfactuals in statistics. oof. All I need is a grant and a decade of higher education and I might get somewhere. 
Likely I’ll just do a bunch of weird 
and be n=1 on the internet.
But at least when I get my beating on the forum I’ll know I deserved it.
I’m 54, been training for decades using the concepts and tools that you have greatly contributed to develop, so, first of all, massive respect for your work.
I am quite convinced that the Z2 hype has become way too “trendy”.
That said, I was wondering (in absolute sincerity, no judgment on that, I would just like to understand) how long could I handle a typical schedule like the one you have described without getting injured or too fatigued.
Because that would probably happen to me, even if I consider myself (with enough years of training to proof that) pretty able to endure hard training blocks and/or periods.
On the other side, your post was interesting as I think that - having 8 to 10 hours available per week to train, where 10 hours is frequently a desire and not the real thing - I need more intensity on my ‘easy’ days, to improve and get stronger.
Having checked my last 2/3 months of training, I have never gone over IF 0.65/0.70 in my 1h30 easy days. I am currently only training indoors, mainly with ERG mode on.
Questions, then?
- How long could you mantain that kind of schedule in a “normal” year of training? 3 to 4 months per year /twice a year with breaks? I assume (I may be totally wrong) that this could be the typical schedule of a specific period of the year? (For example, the 3 to 5 months before / during IRL racing period - e.g. spring/summer)?
- Or is that a schedule that - all other external factors (life, work, family, injuries, etc…) not being obstacles- can be mantained/you were using throughout the whole year?
3 Likes
Typically 8 months out of the year. I would spend about a month in the fall just riding in an unstructured fashion, then 3 months in a more structured “winter maintenance mode” before building up again.
7 Likes
Have not heard it put this way before. Very succinct.
To confirm my understanding of this glycogen dependency: If I was a more glycolitic athlete, it might be better that my filler workouts are lower intensity, longer duration - to get the same TSS without burning too much glycogen… i.e. so I’m not too fatigued/glycogen deficient to do the high intensity workouts at high quality?