in February 2017 I did a lot of two a days, that vaguely looked like ~20 minute threshold efforts in the morning, and the afternoon was often a couple 1-min all-out efforts. Also did some endurance and tired tempo/threshold efforts in the afternoon. And one-hour threshold attempts the first of January, February, March, and April. By March I had extended TTE out to 60+ minutes, however my FTP versus power-at-VO2max runs on the high side (close to 90%). Or put into INSCYD terms my vlamax was very low, and its likely I NEEDED to increase vlamax to raise FTP. The muscular endurance side of it (TTE) seems somewhat independent from my point-of-view - in other words a willingness to suffer for 50-70 minutes is just that once you’ve built up some muscular endurance.
Same here. I’ve already started endurance only. I’m only planning on endurance and tempo throughout the winter along with 3x week of strength training.
Not sure what I’ll do in early spring. Decide at that time.
Tte + 20 min would be pretty low at 90%. It is highly individual by my TTE@90% basically constantly 2x FTP TTE and moves with that. It is interesting how things under FTP are completely not linear with even small percentage drop. For example with 40min tte (that was lowest tte in season) I could do 3x30@95% without much problem. But this is example that shows why properly set FTP changes a lot.
Properly set FTP being the key that unlocks all.
I tried endurance only for a few weeks last year, only 10 hours or so a week granted, but when I tried SS again after that, I was poop. Either not riding long enough at endurance or not ever testing that mid-gear or top-end, I just kind of withered away. My FTP dropped 4% and I was failing EASY workouts. I think I’m looking for something more akin to polarized, but not really interested in whether it’s actually polarized or not. Looking to do 2 HARD workouts a week, maybe mixing up the systems along with some easier but longer endurance stuff. But when I see an improvement in FTP, I think you’ve got to really make it stick. Right now the best way I see to make it stick is more SS progressions. So I’m a bit torn.
This is also my observation - a lot of endurance work is great for overall feeling, and my top-end usually is a lot better after that (doing Z2 improves my 1 min power usually) but without touching tempo and SST these middle zone workouts feel horrible. Surprisingly it returns to pretty normal after 2-3 workouts in that zones but I cannot do threshold workout after doing Z2 only (even with long rides). So I definitely need to touch SST to even have the possibility to move into the threshold. On the other hand - doing only Z2 and 2 threshold workouts, causes that those FTP work days feel pretty amazing 
yes, it comes back fast within a handful of workouts.
Outside following TR’s traditional base, and coming back from a long break, I see ZERO reasons to do only z2.
I was throwing out a random number
Ok, my mistake:)
How different is your sweespot from your threshold power? For me its maybe about 15W. I think you can feasibly work on both at the same time, there isn’t really much difference.
Hi @anthonylane, i think last year we are on the same boat. I did a long time SST before i move on to FTP and i think SST makes it easier to do FTP work, i could extending time on FTP, but my FTP didnt raise. Due covid i never go to the peak phase. For 2022 i will faster progress from SST to FTP in around 2 weeks. So i will only do SST to make the body ready for an FTP block.
In the winter i will do every 10-14 days one VO2max workout for maintance. and in the season 6-5 weeks before the races i will start with an Vo2max block for 2-3 weeks, depends of the adaptation.
I’ve actually been looking with interest at traditional base (the last block). That might replace the SSB block that I will need to repeat after build based on the current following structure assigned by the plan builder: SSBI SSBII Build SSBII.
I think this sounds good, I don’t think I’ve ever jumped right into a threshold block w/o first doing a good amount of sweet spot.
I’m in CX season so It’s been a while since I did dedicated sweet spot work. But, I was doing SS work back in July and was doing my intervals at ~290. Over unders were 340/280-290. But I haven’t done a SS workout in a long time.
But just looking at where my endurance watts are in relation to what I suspect my LT1/VT1 is those watts have gone up 20-30 after this initial block of racing and training. Between February and June when I was doing very little HIT riding mostly Z2 or just under FTP, my watts at LT1/VT1 remained pretty locked in at 190-205. Fatigued probably played a roll in that too.
Last week I went out to specifically nail a 30 minute interval and managed 335w.
Not trying to derail, but how have your speeds been trending? I loved the thread about trying to maximize speed for tall riders. 30 mins @335W you must have been crusing 
No, and I tend to think there is a vast over emphasis on zones in the forums these days. If you think you are at a plateau in your cycling fitness, by all means change things up but I see the needle move when I increase consistency, frequency and/or load of training.
Fully agree with all that you said, but that’s not really what I’m evaluating. It’s more about exploring other options and laying off the sweet spot or work drastically reducing it in lieu of focusing on other areas that I suspect will have a better impact on threshold.
80% of it was gravel which I find really tanks speed, but 22 mph felt pretty solid as an average.
Nice sustained effort there…Heart rate in that block went a bit strange, sensor acting up I guess?
PLs aren’t helping that sentiment either.