It’s probably been asked before, if has then I’m struggling to find it…
For long events where you’re beyond perhaps the time you could even push (say) sweet spot at, it seems beneficial to train LT1 to be as high as possible. So that you maximise being able to ride at a consistently high pace without it tailing off? Essentially the aim is to get LT1 as close to LT2 as possible.
Feels all well and good trying to improve FTP or roughly LT2 (let’s not get into whether they are the exactly the same or not!), but my FTP has been pretty consistent for 10 years of training now, and with longer events becoming my goal, it seems sensible to be trying to raise the longer durations of power curve than keep trying to nudge FTP (which doesn’t feel like it will happen).
So the question is, without riding for 10 hours a day at LT1, how would you go about pushing LT1?
It feels a bit too easy to ride at power/heart rate below/around LT1 unless I actually have the time to ride for big hours? Or is the only way more volume?
Without riding a lot of hours (and really, even if you are) I think your best bet is to train with 2-3 days in intensity each week and fill in the rest with easy/moderate riding based on your sustainable long-term capabilities.
LT1 isn’t totally decoupled from LT2, so trying to move them separately isn’t the best approach in my opinion. You can either pull them up from the top end, or push them up from the bottom.
Again, in my opinion, there are typically more gains to be had by doing a little bit of both, but it’s going to take a lot longer by simply pushing from the bottom. This means more hours each week and consistency over years potentially.
Throwing in some higher intensity work (Threshold, VO2 Max, or even some Anaerobic or Sweet Spot work) will help to make sure both ends are moving and one isn’t stuck and causing things to slow down.
Check out the Ironman plans as this is pretty much exactly the goal you’re describing.
What you will see is the vo2, threshold (raise the ceiling) and sweet spot work but also some chunky endurance rides (raise the floor) that really build the aerobic engine.
Because it was sitting right in front of you. It’s just plain old endurance training. Lots of low intensity hours… I know you didn’t want that answer.
That’s called having a higher FTP.
Have you ever worked on your threshold TTE (time to exhaustion)? This was a game changer for me. In your build phase, do a progression building out to 3x20 or 4x20 or even 3x30 at FTP (or even 95%). Doing this gave me the best fitness I’ve had in 5 years despite my FTP barely moving up.
Yeah, so I’ve probably worked on TTE every winter for a good few years. Think as far as I got in any year before I started to get rather bored and decided to move on has been 2x40mins. It has done well for me so far as knocking out big day rides and a bit of racing, but more the stochastic/varied pace rides rather than the ultra/long Audax distance rides I’m now looking at.
Whilst a higher FTP should drag everything with it, I’d assume it’s possible to nudge the parts of the power duration curve separately to some extent. (Since for example, VO2 isn’t a fixed 120% of FTP for everyone)
So hence I’d like to nudge LT1 cos to help on multiday Audax and ultra distance rides.
At 45 and having hovered around 4.odd W/kg for perhaps 10 years, perhaps it is additional volume that’s needed to make any improvement - regardless of whether that’s LT1 or nudge up FTP despite my thought it’s probably as high as it’s going to get irrespective of the focus/time I put into it…
I’m 100% sure that you can increase LT1 while LT2/FTP stays virtually unchanged, and similarly sure that a shedload of sub-LT1 riding is a damn fine way to go about it.
You sound quite similar to myself, FTP staying relatively the same, wanting to switch to longer riding durations. I went down this road a few years ago , it was initially a shock to me, that despite being able to be competitive at time trials, how much those first few lumpy audaxes made my legs ache!
I found that doing a couple of workouts with some intensity coupled with building longer rides done at a consistent steady pace , so no hammering the climbs or getting involved in half-wheeling riding friends to death, helped change my fitness to an all day endurance type rather than fast for an hour type.
For the longer rides, I don’t really go by power or heartrate but by feel, and usually when I look at the data afterwards they tend to come in at around 0.7 IF, once you get used to what these rides feel like, it’s just a case of building them up gradually to whatever distance you are targeting. You don’t need loads of intensity to go with them, but if you don’t throw in VO2 and some threshold work you run the risks of becoming really good at riding slowly and that’s an issue for getting over a tough climb or having to push against a headwind on a time limit.
One other thing that I’ve found to be crucial to getting through the longer rides is incorporating some strength work, doesn’t have to be a lot, I tend to do maybe three months in the gym with barbells in the autumn/winter and then transition to a session at home with dumbbells/kettlebells in the week and one gym session at the weekend if I’m not riding long that weekend. Found this has helped keep annoying niggles/injuries at bay over the longer rides.
You can definitely move LT1 up but depends on if you’ve maximized it yet or not. When I was training for Ironman my LT1 was probably 10-20w higher than now even though my FTP is higher. How did I get there? Long 5+ hr rides on the weekend and lots of sub threshold/sst work. Lots of z2 volume in 2 other sports. I still did some vo2 and threshold but no dedicated blocks. For years.
But your best chance to improve will be to blast the plataeu. How have you been training traditionally? Do the exact opposite and see how it works. Aka if you spend winter traditionally doing z2 and sst try doing vo2 block and threshold blocks while keeping a long ride and see what happens.
Yeah, so winters have usually been some kind of build of time to exhaustion at tempo/sweet spot/threshold plus some weights and a long weekend ride (with no intensity but probably intermittently harder than LT1). VO2, anaerobic and higher intensity would always come later - spring/summer.
This winter, I am heading for more sessions around LT1, straight away with a VO2 session or two per week, along with heavy weights again. Will possibly pick up TTE stuff nearer to race season next year. And whilst the aim will be gravel and Audax, no doubt I’ll find out how I go in crits as well once I no doubt get the itch again
