i’m off to a bit of a rough start to SSB2 HV, my trainer has been about 10w off due to needing to lube chain (compared to my assioma uno which I run separately to other stuff and they generally agree), so I was doing 88, 92% intervals at 92 and 95% respectively and that did a number on me. Hopefully the weekend workouts will go more smoothly! lol
I’m 50% of the way through SSB HV1 and have started this week to supplement with additional endurance z2 work increasing weekly TSS to just below the 800 mark. Joined TR recently and started off with TB HV1 and struggled to stick with it sheerly due to boredom… a point that rings true with a whole host of other members it seems.
Backing off next week due to Christmas break and reduced time to train so will just complete core SS workout on plan.
Plan is to continue to up/ maintain higher weekly TSS with supplementation of ever more z2 work into new year and SSB HV2 while monitoring fatigue and allowing ample time to rest and ‘supercompensate’
I’m sure this may have been shared before but found this very informative -
Have you made it into TB HV2?
Seems to me like all those comments refer to TB1, which is 4x the same Endurance workout per week.
I’d agree that’s pretty boring, but suspect two reasons:
- serves as a forced mini-offseason for people who have been riding A LOT all year
- gets you accustomed to long sessions on the trainer, which is a prerequisite for TB2 and TB3.
Funny thing is, TB2+3 are completely different from TB1 and I personally find them a lot more varied and thus engaging than SSB HV. YMMV.
I’d even go so far as to say you could skip TB1 or reduce it to 1-2 weeks if you’re not fatigued from a race-heavy season and have been doing long days in the saddle recently (like a non-hammerfest cycling vacation).
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Hello all,
I’m posting here instead of creating a new thread, I hope it’s ok 
I’ve been off the bike for 3 weeks in December due to pneumonia and I’ve just resumed training a few days ago with easy endurance rides.
Luckily, for the next four months I will have a lot of time to train (I’m a student) and since I have to start training from scratch for this season and I’ve never done a proper structured base phase I thought that Traditional Base HV would be a good choice.
Before the illness I was in the fifth week of SSB I MV and I had planned some races, however now most of them are out of question and I think my only goals for this season will be improving endurance and FTP.
Anyway, my main question is about the volume of the first phase, isn’t it too low for just aerobic rides under 70% of FTP?
I’ve read some articles and threads here on the forum regarding traditional base and high volume plans, personally I’ve understood that a lot more volume is needed to get the desired adaptations from Z2 riding. Furthermore there aren’t really long rides in the whole TB plan, I guess because it has been made with indoor riding in mind, but aren’t those very beneficial to improve endurance?
So, should I increase the volume of the first phase (and maybe even of the second one)? If so, should I do it by adding a workout during the week, by increasing the length of the weekend rides or by doing both?
Thanks in advance for your answers. Any additional advice is welcome!
High volume Z2 rides at <70% FTP will raise your FTP and create a great base if you do enough of it. You will need at least 15-20 hours of this to see decent gains (with some 5-6 hour rides). Thing is most of us who work and have other commitments don’t have the time so SSB was brought in to give you most of the benefits in less time. The problem with TR traditional base is unless you have a mind of steel or like watching Netflix on the bike then it is boring…if you have the time AND can get outside (I live in the UK but appreciate in the USA there are places where that just isn’t an option in winter) I would go for it but I wouldn’t do it on the trainer unless you use earplugs to stop your brain trying to escape out of your ears 
Or compromise and do a couple of the 2 hour sweetspot/tempo sessions on the turbo and a couple of really long rides outside.
Then I don’t understand why the first phase of traditional base has only around 10 hours per week of Z2 and the longest ride is less than three hours. Maybe it’s really only for new cyclists and for those recovering from an injury.
Regarding the boredom of riding inside that much, I don’t actually know if I could survive it. Even though I’ve done several 3 hour indoor rides watching Netflix and YouTube, I think the repetitiveness of traditional base could beat me.
Unfortunately riding outside is not an option at the moment, I live in Northern Italy and it’s pretty unpleasant even if it doesn’t rain much. Moreover, during the week I will be able to train only in the afternoon around 4 pm, too late for winter time.
So I don’t actually know what I should do. Your “compromise” suggestion seems good, but I’d like to adhere a plan as much as possible, that’s why I’m subscribed to TR.
However SSB HV is too much for me as it is, maybe I could try to reduce the volume a bit and swap some SS workouts for endurance rides.
Otherwise I could do another week or two of Z2 and then start traditional base II that has more intensity, as Kofi said above.
I didn’t think choosing a plan would be so complicated though, I really hope that the TR team will implement more variables and kind of custom plans in Plan Builder in the future.
They talked about this a bit in the last podcast, and to me it made sense.
Start w/ SSB LV or MV, if you nail all the workouts (ie.-complete them and don’t reduce the percentage effort) add workouts during the week. If that isn’t enough, bump up to HV.
Maybe this helps? It is buried in the Jan 2nd pod. In bocca al lupo.
You are right, they have been saying that for a long time and actually it’s what I was doing before getting sick (SSB MV with more endurance and sometimes workouts from the HV plan). However, in November I had significantly less time to train due to an internship.
Therefore, following that principle I should just try SSB HV and see how it goes. Maybe using the extra time to recover better and study more 
.
But, since my goal for this season is mainly improve endurance I thought that TB would be better than SSB, especially after reading this thread Any benefit to Traditional Base vs Sweet Spot?
However, as it turns out, is not a easy choice. 
My experience is just an n=1, but I feel this is more relative to the volume the person has been doing instead of a requirement of 15-20 hrs. I have been slowly increasing my base hours over past 4 years and this year is the first I’ll be hitting 15-20hrs during base. Last year I did 10-15. Year before that 7-10 of just Z2. Each year I noticed major gains.
So I’d just like to add that it may be better to think of it as adding more volume to where you are currently at and you will see gains. I can’t imagine a newcomer starting and thinking 15-20hrs is best.
We often look to what the professionals do so we can replicate, which is 25-30hr weeks. But what did they do to progress to that point. I think that’s exponentially more important because THAT’S where many of us are.
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Fair point - I did SSBHV1/2 last year and improved a lot but got ill on SPBHV so this year I am doing MV with some extra +1/2 occasionally and 90 mins of Andrews on Wed to bring it up to about 7.5 hours plus 90 mins in the gym as well for strength. I have been doing triathlon, running marathons and now time trialling for 30 years now so yes…maybe if I went all Z2 I would need 15-20 hours but someone with less of an endurance background would see big gains on less hours. But most of the guys on the UK time trial forum say that the magic starts to happen AFTER 4 hours of Z2 riding ….the first 4 hours is just getting you to that place - but again we are talking about people who ride really fast 100 mile time trials .
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Yeah, I’ve read that a lot too. That’s the main reason I haven’t been spreading my weekly hours evenly across 7 days. I’ll stack it up into longer rides, but lesser non-recovery days. Which gives me a lot of 3-5hr+ rides. I used to spread evenly, but did notice a lot of gains when I stopped spreading evenly and doing long rides.
But wow! You are exponentially more experienced than me. I can now see why you said 15-20hrs because that is relative to you. Which was the main topic in my previous post.
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I’d like to see a study that compares this to people doing 3x30 at sweet spot (wright peak) then adding some Z2 after that. I’m thinking your legs would get to that fatigued state a heck of a lot earlier.
Can you get the same adaptations in 3 hours vs 5 hours?
I plan on adding Z2 to the end of a lot of high volume build workouts (if I have time that day). I wonder what impact that will have on my fatigue resistance in longer races.
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Good question. I’d like to know too. Would save a lot of time. But from listening to your podcasts, I assumed you already had the answer to this. The idea of being able to complete long Leadville type events w/out doing long rides.
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The thing that I’d like to add to this thread that I haven’t seen anyone mention is that IMO, the key to being able to add volume effective is knowing how your body responds to different type of stimulus, and being extremely disciplined about sticking to your goals rather than getting sucked into different types of riding.
I’ve increased my volume over the last off season by almost 50% and have been averaging 14-17 hours per week, but part of that is that I’ve really avoided the types of efforts that break me down and prevent me from doing more work the next day.
I’ll also add a small hint for some folks talking about the “4-hour” mark: it’s not actually necessarily about consistent time at a certain power that increases adaptation. There are other things you can optimize to where you can get more out of those 4-6 hours rides beyond just riding at increasingly higher power levels.
Start easier than you think, especially the first hour. I find ERG to be counter productive for long indoor trainer rides and much prefer resistance mode. Make yourself a buffet of the best ride snacks and cut them up into small pieces, where you get to eat something small every 5-10 minutes. Makes it really easy to get to the 3rd and 4th hour this way because you are only a few minutes away from a new snack!
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The Scientific Triathlon podcast got into this. The 5 hour endurance ride yields two main benefits: 1) slow component of VO2 and increases in AeT that come from that last hour (improved cellular signaling and mitochondrial efficiency with the calcium-calmodulin pathway) and 2) improved motor unit recruitment as you cycle through the fatigued fibers.
The “pre-load” strategy (which is one I’ve used a lot) of either a solid 60min of 90-94% or the 3 x 30 you mention during the first half of 3hr ride, followed by zone 2 to fill out the rest, improves 2), but doesn’t do as much for 1) as the 5-6 hour death slog.
Where both that podcast and Bendan’s Evoq blog agree is that if you don’t/can’t do the 4-5 hour rides, being super consistent about 2-3 hour rides in a high volume program (15 hrs+) can get 1) pretty close to max efficiency, if you give it enough years of training.
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I think its less about the TIME, more about the stress/kj expenditure beforehand. So to your point @Nate_Pearson I think if you do a 3x30min and then hit your Z2 you’re likely doing that post 2000kj of work and you’ll be fatigued enough that you’re going to get some benefits.
The other thing to remember, and I think gets lost in here, is that we shouldn’t lose sight of the forest for the trees. The RELATIVE difference between doing a 4-5hr ride vs. a 3x30min SST and then some Z2 is likely not large. So while it might not be the same amount of adaption, the difference would be something interesting to measure.
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Geez, I did Wright Peak today & there was no adding anything on to the end of it! My legs felt like wet, rotten logs during the last 15 minutes of the 3rd interval🥴 My excuses are: I’m getting over a nas head cold & recovering from another herniated disc (probably l2/l3). I’ve got Galena & Galena +3 left tomorrow & Sunday then the mercy of a recovery week next week.
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I’m not sure if there are any studies - it is just a forum in the UK like this used by UK time triallists - but since some of these guys are riding sub 3:30 for a 100 mile time trial something must be working. TR is used a lot in the UK (I like it as like most people I have limited time) but there are also a lot of UK time triallists who think the ALL sweetspot approach is to fatiguing especially for masters athletes ….are they just old school? maybe. I don’t have enough time at present to test the 4+hours v 2hour sweetspot. There are pros and cons - SSBHV1/2 worked well for me last year and my FTP is up from 236 - 295W but SPBHV made me very ill inside 3 weeks and I was off the bike for 3 weeks…would I have been more resistant to illness with more Z2 - no idea!
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Yes, I believe it to be true but I’d like some hard core evidence. I’d also like to know what the ratio could be. Like could 2 hours of SS + 1 hour of Z2 = 5 hours of Z2?
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What adaption would you want to measure? And how would you separate the adaption from this one workout from the whole training block?