Zone 2 training....do short periods work as well?

stueys

I'm confused, which I'll admit doesn't take much....

So my understanding was that there are essentially two main routes, classic periodisation and the more interval based approach as described in time crunched cyclist. The more interval based approach seems to be as outlined by Alex above and will target a broad range of areas quickly, predominantly building up FTP which requires good aerobic fitness and force. The advantage of this approach is that it brings results faster and requires less training time.

Classic perioidisation involves the traditional base, build, etc phases and takes more time. However pro's still go down this route as (a) they have the time and (b) the long base period gives you a deeper foundation to build on which equated to more endurance and ultimately more FTP. Downside is the increase in training time required.

Last season I focussed on intervals as I started late (June) and had a hard century in Oct to get ready for. This season I was planning to do a more period based approach as my endurance is still a long way from where I'd like it to be. My climbing starts to suffer if I hit hills 70 miles or more in. So I've been mixing up intervals in the turbo with 2 hr+ base rides at weekends.

So am I completely off base on my thinking here?

Alex_Simmons/RST

T.M.H.N.E.T wrote:

Understatement :P According to my coursework,complete breakdown of 1 glucose molecule generates 36moles of ATP. 1 fat molecule (1glycerol and 3 fatty acids) will yield 460moles of ATP.

Clearly fat is the greater energy source, not only on a chemical but dietry level (9cals per g fat/ 4cals per g carb) but the efficiency and rate at which the fat is broke down, does leave preference for carbs.

I'm talking energy yield per litre of Oxygen.

CHO will release 4.1 kcal/g and fat 9.3 kcal/g, however each gram of fat requires 2.42 times the quantity of Oxygen to metabolise as does CHO (in aerobic glycolosis).

Hence, the energy yield per litre of O2 terms is similar for fats as it is for CHO:
CHO ~ 5.06 kcal/litre of O2
fats ~ 4.74 kcal/litre of O2

So the energy yield per litre of O2 ranges from about halfway between those at lower intensities, moving up towards 5.0 kcal/litre of O2 when going aerobically hard, or a variance of only 3% in energy yield per litre of O2 over the range of aerobic intensities.

Alex_Simmons/RST

Stueys wrote:

I'm confused, which I'll admit doesn't take much....

So my understanding was that there are essentially two main routes, classic periodisation and the more interval based approach as described in time crunched cyclist. The more interval based approach seems to be as outlined by Alex above and will target a broad range of areas quickly, predominantly building up FTP which requires good aerobic fitness and force. The advantage of this approach is that it brings results faster and requires less training time.

Classic perioidisation involves the traditional base, build, etc phases and takes more time. However pro's still go down this route as (a) they have the time and (b) the long base period gives you a deeper foundation to build on which equated to more endurance and ultimately more FTP. Downside is the increase in training time required.

Last season I focussed on intervals as I started late (June) and had a hard century in Oct to get ready for. This season I was planning to do a more period based approach as my endurance is still a long way from where I'd like it to be. My climbing starts to suffer if I hit hills 70 miles or more in. So I've been mixing up intervals in the turbo with 2 hr+ base rides at weekends.

So am I completely off base on my thinking here?

No, but I think what you describe as "classic periodisation used by pros" is a myth.

There is clearly a trade off between time and intensity, and if you are going to do a high volume of training, then you will have no choice than to do much of it at more moderate intensities. But pros also climb a lot of hills/mountains, and by their very nature they do a lot of threshold or near threshold work. Many pros training is far less periodised than you might think, as their race calendar often doesn't permit it. And it's often less than optimal as well, some are good despite what they do.

Not sure about "time crunched plans" advocated by some, but I suspect they involve some structured or reasonable proportion of work above/well above threshold levels, which is not what I've suggested at all.

Full Merckx

Excellent thread, but just reinforces my experience that the more I learn the less I seem to know. Most of us are not track based so need both endurance to complete events and also desire increasing power to complete them more quickly. Having undertaken prolonged zone 2 training for the Marmotte this year and been disappointed with the results I thought I was clear what to do this year (target event city to summit triathlon). Interval sessions 1. 5up 5 down essentially over/unders 2. Sufferfest HHTNF or AVDP x1 and 3. Usual weekend long ride but throwing in some intervals.
Now I don't know if I'm coming or going :roll: :shock:
What I am sure of though, the best year I have raced was when we had an awful winter and I did stacks of turbo work.

Just an observation

Alex_Simmons/RST

Full Merckx wrote:

Excellent thread, but just reinforces my experience that the more I learn the less I seem to know. Most of us are not track based so need both endurance to complete events and also desire increasing power to complete them more quickly.

Improving sustainable aerobic power does lead to improved endurance.

stueys

Full Merckx wrote:

Excellent thread, but just reinforces my experience that the more I learn the less I seem to know.

I'm with, think I'm stopping on the Training Bible! Think the conclusion for me is to focus more on intervals during the week and get the longer rides in over the weekends. Endurance is still my killer which I think the probably answer for will be miles.

Plus I'm going to get around to paying for a fitness test and plan. Keep talking about it and this thread had reminded me I don't really know what I'm doing re getting the best return from my training time.

t.m.h.n.e.t

Alex_Simmons/RST wrote:

T.M.H.N.E.T wrote:

Understatement :P According to my coursework,complete breakdown of 1 glucose molecule generates 36moles of ATP. 1 fat molecule (1glycerol and 3 fatty acids) will yield 460moles of ATP.

Clearly fat is the greater energy source, not only on a chemical but dietry level (9cals per g fat/ 4cals per g carb) but the efficiency and rate at which the fat is broke down, does leave preference for carbs.

I'm talking energy yield per litre of Oxygen.

CHO will release 4.1 kcal/g and fat 9.3 kcal/g, however each gram of fat requires 2.42 times the quantity of Oxygen to metabolise as does CHO (in aerobic glycolosis).

Hence, the energy yield per litre of O2 terms is similar for fats as it is for CHO:
CHO ~ 5.06 kcal/litre of O2
fats ~ 4.74 kcal/litre of O2

So the energy yield per litre of O2 ranges from about halfway between those at lower intensities, moving up towards 5.0 kcal/litre of O2 when going aerobically hard, or a variance of only 3% in energy yield per litre of O2 over the range of aerobic intensities.

Ahh. Haven't got to that bit yet

bigpikle

Alex_Simmons/RST wrote:

Improving sustainable aerobic power does lead to improved endurance.

I think this is so important to recognise. Working to improve your threshold power ALSO improves endurance and your ability to ride longer and faster.

Its not an either/or situation. Work hard to improve your 20 min power and almost everything improves at the same time.

bahzob

Bigpikle wrote:

Alex_Simmons/RST wrote:

Improving sustainable aerobic power does lead to improved endurance.

I think this is so important to recognise. Working to improve your threshold power ALSO improves endurance and your ability to ride longer and faster.

Its not an either/or situation. Work hard to improve your 20 min power and almost everything improves at the same time.

Yes. And if you want to improve your 20 minute power its not much good "training" at a pace that you should be able to comfortably sustain for well over an hour. Riding 20 minutes at 80-85% of your FTP, then resting, is pretty feeble and not worth getting onto a turbo for. You should be aiming for your FTP for such short durations. You may not hit it every session but even on those you don't you will be training harder and getting fitter faster than if you set yourself a mediocre goal.

As for the rest it really isn't that complicated.

> If calorie burning is your main goal then you should aim to ride steadily at the maximum power/effort you can sustain for the training time available. Say for the sake of argument you can ride at 300W for an hour.
> If riding for 2 hours you should be able to average around 270W >> you will burn around 1860 kcals
> If riding for 4 hours you should be able to average around 240W >> you will burn around 3300 kcal
> If riding for 6 hours you should be able to average around 210 W >>you willl burn around 4300 kcal.
You should also be capable of doing these rides several days running np. They don't need much of a warmup, just start around 2/3 FTP and do a steady 5 minute ramp up to target power.

(The actual power you can sustain will vary according to physique and fitness. The numbers will go up as you do more of these sorts of rides. That' the main benefit of doing them from a training POV, especially if your events involve riding for 3-5 hours and/or riding on many consecutive days. Which is why they came about in the first place. If you have unlimited time to train then they are a good way to lose weight and get long endurance fitness.)

>>>> From a weight loss POV there are a couple of big issue with these rides.
The first is diminishing returns, as you burn less calories per hour spent training the longer you ride.

The second is fueling. You should be able to do a ride of 2 hours on not much more than water (and eat normally afterward. No need for special "recovery" products.) (Again what you can actually do will depend on fitness and improve as you train, it may well be lower than 2 hours, though its unlikely to be much higher.)

After then you have to choose:
>>> Eat > Which consumes calories ofc and so the ride burns up less net calories as a result
>>> Dont eat > Which turns the rides into "fat burners". Problem here is that your watts will drop as a result and so will your calories burned. (Such rides still have a place, but its fairly specialised and should be used with care, its described here: http://velorunner.blogspot.co.uk/2011/02/laurent-fignon-and-super-compensation.html

So bottom line if you want to lose weight is:
>> If you have unlimited time to train then the best way to lose weight is ride as for as long as possible at the highest pace you can sustain since that burns the biggest total number of calories, eating just enough on rides to sustain your best pace.
>> If you have limited time to train then the best way to lose weight is to try to do ride as hard as you can for the maximum time you can sustain just drinking water. This should result in training chunks or around 90-120 minutes. The total calories burned in across a number of these will be more than the if you spent the same time on one continuous ride.


All the above work is done at lower than threshold (****). This is important since if you start training at threshold and above training makes a step change and gets much harder so you spend less time doing work efforts and have to introduce rest intervals and more focussed warmups/cooldowns. You may also have to start planning in recovery days.

So if you train at threshold+ then you actually end up burning less calories per hour than riding steady state, so its not so useful if your primary goal is to lose weight. (Though in the long run it will help, since a higher threshold means you will be capable of doing all rides at a higher power hence burn more calories).

However if your goal is to improve threshold then you have to spend time riding above threshold. Rides like the above are a great way to build a good base of aerobic fitness to allow you to do these. But by themselves are not the most time efficient way to actually improve threshold.

So ofc in practice you mix and match the 2, the ratio varying according whatever your priorities/plan happen to be.

**** One variation is a personal favourite of mine that I have used for ages. It's to ride at steady state targets but do it as under/over chunks. So do something like 10 minutes at 260W then 5 at 300+ W and just repeat. I enjoy the variation of these compared to setting a steady target and they do provide a bit more of a stretch than staying sub threshold the whole time.

bahzob

Full Merckx wrote:

Excellent thread, but just reinforces my experience that the more I learn the less I seem to know. Most of us are not track based so need both endurance to complete events and also desire increasing power to complete them more quickly. Having undertaken prolonged zone 2 training for the Marmotte this year and been disappointed with the results I thought I was clear what to do this year (target event city to summit triathlon). Interval sessions 1. 5up 5 down essentially over/unders 2. Sufferfest HHTNF or AVDP x1 and 3. Usual weekend long ride but throwing in some intervals.
Now I don't know if I'm coming or going :roll: :shock:
What I am sure of though, the best year I have raced was when we had an awful winter and I did stacks of turbo work.

Just an observation

First rule of training is specificity.

Which is why level 2 can be fail. You don't ride many events at this intensity so why train at it (unless you have unlimited time or are targeting PBP/12 hour TT ofc).

As it happens I've ridden the Marmotte and similar events and done very well. You should'nt be riding much of the course at level 2. (the only bit maybe is the link from Glandon>Telegraph when ideally you will be toodling along in a big bunch). Rest will all ideally either be at near "sweetspot" pace as you climb or recovering as you descend.

So training is simple with focus on high effort 1-2 hour steady state rides coupled with some threshold+ work.

TTs are excellent training. A mix of 10/25s for threshold and 50/100s for steady power would be pretty much the perfect recipe.

Specificity may also be the reason that good racing followed from doing lots of turbo work and should be the guiding principle in terms of planning your triathalon.

On that subject while I don't agree with everything Joe Friel says, it would be stupid not to listen to him given all his experience. He has some useful advice here http://www.joefrielsblog.com/2012/10/how-can-i-do-a-faster-ironman.html which also happens to be a good example how applying the principle of specificity.

bigpikle

bahzob wrote:

[Yes. And if you want to improve your 20 minute power its not much good "training" at a pace that you should be able to comfortably sustain for well over an hour. Riding 20 minutes at 80-85% of your FTP, then resting, is pretty feeble and not worth getting onto a turbo for. You should be aiming for your FTP for such short durations. You may not hit it every session but even on those you don't you will be training harder and getting fitter faster than if you set yourself a mediocre goal.

this is where you are totally mistaken - you DO NOT need to ride at FTP to improve FTP. Accumulating quantities of time below FTP will still increase FTP over time (and the key here is that at slightly lower wattages you can do a lot more quality time). This is the entire concept behind sweetspot training. I know its true as I've taken my FTP from 180w to 290w in 18 months using this approach - including some time at threshold obviously, but almost all at temp and sweetspot.

Have a read of the following article by the guy that coined the concept...

http://www.fascatcoaching.com/sweetspottraining.html

danowat

Bigpikle wrote:

I know its true as I've taken my FTP from 180w to 290w in 18 months using this approach

That's a hell of an increase :shock:

mclarent

Depends how fat he is...

bigpikle

danowat wrote:

Bigpikle wrote:

I know its true as I've taken my FTP from 180w to 290w in 18 months using this approach

That's a hell of an increase :shock:

lots and lots of quality work and going from a fairly untrained state - getting a little tougher now though :twisted:

I also think its worth being clear what FTP really means. Its not the power you can produce just jumping on your bike for an hour. Its an approximation of the output achieved under well rested, perfect conditions with absolute motivation - thats why 88% of FTP isnt a mediocre effort that doesnt produce any benefit.

bigpikle

mclarent wrote:

Depends how fat he is...

not too fat luckily

SBezza

I don't think fitness is all about just increasing FTP, for me being fitter is being able to sustain near my FTP for greater durations, no point in being able to do 300W for an hour, if you then struggle to get > 95% of this for 2 hours +, though that does depend on your target events.

To be able to do this does take a fair amount of training load, which means a fair amount of volume, which as Alex has said means a lower intensity (not that low however). There is only so far you can go to raising your FTP, you will reach your limit at some point, it will not keep on increased forever. So just hammering on at FTP levels will likely lead to stagnation and a demotivated rider.

Every rider is different, most riders would be better riders with higher training loads, I know I go far better with a high loading, and this would just not be possible with pure FTP work. Sure FTP work needs doing but as Alex has said it is a mixture of intensity and volume that drives the best adaptions, and gains you the most fitness.

Obviously if you really are short on time intensity has to be raised, but I would suggest trying to find more time to train will likely lead to becoming better rider overall.

markos1963

Please forgive in advance my non tech point of view. I have swapped from doing two hour training rides three to four times a week to commuting an hour each way five times a week(riding at a tempo pace). This has had the effect of knocking off two stones in weight and taking a minute off my 10TT time. What I'm trying to say is training frequency as important as specificity? Is there no point to a structured training programme if you are unable to do it regulary?

SBezza

markos1963 wrote:

Please forgive in advance my non tech point of view. I have swapped from doing two hour training rides three to four times a week to commuting an hour each way five times a week(riding at a tempo pace). This has had the effect of knocking off two stones in weight and taking a minute off my 10TT time. What I'm trying to say is training frequency as important as specificity? Is there no point to a structured training programme if you are unable to do it regulary?

This is the important part, if you want to get fitter you need to train frequently, and hard enough for the duration of your riding to cause adaptions. There is no real point in riding for 2 to 3 days of the week, no matter how hard or long, as most of the fitness gains are lost on the other 4 or 5 days. You would get more fit by doing this rather than nothing at all admittedly, but no where near the fitness you will get by training 5 or 6 days of the week.

You still need to be smart however, and train effectively for the amount of hours you have, but still if you can train for more hours you will likely see even more improvements in fitness. It is all about getting the right balance with frequency, volume and intensity IMO.

Alex_Simmons/RST

Consistency and frequency matter.

Trev The Rev

SBezza wrote:

This is the important part, if you want to get fitter you need to train frequently, and hard enough for the duration of your riding to cause adaptions. There is no real point in riding for 2 to 3 days of the week, no matter how hard or long, as most of the fitness gains are lost on the other 4 or 5 days. You would get more fit by doing this rather than nothing at all admittedly, but no where near the fitness you will get by training 5 or 6 days of the week.

You still need to be smart however, and train effectively for the amount of hours you have, but still if you can train for more hours you will likely see even more improvements in fitness. It is all about getting the right balance with frequency, volume and intensity IMO.

I understand just riding on a Saturday & Sunday then doing nothing for 5 days would mean too many days in a row doing nothing. But as it can take 48 hours to recover from hard sessions, good gains can be made from training only every 3rd day, provided the sessions are hard enough. If a rider does not have the time or inclination to train 5 or 6 days a week, provided the intensity & volume are enough to need 48 hours recovery they should be able to make good improvements.

stueys

Trev The Rev wrote:

I understand just riding on a Saturday & Sunday then doing nothing for 5 days would mean too many days in a row doing nothing. But as it can take 48 hours to recover from hard sessions, good gains can be made from training only every 3rd day, provided the sessions are hard enough. If a rider does not have the time or inclination to train 5 or 6 days a week, provided the intensity & volume are enough to need 48 hours recovery they should be able to make good improvements.

Agreed, ultimately the mistake that's easy to make is not enough recovery time. Stress breaks the muscles down, they need time to reform stronger to get the most benefit from exercise. I can't repeat a hard interval or ride within 24 hours without a noticeable degradation in performance. I tend to allow 36-48 hrs between hard workouts for recovery and that works well for me on terms of tracking improvement. Sometimes I throw in a recovery/zone 2 ride in the next day.

SBezza

As you get fitter you shouldn't need to take 48 hours off from training after a hard session, now it might be some people recover alot slower than others, but if I took 48 hours off between hard training sessions (most of my training I would class as hard), I wouldn't be anywhere near as fit as I am. The training load you get from this really hard session (don't forget the harder the intensity the shorter the duration of training) is not really that great and most of the gains would likely be lost in the 48 hours of recovery. This is why it is important to have a plan that is sufficiently hard to drive the adaptions, but not too hard you can't train consistantly and frequently.

Hence why I have said earlier, it is better to do 2 x 20 min at a sweetspot power/effort and do them more frequently than doing a 2 x 20 min session at FTP and above, and having to take extra days out to recover. It isn't all just about the gains from 1 session, it is a culmalation of training sessions that cause adaptions in the long term.

Unless you have a really strenious job where you are either on your feet all day, or doing lots of lifting etc, then most people would get recovery during work hours, and if you get enough sleep each night (8hours +) then you are normally recovered enough to do a sessions most days of the week. Not every session has to be hard, but most people should be ableto do a 2 x 20 min sweetspot session followed the next day but an hour or so at level 3, you maybe tired but the training should still be possible. Rest is important I admit, and I generally have 2 rest days a week (though ride most days as I commute to work by bike), but hardly ever do I need 2 days off the bike to recover from a training session.

Trev The Rev

SBezza wrote:

As you get fitter you shouldn't need to take 48 hours off from training after a hard session, now it might be some people recover alot slower than others, but if I took 48 hours off between hard training sessions (most of my training I would class as hard), I wouldn't be anywhere near as fit as I am. The training load you get from this really hard session (don't forget the harder the intensity the shorter the duration of training) is not really that great and most of the gains would likely be lost in the 48 hours of recovery. This is why it is important to have a plan that is sufficiently hard to drive the adaptions, but not too hard you can't train consistantly and frequently.

Hence why I have said earlier, it is better to do 2 x 20 min at a sweetspot power/effort and do them more frequently than doing a 2 x 20 min session at FTP and above, and having to take extra days out to recover. It isn't all just about the gains from 1 session, it is a culmalation of training sessions that cause adaptions in the long term.

Unless you have a really strenious job where you are either on your feet all day, or doing lots of lifting etc, then most people would get recovery during work hours, and if you get enough sleep each night (8hours +) then you are normally recovered enough to do a sessions most days of the week. Not every session has to be hard, but most people should be ableto do a 2 x 20 min sweetspot session followed the next day but an hour or so at level 3, you maybe tired but the training should still be possible. Rest is important I admit, and I generally have 2 rest days a week (though ride most days as I commute to work by bike), but hardly ever do I need 2 days off the bike to recover from a training session.

Obviously the more trained the less recovery needed and ideally we would be able to train almost every day but if you can't or prefer not to, you must increase the intensity and volume of the intensity to compensate. Even Obree was able to train so hard he needed 2 or more days to recover, so even the most elite cyclists can push so hard they need more than 24 hours to recover. I'm not arguing that taking 2 days off after every hard session is optimal only that you can make good gains as long as you put in the intensity & volume when you do train to make the most of the two rest days.

Many riders would benefit from a combination of increased intensity and increased rest. It should be remembered that the improvement comes during the rest period after the training. Training gains are not lost during recovery -they are made during recovery. It is all about balancing training with recovery. Inadequate recovery minimises the training improvement. Proper full recovery maximises the training improvement.

SBezza

Depends on what you call hard, with regards to Obree, when did went hard he went extremely hard, and yes that takes alot of recovery. A 2 x 20 mins session at threshold for example is hard, but not that hard you need 48 hours off, and if you did take 48 hours off, your training load would be minimal, so you might get adaptions but very minimal adaptions. Even 5 x 5 mins at Vo2Max, whilst a hard session doesn't need 48 hours off afterwards, but if you did 3 hours + at a high Z3 you might need 48 hours to recover properly. It isn't the gains which are lost during rest periods it is the training load, if this remains low either to not training hard/long enough or by having too much rest, fitness gains are low as well.

To be honest the majority of training we do as amatuers is probably not sufficiently hard enough I would suspect to need 48 hours off the bike. Now I believe in adequate rest, and I take a fair amount of rest but I will still be able to do 3 to 4 hard sessions in a week, along with less strenious sessions and still get sufficient rest. If you can't do a particular hard session, then yes rest is required, but if you can do the prescribed session (and I use a powermeter here to determine if it is actually possible), then you probably didn't need the rest. If you are preparing for a target event obviously you need to schedule more rest, but for pure training you can get away with less rest.

We are all individual though, and some people might need more recovery, especially as they get older, where recovery is slower generally.

Trev The Rev

SBezza wrote:

Depends on what you call hard, with regards to Obree, when did went hard he went extremely hard, and yes that takes alot of recovery. A 2 x 20 mins session at threshold for example is hard, but not that hard you need 48 hours off, and if you did take 48 hours off, your training load would be minimal, so you might get adaptions but very minimal adaptions. Even 5 x 5 mins at Vo2Max, whilst a hard session doesn't need 48 hours off afterwards, but if you did 3 hours + at a high Z3 you might need 48 hours to recover properly. It isn't the gains which are lost during rest periods it is the training load, if this remains low either to not training hard/long enough or by having too much rest, fitness gains are low as well.

To be honest the majority of training we do as amatuers is probably not sufficiently hard enough I would suspect to need 48 hours off the bike. Now I believe in adequate rest, and I take a fair amount of rest but I will still be able to do 3 to 4 hard sessions in a week, along with less strenious sessions and still get sufficient rest. If you can't do a particular hard session, then yes rest is required, but if you can do the prescribed session (and I use a powermeter here to determine if it is actually possible), then you probably didn't need the rest. If you are preparing for a target event obviously you need to schedule more rest, but for pure training you can get away with less rest.

We are all individual though, and some people might need more recovery, especially as they get older, where recovery is slower generally.

Don't think we disagree about anything. It is all about getting the most out of the allocated time. I'm trying to emphasise that if you only have limited days each week you can still progress as long as you train hard enough to make the recovery days 'recovery' days rather than lost training days.

trickydisco

Alex_Simmons/RST wrote:

There is no "Fat Burning Zone", so the premise is flawed to begin with.

And the use of the term "efficiency" in this context of "fat burning" is also imprecise and confusing.

There are many things that impact on the relative proportion of the fuel substrates we use. These include fatigue, diet, level of glycogen stores, fitness, and of course the relative intensity of exercise.


As for the use of the term efficiency - please keep in mind that efficiency is an indicator of output as a proportion of input, and as such we get no more or less energy output from each gram of fat utilised, so there is no change to our fat burning efficiency that can occur - it's a fixed chemical equation.

However the chemical efficiency of aerobic metabolism of fats and of glycogen are slightly different, so that overall efficiency (energy delivered to the cranks as proportion of total energy metabolised) is very slightly affected by our fitness since that changes the ratio of fats and glycogen utilised, although in practical terms, not so much simply because when training we tend to ride up to our fitness level and use a high proportion of glycogen anyway.

i've tried to understand what you've said here but a lot of it goes over my head tbh. What i'd like to know is are these metabolic assessment/testing systems inaccurate? I had my test done by truezone in bristol by Andy wadsworth who coaches Olympic cyclist Oli beckingsale and many other elite riders. He seems to suggest that with a combination of diet and doing zone 2 training an hour at a time was enough to improve my efficiency. 5 months later the next test seemed to correlate with this.

So are you saying all this is rubbish

http://www.newleaffitness.com/redirect/ ... ience.html

Or are they using incorrect terms?

Is this report incorrect?

Alex_Simmons/RST

trickydisco wrote:

So are you saying all this is rubbish

No, not all of it.

trickydisco wrote:

Is this report incorrect?

In what way? Presumably it reflects the measurements they made.

bahzob

SBezza wrote:

To be honest the majority of training we do as amatuers is probably not sufficiently hard enough I would suspect to need 48 hours off the bike. .

Spot on. There are lots of reasons pros ride better than amateurs and one of them is they simply train much harder and longer. It will be quite normal for them to do 2 sessions per day for example. Non of this rubbish about needing to plan a rest day after doing some workouts at 85%.

It's ironic that when Lance Armstrong said he won more events than other riders it was because he trained harder he was telling the truth. Drugs don't magically make you fitter, a big part of their benefit is that they allow you to train much harder and recover from those sessions quicker. But you still have to put in the effort and feel the pain.

Which is why its just daft for people to talk about 2x20 at threshold being "hard". If they think that is hard they have pretty much given up before they even turn the first pedal.

bahzob

Bigpikle wrote:

bahzob wrote:

[Yes. And if you want to improve your 20 minute power its not much good "training" at a pace that you should be able to comfortably sustain for well over an hour. Riding 20 minutes at 80-85% of your FTP, then resting, is pretty feeble and not worth getting onto a turbo for. You should be aiming for your FTP for such short durations. You may not hit it every session but even on those you don't you will be training harder and getting fitter faster than if you set yourself a mediocre goal.

this is where you are totally mistaken - you DO NOT need to ride at FTP to improve FTP. Accumulating quantities of time below FTP will still increase FTP over time (and the key here is that at slightly lower wattages you can do a lot more quality time). This is the entire concept behind sweetspot training. I know its true as I've taken my FTP from 180w to 290w in 18 months using this approach - including some time at threshold obviously, but almost all at temp and sweetspot.

Have a read of the following article by the guy that coined the concept...

http://www.fascatcoaching.com/sweetspottraining.html

Thanks but I am very familiar with the work. I do a lot of riding at sweetspot and describe an excellent workout here
http://www.bikeradar.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=40011&t=12888793

Do this on a regular basis and you will most likely improve your FTP as well.

But I was taking issue with someone who was doing 20 minute efforts at 80-85% which is ridiculous. It's not to say you won't get better if you do these but you are not making best use of your time.

Just as ofc you will improve your FTP if you are totally unfit and start doing some training, whatever it is. But that proves nothing as it doesn't show if you would have raised it further/faster if you had done workouts at higher intensity as well.

bahzob

Bigpikle wrote:

danowat wrote:

Bigpikle wrote:

I know its true as I've taken my FTP from 180w to 290w in 18 months using this approach

That's a hell of an increase :shock:

lots and lots of quality work and going from a fairly untrained state - getting a little tougher now though :twisted:

I also think its worth being clear what FTP really means. Its not the power you can produce just jumping on your bike for an hour. Its an approximation of the output achieved under well rested, perfect conditions with absolute motivation - thats why 88% of FTP isnt a mediocre effort that doesnt produce any benefit.

Yes it certainly is worth being clear what FTP is. It has to involve some real tests with real data.

Being able to do 60-90 minutes on a regular basis at 88% of your FTP means you are probably in the right ball park.

But if you need to rest/recover after doing 20 minutes at 88% of your supposed FTP then either:
- you are ill.
- your FTP is wrong.