Is that contribution to the a specific performance by muscle type or really your wko supposed overall (leg) muscle composition?
From all I’ve heard I can’t believe such big changes. IIRC I always read that a big part of slow vs fast twitch muscle development is predefined and you have to work a good amount to just shift those in between type 2b (iirc) in one or the other direction. So to me that graph has a smell (or I’m missing sth).
I think the % slow twitch model, with my data, is for entertainment purposes only.
Said another way, I don’t understand if that slow twitch model requires a special protocol to feed it good data, margin of error with good and bad data, domain of validity, etc.
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The context of her answer addressed masters age sprint tri’s and/or CX with limited time/week. I’d have to go back and listen more carefully but, less than 10 hours/week seemed to be the amount of time they were chatting about.
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In order to do well in AG sprints and CX she seemed to indicated keeping mitochondrial density was important or high intensity work rather than SST. 5x1 min for example. To do really explosive 5x1 min on 10 hours a week with a ton of SST will most likely reduce the power of the 1 min intervals.
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I think taking her comment about masters over 40 doing no SST and applying it to the entire spectrum of masters athletes is where the grey area starts. It would be interesting to read what Frank Overton thinks about this. And I think he’d probably say while building SST can be a part of any masters program. When you get into specificity maybe not so much.
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JMO but, I think we have way too many podcasts, coaches, soundbites, analytics these days and not enough common sense. It seems everyone is trying to find, bottle and sell the one best way to train. I find that annoying and feel bad for those new to the sport. It must be absolutely confusing as hell just to figure out where to start. Paralysis by analysis. What a buzz kill.
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1, what an oddly specific and strange pairing of disciplines
4, 100% agreed
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Completely agree. Sums it up perfectly
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My takeaway from that podcast…
Please continue training low volume and a majority of sweetspot in your garage. Absolutely, do this relentlessly. Particularly, do this if you live in NZ and enter the bike races that I enter.
We have a few riders who train in this manner in our club, they are also prevalent in bike races. They are fantastic to ride and race with. They resemble mindless automatons. Basically, hammers. They enjoy that sustained threshold ish hammering. They spend a significant portion of the rides and races demonstrating their wonderous FTPs.
They often think this world beating FTP that they have focused on building for all of time, will result in victory.
It doesn’t. I don’t think the riders like this that I’m aware of (many) have ever actually won a bike race.
I just love having one of these mega FTP hero’s in a race. I usually repeatedly tell them during the race that they are super strong, that they are like riding behind a freight train, that I can barely hold their wheel (I’m lying the entire time. Spoiler alert, the draft is 25% or more power saving, nobody is 25% fitter than another rider, in the correct category etc)
Then we get to the winning moment of virtually ever race. It’s usually either a brutal 30sec surge, a hard short climb or a 3 to 6min V02 effort. Hammer man/woman is dropped at this moment. One, because they have been demonstrating their heroic fitness for a vast portion of the race. Two, because they don’t have the actual component that wins bike races. Brutal anaerobic power or powerful eye watering V02 efforts.
Summing up, please do lots of heroic FTP building sweetspot. Do this a majority of the time. Do not build a deep and extended base of massive aerobic volume. Absolutely, do not build an incredible repeatable anaerobic kick and violent V02 leg snapper.
See you at the races my friend The Hammer 
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Alternately, if I were over 40 I would highly recommend to my fellow long course tri guys to drop any and all training in the tempo-SS area of the spectrum and focus entirely on raising their v02max and anaerobic power. I’m sure it will make for a very impressive finishing effort and enjoyable run leg long after I’ve freight-trained my way through T2, assuming they don’t blow themselves up through lack of aero/nutrition/pacing testing at race intensity.
And please, all of you, continue to base your training from whatever sensationalized internet headline you saw recently about what might be marginally better for your fitness at the expense of sensible periodization and event specificity. No reason to waste valuable time “reading” or “considering yourself as an individual athlete” when some rando on the internet has already figured it all out for you and condensed it into a handy soundbite!
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Took the words right out of my mouth… Apart from the fact that I am over 40!
The problem is not sweet spot as a training modality, it’s how some self-coached athletes fall in love with it.
Basic training principles: progressive overload, rest to compensate, vary the stimulus.
If all you do is sweet spot, you get good at riding medio and lose the ability to go very hard for 1-10 minutes (anaerobic or fast glycolytic efforts).
If all you do is hard stuff of the 1-5 minute duration, eventually you plateau and burn out a bit from the adrenal fatigue of all that “running from the lion.”
Build the base. Sweet spot is good for this as long as you don’t do it more than a few times a week. Then have one day where you get back in touch with :30-1:00 hard efforts (this is as old as fartlek runs).
Then do the hard stuff on top of the base.
All this is as old as the hills, commonly known training principles that have been proven to work over time. There is no magic fix or secret sauce.
The problems happen when athletes using powermeters fall in love with the FTP and CTL numbers. Fitness is more than FTP. CTL is just a measure of how much load you’ve put yourself under.
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Don’t forget, if you’re over 32 but, under 66.3467 don’t whatever do any zone 2.246.
That’s a very dangerous zone for someone of that age.
Oh, and if you’re a crit racer, definitely don’t do that zone on a Wednesday.
You’ve been warned.
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Love it The Bandit.
My training currently is long rides regularly and bikepacking when I can, plus Wednesday night crit training at a proper circuit with proper racers.
The ability to dig super deep for a few more seconds when you’re already losing your vision is the key to survival on the bad days and the key to success on the good days. FTP is a bike trainers number not a bike racers number
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