Going to try a new training plan
Comments
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Alex_Simmons/RST wrote:Chiggy wrote:I've been reading Coggan's website today.
The 60 minute ergometer test is nothing new.
All he's done is embellished it with a lot of science and renamed everything so his disciples can form an 'old boys club'.
and your contribution to the knowledge of training includes.....
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<sound of crickets chirping>
A Portable espresso machine......That runs off a car battery 0 -
Chiggy wrote:A Portable espresso machine......That runs off a car battery
Mind you, that's just the application of an already well known ergogenic aid.0 -
I enjoyed the litte maths problem you set Napoleon. Is the answer 300watts?0
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Aberdeen_lune wrote:I enjoyed the litte maths problem you set Napoleon. Is the answer 300watts?
Heh heh.0 -
Hitting the turbo a lot due to the snow. No way you can do 2x20 at 110% of ftp. ( I don't think, well at least I can't) strongly suggests ftp need changing.
Don't know about doing 2x20 at 95% of ftp. Seems a bit low in that you're only 'working' for 40 mins (and you get a rest) so surely they should be at 100% of ftp (or higher)? I agree that it might leave you a bit jaded the next day but it's not like anyone is doing a block of more than two days of these are they?0 -
Is there any evidence to suggest that 2x20 @ 100% FTP is more effective than doing them at 95% FTP?More problems but still living....0
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It's funny that 2x20 seems to have become a standard but I read of them being performed at anything from 85 to 110% of FTP. Surely not at all the same thing?0
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85% would be a tempo/L3 session. 110% FTP would be impossible for me as my 20min max is less than 110% FTP.More problems but still living....0
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amaferanga wrote:Is there any evidence to suggest that 2x20 @ 100% FTP is more effective than doing them at 95% FTP?
It would depend on what FTP is - people seem to have wildly different ideas of what their FTP might be or how they might get it.
I could claim an FTP of over 350 (NP from a variety of 1 hour efforts)
And I could then do 2x20 on a flat even road and 90% of a tough workout and 95% of that would be impossible. On a turbo 85% of that would laughable.
But there's no way you will be able to find evidence other than anecdotal on the difference between doing it at 100% or 95% the difference is so small that you couldn't construct a study without thousands of participants to tease out any difference.
Personally I would never target a power but always target a PE and then wonder if power wasn't what you expect.Jibbering Sports Stuff: http://jibbering.com/sports/0 -
I think the adaptions are probably pretty similar at 95% to 105%, it is the recovery that will differ. If you do them at 105% and then have to have a rest day afterwards, or an easy day, then I think this is not as good as doing them at 95% and then training hard the next day.
Obviously rest needs to be part of the process, but if you were doing a couple of these a week very hard, the extra rest might limit potentially greater gains you would get from other training as well.
I am sure Alex would be able to explain it better.0 -
jibberjim wrote:Personally I would never target a power but always target a PE and then wonder if power wasn't what you expect.
I don't get this. If you do 2x20 at say 95% FTP after an easy few days it'll probably seem quite easy compared to if you've had several days training on the trot beforehand. So in terms of PE one session is going to seem a lot harder than the other, but the power is obviously the same. So you're saying to ignore the objective measure during the session and use a subjective measure instead to determine intensity?More problems but still living....0 -
jibberjim wrote:Personally I would never target a power but always target a PE and then wonder if power wasn't what you expect.
Surely if you have a powermeter you would do it by power, far more accurate than RPE is it not.
If you are going to do the sessions on the turbo, and you think your turbo FTP is different from the road FTP, test your FTP on the turbo. I would have thought it should be similar enough to be able to do a session within the 95% to 105% range.
If you can't get to 95% of your FTP for 2 x 20 mins, I suspect something is not quite right. :?0 -
SBezza wrote:jibberjim wrote:Personally I would never target a power but always target a PE and then wonder if power wasn't what you expect.
Surely if you have a powermeter you would do it by power, far more accurate than RPE is it not.
No, Power is not an accurate measure of intensity, it's an accurate measure of what you do, however intensity is a relative measure - it's 100% or 90% of something, and for power to be an accurate measure of it that something needs to be accurately defined.
However the variation from training, from day to day differences in fatigue, outside stresses etc. will move the reference power value around, and a 5% change is very possible. And 95% on a day when you could 300watts all out for an hour and 100% on a day when you could only do 285 watts for an hour are both 285 watts - the 285 may be an absolute measure of work done, but it's not an accurate measure of intensity.
I would contend that the recovery requirements of a session are bound not to the absolute number of watts you do but to the %age of the maximum you can do on that day.
Doing it by power suffers another problem if you're improving your fitness - imagine a rigid training plan where you do it at 95% of FTP and you ascertain your FTP at the start of the new year having had a couple of months off. You ascertain it to be 250 watts and do your workouts regularly at 237watts. 4 weeks in you test and get 250 watts again, curses no improvement, so you do another 4 weeks and then test again and get 280watts. In reality that 4 week test was just a bad one - maybe you were ill, maybe you had un-identified fatigue from external factors or maybe your power device was mis-calibrated. Whatever it was you spend weeks doing work at an intensity well below what was possible. On what is a very reasonable increase to see after a break or in a new cyclist.
Even if you'd tested accurately at 265 at 4 weeks, within those 4 weeks assuming just the improvements were evenly spaced your intensity would've been dropping doing the workouts at 237watts - 95%, 93%, 91%, 89% as the 4 weeks went by.
I'm not saying ignore the reading of the watts, it's useful information - both after the session, and during - if you know you can do 300watts for your 20minutes but 10minutes in you're only averaging 290, then you can look into why that might be - is your PE off, are you not working hard enough? or whatever.Jibbering Sports Stuff: http://jibbering.com/sports/0 -
Some serious questions Jim:
1) How do you know what the maximum is that you can do on a given day without actually riding for an hour at your maximum?
2) On what do you base your contention that recovery requirements are bound to the percentage of the maximum you can do on a given day?
3) With regard your example of an increase in FTP not being picked up until its too late - don't you think most people would notice that the sessions are getting easier and perhaps their HR during the session is dropping? I think you're assuming that people are following the numbers blindly, where as in fact most people will be using the numbers and some common sense.
You've clearly got a lot more experience of training and training with power than me, but your approach doesn't make sense to me. Maybe it works for you, but I'm not sure it'd be right for me.More problems but still living....0 -
jibberjim wrote:[Doing it by power suffers another problem if you're improving your fitness - imagine a rigid training plan where you do it at 95% of FTP and you ascertain your FTP at the start of the new year having had a couple of months off. You ascertain it to be 250 watts and do your workouts regularly at 237watts. 4 weeks in you test and get 250 watts again, curses no improvement, so you do another 4 weeks and then test again and get 280watts. In reality that 4 week test was just a bad one - maybe you were ill, maybe you had un-identified fatigue from external factors or maybe your power device was mis-calibrated. Whatever it was you spend weeks doing work at an intensity well below what was possible. On what is a very reasonable increase to see after a break or in a new cyclist.
Even if you'd tested accurately at 265 at 4 weeks, within those 4 weeks assuming just the improvements were evenly spaced your intensity would've been dropping doing the workouts at 237watts - 95%, 93%, 91%, 89% as the 4 weeks went by.
I'm not saying ignore the reading of the watts, it's useful information - both after the session, and during - if you know you can do 300watts for your 20minutes but 10minutes in you're only averaging 290, then you can look into why that might be - is your PE off, are you not working hard enough? or whatever.
PE has limitations greater than a PM Jim, if you are fatigued your power might be lower, and the HR and PE be alot higher. If you do the threshold session on RPE and the power is well down, then it is probably best to can the session.
I can't see why anyone with a PM would even bother with RPE.
I would think using HR alongside a PM would help eliminate the potential pitfull of an increasing FTP without you knowing. If you do your sessions at 95% of FTP and your HR is lower in general, perhaps you can raise the power slightly on each interval, and then retest when you are rested.
I use power on my turbo, and one day I could be really suffering trying to do the sessions, yet another day be OK, it will depend on other training and how I feel that day. RPE would not be a good gauge IMO. HR might give me an idea I am tired, though if I can't sustain the target power the session is ended.0 -
I know the imagic is not exactly the industry standard for power measuring ( :oops: ) but I try to hold around 230 and I was tested at 240 (many years ago I admit) and I think it's reasonibly consistant. If I up it by 5% (to 253) I'd never hold it for more than 3mins and if I lowered it by 5% (218) it would be quite a bit easier. As for HR, a 5% movement would make it either impossibly hard or really quite easy. Either way they become different training sessions for me so I tend to do them in a very narrow range of power/HR.
I know all about Sweet Spot etc but being honest to my new training plan (that started all this) I'm going to bash them out which will mean I need to rest the days afterwards, but when you make a plan...................
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amaferanga wrote:1) How do you know what the maximum is that you can do on a given day without actually riding for an hour at your maximum?
You can't - so you cannot know the intensity of a ride based on power numbers alone.amaferanga wrote:2) On what do you base your contention that recovery requirements are bound to the percentage of the maximum you can do on a given day?
Recovery is clearly linked to fatique - ride for 4 hours hard and then do 40 minutes at all you can do and compare how you feel subsequently to a different day where you just did 40 minutes at that same wattage. There are many physiologocal reasons why your power may be down and not all of them will cause the same changes in recovery needed but I think in general it's a reasonable contention. I'd like to hear some counter-arguments if anyone thinks it's related to the absolute number.
Recovery is a very individual thing anyway, I don't really get this discussion about recovery from a 2x20 at 95% since I can do 1 hour at 95% repeatedly for multiple days and don't appear to be that unusual in people with similar loads - which suggests if you can't you're running a pretty low training load so recovery is not really issue as you don't have the time to ride more.amaferanga wrote:3) With regard your example of an increase in FTP not being picked up until its too late - don't you think most people would notice that the sessions are getting easier
If you can notice your sessions getting easier, then you can ride to PE, since that is what noticing your sessions getting easier means. Either you can identify the intensity (threshold / 5 minute) and ride to it, or you can't.
There's nothing wrong with any way to train obsessively by numbers changing them often to keep them relevant is a very good way to train. But it's not required, just like there's nothing magic about two twenty minute intervals at any intensity it's just training. There are just pitfalls you need to avoid if you just go by power numbers - just like if you just go by any other metric.Jibbering Sports Stuff: http://jibbering.com/sports/0 -
I seem to do my 2x20's differently to everyone here!
After my end of season break I pick a ballpark wattage [this year it was 200W] and try and hold it for the session. If I fail [like I did this time] I knock off 10 watts and try that. 190 felt fairly easy so I upped it to 194, did that so next session was 198, did that, felt good so next was 200w but I got ill and havent tried yet.
So basically I just add a few watts every session depending on how it felt, kinda a combination of PE and power. If I fail I just fall back to the last wattage I completed then try again next time. Seems to work for me, knocked minutes of my 10 and 25 PB's last season.0 -
Many questions as I'm joining the 2x20 club over Xmas
1) Does anyone have anything like videos or anything to help keep pace during these sessions? I really, really struggle to retain motivation unless I've someone else riding with me.
I've got some of the sufferest and spinervals videos which help for other sessions, but the Sufferfest all seems to be about short attacks & recovery for road racing, I'm after a more consistent effort.
2) In the absence of a powermeter, is HR at lactate threshold a good enough approximation of FTP?
3) Is doing these on rollers a good or bad idea. Problem (1) seems to be more of an issue on the turbo so I try to keep it for hilly type work. Are they meant to be too intense for rollers or are they hard but steady efforts?
4) What recovery does everyone allow between the 20's?0 -
G-Wiz wrote:Many questions as I'm joining the 2x20 club over Xmas
1) Does anyone have anything like videos or anything to help keep pace during these sessions? I really, really struggle to retain motivation unless I've someone else riding with me.
I've got some of the sufferest and spinervals videos which help for other sessions, but the Sufferfest all seems to be about short attacks & recovery for road racing, I'm after a more consistent effort.
2) In the absence of a powermeter, is HR at lactate threshold a good enough approximation of FTP?
3) Is doing these on rollers a good or bad idea. Problem (1) seems to be more of an issue on the turbo so I try to keep it for hilly type work. Are they meant to be too intense for rollers or are they hard but steady efforts?
4) What recovery does everyone allow between the 20's?
1) I use music rather than video - personal preference obv - but a good power ballad will inspire anyone. Fact.
2) For 2x20, its reasonable, except for the first 5 minutes or so when your heart is getting up to speed - but you knew that anyway.
3) If you are confident you won't fall off, why not? Unless you plan to ride literally to exhaustion.
4) Personally, for sweetspot (~90% of FTP power) I allow 5 minutes, although this is quite generous - for proper threshold 10-15 depending on how I'm feeling.0 -
I guess that's what the question was, these aren't intended to be to total exhaustion from what I can gather? i.e. should you be able to do a quality session of some other sort the day after when in good shape?3) If you are confident you won't fall off, why not? Unless you plan to ride literally to exhaustion.
I guess I'm trying to buid up a repertoire of sessions at different lengths / intensities and this is somewhere in the middle compared to say a flat out 20" test or a 100km Zone 2 ride?
Or is it supposed to be a real killer, the only one of that intensity you'd do in a week, and need an easy day after?0 -
+1 for what has been said above, apart from the rollers.
On HR it will take a while for it to rise so don't go off too hard.
If you have never done them before the first couple will probably be more trial and error as to the right intensity. If you have a rear wheel speed sensor you could work out what the speed is when you have them sorted out, and then use this for future sessions.
I would do them on the turbo as for me I couldn't get enough resistance to actually get to FTP power on a set of rollers. If your FTP was quite low, then I would think it maybe possible, or if you had a resistance unit on the rollers. Without any form of power monitoring it will be difficult to see if you are actually training in the right power zone, rather than just having a high HR. This again maybe trial and error.
They will be hard, but you shouldn't need an easy day afterwards, unless they have really wiped you out. It maybe the first couple of times you do them, you may still be sore the following day, but you will no doubt get used to them. You could always build up to 20 mins as well, start at 15 mins, and then work up to 20 mins over a couple of weeks.0 -
G-Wiz wrote:
I guess that's what the question was, these aren't intended to be to total exhaustion from what I can gather? i.e. should you be able to do a quality session of some other sort the day after when in good shape?3) If you are confident you won't fall off, why not? Unless you plan to ride literally to exhaustion.
I guess I'm trying to buid up a repertoire of sessions at different lengths / intensities and this is somewhere in the middle compared to say a flat out 20" test or a 100km Zone 2 ride?
Or is it supposed to be a real killer, the only one of that intensity you'd do in a week, and need an easy day after?
The answer to this is, unfortunately, it depends. If you're 4 weeks away from the national 10, I imagine you'd be doing them flat out. If it's December and you want to train the next day, then you don't.
I think what you're after is a SweetSpot session - it's 90% of FTP, which in HR terms I can quantify (from a dataset of me) thus: I did a 20 min flat out test yesterday at 180bpm av (excl first 5 mins) and I do sweetspot at 162bpm av (excl first 5 mins). If it helps my weekend rides tend to be at about 140-145bpm. YMMV.
There's no need to necessarily do this as a 2x20 - many riders do longer sessions e.g. an hour or even 90 mins straight through. Might want to work up to this though - I do.0 -
Thanks
I'm after sessions that I can do weekday evenings fairly consistently through the winter, so this looks perfect to do at least once a week.0 -
G-Wiz wrote:Thanks
I'm after sessions that I can do weekday evenings fairly consistently through the winter, so this looks perfect to do at least once a week.
Yeah, they're fine for that. I do three days in a row and although I get progressively more tired, I never feel in danger of spazzing myself.0 -
As many have said this is very personal so this is just my take. I've spent a whole winter doing sweetspot 2x20s and just felt I didn't improve whereas if I do them at threshold I feel that i do and my power slowly goes up. On the downside I find it really hard to do them concecutive days but that's at the heart of my plan (that started this thread) I intend to go hard but less this winter. It's all for the benifit of my other Forumers I've I'm flying in January and on my kness by March it'll be my own stupid fault! 0
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G-Wiz wrote:Many questions as I'm joining the 2x20 club over Xmas
1) Does anyone have anything like videos or anything to help keep pace during these sessions? I really, really struggle to retain motivation unless I've someone else riding with me.
I've got some of the sufferest and spinervals videos which help for other sessions, but the Sufferfest all seems to be about short attacks & recovery for road racing, I'm after a more consistent effort.
The Suffer fest's can be made to work very well for 2x20's by joining some of the work and rest intervals together. For example
1) Downward sprial: work 2 min rest 2 min, work 1:45 rest 1:45... If you join all of these up plus the extras you get about 20 mins, There's then a 5 min rest and you repeat. So really there's 2x20 there with 5 mins rest in between
2) Angels: 10 min interval then 3x8 min with 4 min rest. Again if you join 2 min of rest with the work you end up creating a 4x10 interval set (off 2 min rest) 4x10 is a nice variation on the 2x20 theme.
3) Revolver: 16x 1min on, 1 min off. Do these as 1min as over/unders and you end up with 32 mins of threshold work. Repeat twice for a full hour of threshold work obviously abjusting power down if needed.
Just some suggestions. I love the suffer fest vids but I find the surges a bit pointless for what I am training for.0 -
G-Wiz wrote:Many questions as I'm joining the 2x20 club over Xmas
4) What recovery does everyone allow between the 20's?
For me personally I work on the principle of for every 5 minutes I do at threshold I deserve 1 minute rest. So if I do 2x20, I get 4 mins, if I do 4x10 I get 2 mins and 8x5 get 1 min. I very rarely manage a strict 2x20 but I make sure I get 40 mins of threshold by mixing up 5's 10's and 20's.
I know the above might not be physically optimal but it allows me mentally to do 40 min at threshold which is at the end of the day what it's all about. Ideally if was on the road I'd like to get 40 mins straight at ftp.0 -
chrisw12 wrote:G-Wiz wrote:Many questions as I'm joining the 2x20 club over Xmas
4) What recovery does everyone allow between the 20's?
For me personally I work on the principle of for every 5 minutes I do at threshold I deserve 1 minute rest. So if I do 2x20, I get 4 mins, if I do 4x10 I get 2 mins and 8x5 get 1 min. I very rarely manage a strict 2x20 but I make sure I get 40 mins of threshold by mixing up 5's 10's and 20's.
I know the above might not be physically optimal but it allows me mentally to do 40 min at threshold which is at the end of the day what it's all about. Ideally if was on the road I'd like to get 40 mins straight at ftp.
Isn't the length of each interval important? Even at the same effort level, is there not a different physiological change between say 2x20 and 10x4? I'm sure Alex gave a rule of thumb that every continuous block of 10 minutes in the sweet added a watt of power.0 -
SteveR_100Milers wrote:chrisw12 wrote:G-Wiz wrote:Many questions as I'm joining the 2x20 club over Xmas
4) What recovery does everyone allow between the 20's?
For me personally I work on the principle of for every 5 minutes I do at threshold I deserve 1 minute rest. So if I do 2x20, I get 4 mins, if I do 4x10 I get 2 mins and 8x5 get 1 min. I very rarely manage a strict 2x20 but I make sure I get 40 mins of threshold by mixing up 5's 10's and 20's.
I know the above might not be physically optimal but it allows me mentally to do 40 min at threshold which is at the end of the day what it's all about. Ideally if was on the road I'd like to get 40 mins straight at ftp.
Isn't the length of each interval important? Even at the same effort level, is there not a different physiological change between say 2x20 and 10x4? I'm sure Alex gave a rule of thumb that every continuous block of 10 minutes in the sweet added a watt of power.
Yes I'd imagine it is, but FOR ME it's about keeping the brain engaged as well, keeping the enthusiasm and the drive means keeping some variety in there rather than just going for what is optimal all of the time.0
