Need advise what’s the best training mode setting when doing sweet spot session is it ERG or Resistance or Standard ?
Whatever one suits you.
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Most use ERG as it’s just set and forget. If you prefer to use the others you’ll need to shift to hit the power targets. Depending on your gearing and settings though, you may be a bit high/low on your target power. This however can be adjusted. I’ve found resistance is great for z2, but the power tends to drift over time which is annoying when I’m trying to stay near a power target. I prefer ERG but play around with each and see what you like. There is no “best”, it’s whatever your preference is as long as you’re hitting your power targets.
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I’m not sure if you know the difference between the modes or not… if not then check this link to the TR blog…
Personally I always use ERG mode for everything, however, you will find plenty of people who will tell you it’s the devil and that you need to learn how to modulate the power yourself.
I can see their point of view but I feel like its just about putting the power out at the end of the day - I’d rather just concentrate on turning the pedals - especially on sweet spot workouts where i’ll probably be watching a movie or something.
VO2max and above I think the argument for turning ERG off is stronger but I’m still not convinced.
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As others have said, you do what works best for you. Since the previous replies so far have been erg users, I’ll tell you why I don’t use it. For me personally, I found that turning off erg helped to alleviate some knee issues. I suspect it’s that it’s giving me little micro breaks on my knees. I also prefer it because some workouts I want to closely follow the warm up and others I want to skip the warm up intervals and just pedal easy for a while to wake up my body gracefully before I get into the intensity. It’s easier for me to skip that warm up interval by just not shifting than to click a button on the screen multiple times to lower the intensity. For Z5+ workouts, I ALWAYS turn off erg, because I almost never follow the prescribed percentage and instead want to go all out during the intervals.
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My personal recommendations (from years of riding trainers and coaching):
Primary/Secondary and then rationale
Endurance: Resistance / ERG
I always wanted to feel how my legs were rather than sit at one power and assume it was correct for that day. Think of it as riding by RPE. Once I had that power/feeling set using resistance mode, I would often shift to ERG so I could zone out, but generally I didn’t want to pick an arbitrary power and lash myself to it for 3 hours.
Tempo/SST: ERG / Resistance
Usually there’s a target power in mind here, so doing SUB-threshold efforts like this in ERG is fine, IMO. The worst case is if it’s too hard, you’re taking tempo and making it sweet spot, or sweet spot and making it still a little under threshold and you’ll know that about 12 minutes in, so you can adjust down if needed.
Threshold: Resistance … / ERG
Strong preference for resistance mode here, simply because threshold moves day by day, and you want to train yourself to feel it out. ERG makes that substantially harder. There are the rare days where you might be able to do threshold intervals at slightly higher than FTP when you’re feeling good, and you can grab onto those better in resistance mode too. Can be tricky to find gearing, but that’s also part of riding on the road, so this is most realistic. This is also where the “micro breaks” can make a difference in the quality of the interval where ERG is an unrelenting (unrealistically so) taskmaster, so flat out you MIGHT be able to do a bit more work in resistance mode at this level.
Threshold+ - VO2max: Resistance
With intervals like this, where I typically have people doing max effort type stuff, I want them pedaling fast (110+ rpm) and power is necessarily going to change throughout the individual intervals as well as during the set. Resistance is an absolute MUST on these.
Short/Shorts, sprints, etc: Standard (resistance is OK but very gearing dependent)
With the way that the trainer works, it is much, much simpler to do things like 30/30s or 30/15s or sprints in STANDARD mode because you can almost always just find the appropriate gear and sit in it since the trainer will increase resistance as your cadence/power output picks up like an old fluid trainer. So as you accelerate, you will find that great point where the power is, then for the break you simply soft pedal or slow your cadence down until the flywheel slows, and then you go again. STANDARD is awesome for these kinds of intervals.
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@kurt.braeckel is spot on, I think.
- I usually use erg mode for endurance workouts so that I can zone out. It helps me relax. I could even do some work last Saturday morning (I have to read a thesis).
- For everything else I use resistance mode as I haven’t found a good way to activate standard mode. (It is not an option for my Elite Suito in TR’s app.) I adjust the resistance so that in the easiest gear I put out 40 % FTP at roughly 90–92 rpm. If the cadence is uncomfortable during the work intervals (i. e. “I am between gears”), I might re-adjust the resistance.
Today I figured out my FTP was set about 3–4 W too high (roughly 1 %), and since I was in resistance mode, it was not an issue, no erg spiral of death. I just adjusted my output and checked whether I was ok.
@kurt.braeckel
How do you activate standard mode on your trainer? Maybe I’m a bit dense, but I haven’t found a good way as e. g. using my Bolt to control my trainer means it no longer pairs to the TR app (as the Bolt grabs the Bluetooth connection). I loved the feel of my direct drive fluid trainer, my Elite Volano that is now in indoor trainer heaven.
I use erg-mode for all indoor training regardless of type of workout. It helps keeping me on target power. No problem whatsoever.
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It COULD BE that your trainer doesn’t have “standard”. I know my Neo does not.
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Standard mode is definitely limited availability.
- Wahoo trainers have it when using BLE, Direct Connect or WiFi, but not ANT+.
- My Hammer/H2 also had it, but I don’t remember if it had any connection limitations.
- Pretty sure Tacx do NOT have STD and I also don’t think Elite has it, but am not 100% on that.
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Yeah might just be you don’t have it. I had Wahoo and now have Saris trainers and part of the reason I liked them was trainer control options. 
I can access all those modes via my Bolt. TR users can get through the app as well.
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Yeah, then I reckon it doesn’t have it, Standard is not an option. Bummer. At least I’m not too stupid to find it 
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I use ERG.
But as I do my workouts on a Wattbike Atom, the options beyond ERG remain very limited unless / until TR & Wattbike get their heads together and make it so that gear changes are possible
I like to do all my stuff above endurance in resistance mode but that’s maybe because my trainer is the Suito and its so erratic in ERG but Kurts suggestion of using it for threshold stuff makes sense with a better trainer.
The Elite Suito has only got ERG or Resistance. Is Standard mode a bit like fluid resistance?
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Yeah, Standard (aka Level in some places) is a more progressive resistance curve (speed vs power) than Resistance. The rough analogy I use:
- Standard Mode is to Fluid Trainers as Resistance Mode is to Magnetic Trainers.
- Standard = Progressive Profile (black lines below)
- Resistance = Linear Profile (green line below)
And here is the old Kurt Kinetic chart that can be found in TR’s article:
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Nice @kurt.braeckel !! Super helpful!
And yes, as @kevistraining pointed out, in our article we recommend using Resistance mode if an interval is under 30 seconds to avoid any lag time in reaching their target watts.
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I just want to thank everyone who took the time to respond. I hope this thread helps others make better decisions when selecting training modes and training sessions. Kurt, thanks again for your input; it was very insightful.
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