After completing my last race a few weeks ago I signed up for Trainer Road. My training for the previous year has been mostly sweet spot, but I decided to switch to a moderate volume polarized plan.
I’ve tested and I know my FTP is accurate within a few watts, but the longer intervals are kicking my butt. On almost every session I’ve had to drop the % on the last couple intervals, and in my last session I had to go down to 85% just to finish.
The intervals in my previous plan tended to be shorter bursts of higher output, and I recognize that it’ll take awhile to get used to a new program, but I’m wondering if there’s any manual adjustments I should be doing? Drop my FTP? Turn down the intensity slider in my settings? Will the automatic adaptations take care of it? So far it just wants to give me more rest days, but I’m only doing 4-5hrs a week. I’m definitely not overtrained.
The interval lengths are relatively long, this last one was 4x9min at 90%. FTP was tested with a ramp test. I’ve done a few ramp tests in the past 6 months
I find that most of this type of failure is mental or overheating. If you put me outside to do the same thing, I could do it. And so my reaction is to turn down the intensity and keep trying to get better with the mental strain.
9 min at sweet spot shouldn’t be that difficult, particularly if you’ve done sweet spot before. The ramp test may have overestimated your FTP. I’d do the Kolie Moore FTP test so you have a clear idea of your FTP and TTE.
If your FTP has been tested recently and you think it’s accurate within a few watts, it sounds like something else might be going on here.
You mentioned living in Canada, and I’m sure it gets cold up there! Even if the air temp is cold, are you using a big fan when you’re on the trainer? If you don’t have enough airflow (not just cold air alone), it becomes easy to overheat and struggle through workouts.
If everything seems pretty dialed, though, it may be a matter of getting used to those longer intervals if you haven’t done many of them before. Personally, I know I usually have a bit of an adjustment period as I get into longer efforts before I start to feel stronger when doing them.
Make sure to fill out your Post-Workout Surveys if you aren’t already. That info plus the data from your completed workouts will help Adaptive Training serve you the right workouts for your current fitness. As you progress through your plan, AT will continue to modify your sessions for you to make sure your plan keeps up with the fitness gains you make.
Feel free to let me know if you have any additional questions on this!
Indoors as well? Fans don’t make up for lack of draft, even if you open the window and outside it’s cold, because you just don’t have the airflow hitting your entire body. So I would not be too quick to dismiss overheating.
How are you sweating and how does it compare to outside? Personally, I have the fans at my head and upper body, and only recently it hit me - my arms tend to be soaked in sweat. Huge layer of thick sweat drops (on intense rides, zone 2 not quite as bad). Basically more sweaty than 30 degrees outside. So I might not even feel that hot because the head and upper body are on par with sweating outside, but rest of the body is too hot. The arms and the lower body where no airflow hits.
Also, even outside you overheat. This year I tried and FTP test and did terribly in 30 degrees. Sometime later it was a bit cooler and a day with shade and I knocked out my best ever 20 minutes. So to me both those things made me realise that despite maybe not very obviously feeling super hot, likely I am overheating somewhat in reality. I’d have to buy a sensor to test this.
OP only rides 4-5 hours per week. 40 mins at SS is a huge percentage of total weekly training time. So isn’t 4x9min SS. I would expect longer duration intervals to be harder on a low training volume like that. Just lower your ftp if you are already set up with proper cooling, etc.
Same here - I find airflow on my face to feel really good, but not to do nearly as much for overall heat as when the fan is pointed at my arms/chest. I also have a smaller fan pointed at my back. I’m going to experiment with running a dehumidifier this winter too, see how much that helps.
The ramp test is known to overestimate FTP for athletes with a large anaerobic capacity. The same athletes often need longer to recover from intense workouts due to a higher percentage of fast twitch muscle fibers. If you think this applies to you, just manually set a more conservative FTP and let AI guide you forward.
This is me. I have two Lasko 298 CFM fans on remotes along with a pedestal fan. I’m in a basement next to a double door and during harder workouts the doors are open and all 3 fans are going.
I have similar issues with intervals lasting longer than around 3-4 minutes. This Monday was Anai Mudi, 4x7 minute intervals at 100% FTP and it was a major struggle. I completed it, but just barely.
Alternatively, most my short interval vo2 max intervals are pretty moderate - likely due to my very good muscular leg strength.
Next week I have Tracy, a 5x9 at 95% with 5 min recoveries between sets. I’ll take a rest day, the day prior, but not sure if I’ll be able to get it.
I’m currently doing mid volume polarized. I did high volume polarized early summer. I have done (3) 20 minute FTP tests this year and my TR AI FTP is usually within a few watts.
With that in mind, is there something that can be done intra workout if I’m unable to finish? Do I just stop so it pauses and then continue when I’m able to? I’ve probably done 75-100?+ workouts since joining TR earlier this year and don’t think I’ve ever not been able to complete a workout yet.
You can reduce the intensity using the - button at any point in the workout.
A couple of example scenarios
If you get to 6 minutes into the 9 minute interval and don’t think you will make the full 9, knock the intensity down to a level that enables you to.
If you finish the first 9’ interval but it was so tough that you don’t think you will finish the remaining four, knock the intensity down a bit, say 3%, and see how the second interval goes.
You might need to knock the intensity down a bit more later on in the workout, but you will find that just lowering the intensity a touch can help quite a bit.
There is nothing wrong with not being able to complete a workout now and then. Learn from it and move on.
What exactly do you mean by the intervals kicking your butt? Is it general fatigue? Is it muscular soreness creeping in? Are you finding yourself gasping for air? Each of these possibilities could have different implications regarding how to move forward.
The fatigue I experience from a series of two-minute VO2 max intervals is a bit different from the fatigue of a slow burning 20-minute sweetspot interval. Suffering for long periods is a skill of its own that you might not be familiar with, is what I’m thinking.
Could you upload screenshots of this 4×9’ & one of the short-interval workouts from not too long ago in your previous plan so that we can compare? Best if you can include some of the interval breakdowns.
About what cadence are you riding at on these long intervals? That can make a difference too.
Are you doing other physical activities besides cycling?
And an alternative to dropping the power is to take a 10 or 20 second backpedal during an interval when you start seeing your power dropping or ending up in that dreaded erg-mode spiral-of-doom.
My recommendation… do your workouts in standard mode. If you can finish the workout but at a lower % of FTP then so be it. There are definitely times when it’s best to bail from a workout, but there’s time when we need to tough it out too. We all have bad days or days we aren’t feeling it. Sometimes we just gotta do what we can on the day.
