Sweetspot- use year round?

bahzob

I have just finished my first year cycling using a structured training plan.

I followed the "standard" advice for this, winter being base training at low (but increasing) effort then a build phase finally with a peak. (a la Joe Friel Training Bible)

I am now putting together this years plan and have come across articles on the "sweetspot" that may be familiar to others. This also seems to chime with some advice I have seen here and elsewhere. The idea is quite simple, to maximise the amount of time you spend training in a zone of 85%-95% of your good 1 hour/25TT effort level (CP60 for those with power meters). More here:
http://www.twowheelblogs.com/2-old-2-go-slow/how-to-increase-your-functional-threshold-power-ride-in-your-sweet-spot

Obviously use of this depends on goals/current capacity. In my case I already have very good endurance and my 2008 goals centre around upping my 1 hour power (prime target is Marmotte sub 7.30 which bascially means doing 3 reps at close to 1 hour power)

So I am thinking about training in the "sweetspot" zone during winter so at zone 3-4 rather than 2-3. (in power terms 240-265W rather than 170-230W).

This seems to bring some benefits:
> It will give me most bangs for my buck in terms of improving my main training focus
> You need to spend less overall time training
> I enjoy it more

However this flies in the face of the standard advice I myself followed last year so wondered if anyone else out there has tried this and if so what results they have got

(FYI put similar post on WKO forum and have at least one postive feedback so far:
http://www2.cyclingpeakssoftware.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=1497&sid=8ee32e0296fabf226f9f69a5c77433f3)

Alex_Simmons/RST

Given you have a solid season under your belt and assuming you don't detrain too much, then mixing in a good dose of SST is quite a useful (and time efficient) way of gaining many of the most desirable physiological adaptions in a sustainable manner.

It is however still quite fatiguing if you are not used to the workload, so dosing it is important, along with making sure it is not monotonous or constantly isopower workouts. Use normalised power as guide to intensity.

Keep an eye on your CTL ramp rate, don't exceed an increase of 8 TSS/week. Typically 4-8 TSS/wk CTL ramp rate is max sustainable. Of course that means also keeping tabs on your FTP changes.

Good luck!

Alex_Simmons/RST

BTW - Friel himself is now acknowledging that his training methodology as per the Training Bible is sub-optimal.

It's OK for those starting out, since just about any form of consistent cycling training (compared to inconsistent or very low volume training) will see an improvement.

cervelorider

SST made up a large part of my out of season training last year, and I made great gains from it.
I was doing regular 2hr sessions at 90%, with a weekly 3-4 hr session at 80%.

My tip would be to start doing 2hr sessions at 80-85%, with the idea of moving up to 2hr sessions at 90% when you're comfortable with the training load. Sessions at this intensity and duration really do give you the ability to 'dig deeper'....... much deeeper

Alex' comment about keeping an eye on CTL ramp rate is well worth noting, and something I shall be making some adjustments to this time round

bahzob

Thanks very much for feedback. Cervelorider I will follow your advice and see how I go.....

terongi

Alex_Simmons/RST wrote:

Given you have a solid season under your belt and assuming you don't detrain too much, then mixing in a good dose of SST is quite a useful (and time efficient) way of gaining many of the most desirable physiological adaptions in a sustainable manner.

It is however still quite fatiguing if you are not used to the workload, so dosing it is important, along with making sure it is not monotonous or constantly isopower workouts. Use normalised power as guide to intensity.

Keep an eye on your CTL ramp rate, don't exceed an increase of 8 TSS/week. Typically 4-8 TSS/wk CTL ramp rate is max sustainable. Of course that means also keeping tabs on your FTP changes.

Good luck!

I am interested in this subject, but could someone explain the jargon:

I assume that "SST" is sweet spot training, but what is:

CTL ramp rate

and

TSS?

scherrit

chronic training load and training stress scores....

looking for a link:

http://www.cyclingforums.com/t386984.html

there you go.....

Alex_Simmons/RST

terongi wrote:

Alex_Simmons/RST wrote:

Given you have a solid season under your belt and assuming you don't detrain too much, then mixing in a good dose of SST is quite a useful (and time efficient) way of gaining many of the most desirable physiological adaptions in a sustainable manner.

It is however still quite fatiguing if you are not used to the workload, so dosing it is important, along with making sure it is not monotonous or constantly isopower workouts. Use normalised power as guide to intensity.

Keep an eye on your CTL ramp rate, don't exceed an increase of 8 TSS/week. Typically 4-8 TSS/wk CTL ramp rate is max sustainable. Of course that means also keeping tabs on your FTP changes.

Good luck!

I am interested in this subject, but could someone explain the jargon:

I assume that "SST" is sweet spot training, but what is:

CTL ramp rate

and

TSS?

Sorry for using the acronyms - I figured since the OP posted their question on the Cycling Peaks WKO+ forum then they would already know what I meant by those terms.

TSS
Training Stress Score is a term* used to quantify the physiological stress of a given ride/workout. It is calculated using data from a power meter.

It is based on a flat out time trial effort of 1 hour duration = 100 TSS "points".

The number of "TSS" points for a ride/workout is based on three things:
- the duration of the ride,
- the intensity of the ride (taking into account the variability of that intensity) and
- your current fitness level.

The higher the intensity, the greater the weighting in the calculation of TSS.

CTL
Chronic Training Load* is a measure of your longer term (last few months) training load and uses daily TSS scores to calculate** it. It is expressed in the unit TSS per day.

For example, a rider with a CTL of 100, means that they have reached a level of long term training stress equivalent to riding a 1 hour TT, every day for 4 months.

Of course no one in their right mind would do that, the rides would be much more variable and include much longer rides at a lower intensity than a TT but overall provide a similar level of daily stress.

CTL ramp rate
Since improving general fitness requires a gradual increase in stress on the body, i.e. increasing both the duration and intensity of rides (along with appropriate recovery), then this increase in stress is easily measured by the increase in a rider's CTL over the course of a season, especially in the build phases of training.

There have been shown to be a few practical "rules" of monitoring CTL that are most useful. One of those is not to attempt to lift your CTL by more than 8 TSS points per week as sustaining this level of training load increase leads to an increased succeptibility to illness and fatigue requiring more than a normal recovery period. Hence the term CTL ramp rate.

The link provided by Scherrit is a good one. I also wrote an plain English explanation in a post here:
http://alex-cycle.blogspot.com/2006/10/ ... chart.html

* TSS and CTL are terms owned by Peaksware - the company that provides the WKO+ software and was originally developed and coined by Dr Andrew Coggan. While Peakware holds the license to the terms TSS & CTL, the formula for calculating each are in the public domain and can be calculated a spreadsheet such as Excel.

** CTL is actually based on an exponentially weighted moving average of daily TSS scores with a half life typically set at 42 days, so all previous daily scores count - but less so 8 weeks ago vs say 4 weeks ago.

And no, I have no connection to Peaksware, don't receive any money from them etc. I was however a beta tester for the Performance Manager concept.

Simon Notley

I am also interested in this subject, as I have access to a velodrome for my winter training and this kind of training seems ideally suited to that environment. I know you can't mae a direct comparison, but approximately what percentage of Lactate Threshold Heart Rate would you estimate to be the 'sweetspot'? I don't have access to a power meter at the moment but do have a good HRM.

Simon

Alex_Simmons/RST

Well if you mean your HR at TT pace (as LT* occurs at about 15% lower power than TT power levels), then I would say anything from 84% - 100% of your TT pace HR.

As always there is a trade off between intensity and duration.

The use of the term LT in the power levels table (L4 - TT pace) really is referring to the primary physiological adaptation occuring when riding at that level (i.e.lifting one's LT power). But LT actually occurs around the max sustainable power for around 3 hours.

Alex_Simmons/RST

And don't forget that HR typically drifts away from power over the course of efforts at this level and above.

If you ride at the same power during a workout, then HR will drift upwards over time. If HR remains constant, then power falls over time.

That's one thing many people realise who move from religiously following HR zones to training with power - they haven't been training hard enough and a lot of their riding has been ineffective. Much better off matching HR and perceived exertion when you are experienced and sans-PM.

cervelorider

It maybe worth considering using average MPH in a velodrome environment, since there wont be any changes in intensity.
It might take a bit of experimentation, but try dialling in a speed you can hold for a ~2hr session, and see if you can sustain it. then adjust up or down accordingly.

Simon Notley

Thanks for that. I was aware that LTHR is generally lower than 10TT HR, I have been using the guidelines provided by Friel to estimate LTHR from my TT average. I'll bear the figures you suggest in mind when I start my next season's training proper after christmas.

I think using speed in the velodrome is a very sensible suggestion, although of course I'll have to alter it depending on whether I am riding solo or in a pace line. In the past, I have tended to do interval-style training at the velodrome, so I'm not sure what pace I couild sustain for 2 hrs, but I will investigate.

Cheers

Simon