Sweet Spot Progression

[hubcyclist]

eh, not necessarily regarding increasing ftp, first thing we’d want to know would be the TTE at FTP (assuming it was derived from an algorithm or shorter test for estimation), the 95% could very well be threshold. But I would push that time to 90mins

[AlexMartins]

Yep, but you got my point. Let’s assume that you’re doing 90min straight @95%, chances are your FTP is a bit low, isn’t that the line of thought or theory behind it? After all, FTP shoub be 60min.

edit: bear in mind that is more a question than a suggestion, I’m in a ongoing learning process.

[hubcyclist]

it could very well be, I’d probably feel that way if I was easily doing 90min at 95%.

but keep in mind FTP isn’t necessarily 60min power, it’s more of a range of 40-70min based on time to exhaustion

[Bbt67]

@AlexMartins

When one is doing 60min plus in 95% neighborhood, shouldn’t this person increase his/ser FTP? I mean, TTE should be around 60min, if more than this, it’s becuase FTP is a bit low, or, a FTP bump is iminent.

Probably not. Or maybe, maybe not

Remember, its threshold, just under you can go much, much longer. Just over you crumble a lot quicker (and further above quicker still.) Its how people can tell where it is by feel.

It is not linear, say one could do 60 minutes at 100%, it might be they can do

70 minutes at 98%
90 - 100 minutes at 95%
2 - 2.5 hrs at 90-92%
Etc.

[anthonylane]

@jarsson

I was also wondering. If I do vo2 max without sst/threshold and lot of z2 I cannot even finish 4x4. I personally need a lot of riding before vo2 to properly do the workours and see some benefits.

@kurt.braeckel

Never been a fan of the prepartory VO2max block longer than maybe 2 weeks. Dean Golich used to give a series of VO2 work at the start of base, but it was 2x workouts back to back for 2 weeks as a primer to Z2 work. Then it was extensive work, then full-blown VO2max training.

I’ve done that protocol before and it’s pretty good for getting you going, but it’s not really prep for sustained work. That’s always going to suck the first workout or two.

I did a bit of cyclocross racing this autumn so I’m not unaccustomed to going deep. I generally can gut out VO2max intervals with little to no prior history of doing them as long as my FTP isn’t exaggerated. This will be a fun little experiment. In the end, I’m only doing 4 total max-aerobic workouts—which isn’t that many. It’ll either do nothing for me, or give me a little boost. I need a bit of excitement to kick off my indoor training season—the thought of slogging out 45-60 min TiZ @ SS isn’t exciting yet.

[anthonylane]

@AgingCannon

Y’all amuse me. I have learned from VERY hard and repeated experience failing workouts, that I can’t extend TiZ more than 10% per week, or I go straight to workout fails and a deep fatigue hole. When I complete a 3x15 @ 90%, I give careful thought to whether my next SS workout is 3x17 or whether I can be so bold as to reach for 3x18.

These cavalier increases of 30% or 40% in a week are madness. Glad to see someone can do it, and part of the reason I keep reading these forums and other things is to gradually improve my ramp rate when extending TiZ. At least now, I’m done with the years of workout fails, fatigue holes, and burnout… but damn, people, y’all are freaks. Rock on.

I think many of us like to be ambitious with our progression when it’s on paper. However, when in reality it’s probably too ambitious given all that life can throw at us. Don’t feel bad.

[hubcyclist]

yeah, this has been sticking in my craw lately. i’m at a point where I’m wondering if I’m so clouded by my own ability to start my own sweet spot work with a min of 60min TIZ and feeling everyone can and should be able to start their own progress easily from 45min TIZ.

[The_Conductor]

@hubcyclist

hould be able to start their own progress easily from 45min TIZ.

There is no harm in starting easy. It’s just one workout before 60 min TiZ. It’s still productive work. Tack on additional easy riding at the end for the volume if you’re so inclined.

(says the guy hellbent starting on 3x20)

[Gnome]

Not quite. An indicator could be current training status. If you’re training hours are highest of the season, then maybe ftp is correct. But if youre coming into this winter training having spent some time off and started with reduced hours your endurance should be pretty low, and would assume your TTE to be low as well. Even so, what does it matter in that particular workout?
Review with yourself how that workout felt?
Can you pedal harder next time? Give it a shot. Can you find a power that feels like difficulty got a lot harder? Ride right under that when things get semi comfortable. Then keep riding and see how long you go. This would be kind of an ad hoc test. And then next time with some recovery between, try to break that duration up. Do the same duration again to reconfirm you weren’t having some magical day. Then progress from there

[hubcyclist]

No I mean, it seems like people are scared of doing 45 min time in zone or feel like it could potentially be too hard for them. People hand wave and say they just don’t do well at sweet spot intensity but I feel like in many cases there’s more to it and that doing 45-60 of tiz shouldn’t be overly difficult

[ChefAcB]

I agree it shouldn’t be that hard but after following TR plans for the last 2.5 years. The most TIZ per session was maybe 75 minutes. This is why I’m now doing my own thing with training. I want to push that TIZ, so it may not be difficult but it’s not easy for people like me who haven’t done much more than 60 before.
I can do 45-55 mins TIZ @ ftp currently, so I don’t think my ftp is too high but more of me not being used to it. Which is the point of training. I did end last months block with 75 mins TIZ sweet spot and so this next block fully focused on SS will hopefully push it out further

[AgingCannon]

@critpig

I don’t mean for this to come off snarky but 3x15 @90% shouldn’t be that hard, and progression beyond that would be expected. Perhaps your FTP set too high? Are there maybe other areas of fatigue and stress that are impacting?

Not snarky at all. Plenty of other factors in my case: lots of body fat, short/inconsistent training history, 30 years on couch, need more/better sleep, and lots of life stress. But my key point is that it took me LOTS of time and failures to learn that my sustainable ramp rate for now is much lower than for most athletes.

I post about this partly to give you guys some comic relief and some perspective about how well you’re doing, partly to show how things are at the slow parts of the bell curve, and partly because discussing this is how I’ve learned the most. And because we can all agree on the importance of finding, respecting, then gradually pushing your own limits.

3x15 @90% should be no sweat for anyone with any training history. I do think it’s VERY challenging for the complete newbie who is just starting structured training. It’s not reasonable to assume that all people just starting cycling can do 3x15. But they can start at 4x8, or 6x5, or whatever they can do today, then work their way up.

The real question is not where to start… that should simply be “wherever you can right now”. No, the real question is how quickly you can progress, and what other changes you can make to your life that’ll allow you to progress faster.

[The_Conductor]

@hubcyclist

No I mean, it seems like people are scared of doing 45 min time in zone or feel like it could potentially be too hard for them. People hand wave and say they just don’t do well at sweet spot intensity but I feel like in many cases there’s more to it and that doing 45-60 of tiz shouldn’t be overly difficult

Ah sorry, I misinterpreted what you wrote. I think there are several options:

1. Training FTP set too high
2. Inexperience - haven’t not done sweetspot work before
3. Out of practice - haven’t done intensity in a while
4. Progressing FTP instead of TiZ - bump up FTP every few weeks and staying at 30-40 min of TiZ instead of pushing out duration
5. Have not adequately practiced in the past - sometimes a result of (4) where previous progressions haven’t stretched interval duration or TiZ, so starting at 3x15 or 3x20 seems daunting because you haven’t done it before

Just knocked out my 3x20. HR high secondary to morning workout and not having done this in a bit, but effort reasonable.

[hubcyclist]

I agree with the above. My worry as a neutral observer is that so many TR users are being put off by these sub 60 time in zone workouts that they can’t even begin to imagine themselves doing 90-120mins of sweet spot work.

[AlexMartins]

Interesting approach. Thanks

[jlsazart]

I’ve talked my significant other into a sweet spot progression, and his biggest hang up (he has never used TR) has been the thought of spending that much time on the trainer in total (I count it as torture after 90 minutes; he thinks anything over an hour is intolerable). Of course there are places to do these things outside, but you add riding to and from those stop-light-free locations and the time commitment becomes too much.

In other words, it may not be that people are put off by the idea of long SS intervals, specifically, but the idea of having the required time to do long sessions mid workweek in general.

[critpig]

I would agree with this but inherently difficult to sell a training platform with that on the program

[hubcyclist]

this might sound antithetical so your intolerance of riding the trainer, but one thought i had if you’re trying to do sweet spot progression inside is to break up the intervals with a lot of super easy riding in between. Reason for this thought is if you’re doing 60mins with 3x15 sweet spot, you might feel like you’re always on since rest between intervals is short. so if you can increase the easy time to sub 50% and sit up, send texts and chill, maybe that might increase inside tolerance?

[svens]

SS on trainer might be actually more bearable than lower intensity because of additional support from pressing pedals. Also, More Sweet Spot! group has pretty time-efficient workouts, for example SS90/60 1x60 with PL 8.0

[jlsazart]

His strategy has been lots of short blocks (last was 7x8?) to break it up more, whereas I’m doing only 2 or 3 long blocks to get it over faster. Weirdly, I’m the short-punchy rider who hates having to put out long consistent power and he’s the TT beast. ¯_(ツ)_/¯

First time trying this for both of us, so hopefully the results will be the encouragement we need to stomach the trainer more.