My team is having a challenge to see who can get the highest TSS in one hour. I know attempting to ride at threshold is not the answer. I searched every way I could in the forum but couldn’t find anything like this. My question to you all is, what workout should I consider to win this challenge?
in theory it’s 100 (riding threshold for 60mins) but that figure can be manipulated with short hard efforts, i believe (NP buster rides like crits with a lot of short sharp accelerations)
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That is what I am thinking, looking for that NP buster type workout that is “doable”.
If you have access to the TR workout library, use the filter for 1 hour duration and then sort by TSS (highest at top). There’s a decent list of options and some are likely a mega challenge if doable at all. Depending on your personal abilities, some would likely make more sense to try than others.
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The bigger your max sprint and anaerobic capacity, the easier this will be. Idk the absolute best way to game the number but I imagine it’s something to do with maximum all out 30-60s sprints.
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Based on how TSS is calculated, you can exceed 100 TSS/hr by doing short anaerobic intervals.
Check out something like the “BaleGrist” workout, which gives 117 TSS/hr for ideas on what to do.
Also: if they didn’t specify how your FTP needs to be determined, then you should do a half-asses FTP test before hand, set your FTP artificially low, then really reel in that TSS 
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I just checked it out and the highest I found was backbone + 3 with 88 TSS for the hour.
Going to give that one a shot. Might kill me though. Thanks!
If you can get it done, then try repeating a couple of those intervals. Then exclude the warm up and cool down from your “hour,” and your TSS/h will be even a bit higher.
Or just lower your FTP
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If you can achieve over 110, you should revisit your FTP to make sure it is correct.
(Once upon a time I posted a large number of theoretically impossible workouts to the wattage list under “You can’t touch this”, and challenged folks to complete them. As I recall, only one person succeeded. That’s not to say that “NP busters” are impossible, but they aren’t very common.)
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I’ve thought about this question. ~50s on/offs will produce the highest TSS for the same level of difficulty. You can confirm this pretty well by searching by PLs in the TR library and sorting by highest TSS. Shorter intervals don’t allow for enough 30s avg power calcs at max power, and longer intervals are too taxing. To maximize this strategy do a full 1hr block of 50s on/offs and choose your power carefully.
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This was from a hilly criterium race I did in May, TSS of 123 from 57min. It consisted of 10 laps of the circuit with one long steep climb and one hairpin turn after a long downhill (which resulted in a sprint every time one missed his line slightly). Fun race. My best FTP effort before that was ~310W for 27min, so I think a normalized power of 354W was pretty good in comparison to that.
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No. To all of this. I will not. And there’s no way you can make me.
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Seems to me that the numbers are all dependent on an extremely accurate ftp for everyone involved. Too high, lower TSS. Too low, higher TSS. I would think that the closer you are to 100, it only proves how accurate your measured ftp is. Am I overlooking something?
A hilly outside ride
Agreed on the need for an accurate ftp to make things as fair as possible. This is a fun challenge that our coach has put together to really push our limits while attempting to have fun doing so and competing. With that said everyone’s ftp should be pretty accurate. If I remember I will let you know how it goes. Need to start doing mental preparation to suffer starting now!
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So how did Timmi82 determine their FTP?