Twice a week I ride with my friends outside (Wednesday and Saturdays). We Usually ride 3 to 4 hours and climb around 1‘500m which contains fire roads as well as single trails. Mostly the pace is pretty high. I would like to do one or two indoor rides early in the morning as well so I get to ride 4 times. I do not have a specific goal except to beat my buddies
Which workouts or kind of workouts would you recommend to do on the trainer? Sweet Spot or MTB specific stuff or maybe something different? Thanks for your advice.
In my experience sweet spot has greatly expanded the amount of time that I can put out higher power. If you can put out the same amount of power for a longer portion of the climb you will beat your buddies.
Also, ss doesn’t wreck me for an mtb ride the next day the way some other sessions do.
I would work backwards from what you think your weaknesses are and train those. My chink is sustained power so I spend some extra time training that, for me I look for sweet spot and threshold intervals that are longer. Conversely if the short punchy stuff is hard for you, train that with short interval VO2 max workouts. Not saying you shouldn’t do both, you should but start there.
Also I would recommend a day of easy endurance or even a full on recovery ride indoors since it’s just about impossible to go easy on the MTB outside. If you’re only riding inside and off-road you should def leave room for that in your weekly plan.
Start off with low volume Sweet Spot Base 1 then do Sweet Spot Base 2. Adjust your schedule so you have at least 2 full rest days. Since you ride outside Wednesday and Saturday, your TrainerRoad workouts could be Tuesday, Thursday, Sunday, allowing Monday and Friday to be your rest days. If you find this to be too much, let your Saturday outdoor ride be a substitute for your TR workout. Then maybe add in an easy aerobic ride on Sunday instead. Start off slow introducing TR workouts and give yourself rest if it’s too much. Adjust your training days if you find Thursdays workouts are too difficult after Wednesday’s outdoor ride.
After your Base phase (12 weeks), I’d do General Build (8 weeks). GB will give you a nice mixture of punchy power needed for MTB singletrack as well as sustainable power for the climbs and the duration of your rides.
