Cycling Fitness / Training Advice

http://zwift.com/

;-)

You know you want to. There's even a race series for malnourished climbing freaks.

haha you prick. i seem to remember you wanting me to suggest how you could become one of us fragile mountain men not all that long ago?

unfortunately at the minute i just feel like a fat, unfit nodder. would love to reach the highs of malnourished climbing freak again.

To be fair, it is December. This is the time to ease off and relax. Eat lots and then start the push in January/February with a fresh head and determined heart.

I am determined, just don't like cold! Went out on Tuesday and just had a junk session as i got too cold. Don't want to waste hours on end like that again really.

How about Hill Reps/Route close to home?....saves on risk of getting out in the middle of nowhere and getting a chill but also gives the possibility of getting the intensity/TSS but without having to only ride turbo. Perhaps an insulated bottle with hot coffee in

Ditch the full day off. Volume increase sorted. Thank me when you win a title.

Hello all, followed the Time crunched cyclist plan this time last year using only HR. Workouts done on a turbo. It was challenging and I got some decent gains.

Bought a power meter before Christmas so have started again, using power instead.

In order to set zones I used the same test as before, two 8 minute efforts interspersed with a rest period. Balls deep for the entire 8 minutes. The instruction is to then subtract a certain percentage to establish training zones.

I'm wondering if the zones are correct though as the sessions are hard. For instance, his SS ('steady state' I'm guessing synonymous with sweet spot?) workouts are supposed to have an RPE of about 7 whereas for me they're more of a strong 8.

Is it a case of the test being erroneous? My result from the 8 minute tests was 323 watts avg, which supposedly gives me an FTP of 299. This doesn't sound ludicrous, I'm not massively unfit. Just unsure how intense the SS workouts are supposed to be as when doing these before (with only HR) they were a tad easier. I'm struggling to commute and commit to the workouts fully as they drain my legs.

The 8 min tests will only give you a ballpark figure and tend to overinflate FTP for many. You may be one of those people.

If you can do 323W for 8 mins, your FTP isn't 299.
It's proberbly more like 270. Maybe even less if you're untrained right now.

Not bad if you are 11 stone

^^ this

Would i be right in thinking that if your HR stops lifting as high at the end of a longer session compared to where it was getting to at the start, it's a sign of fatigue and / or not enough fuel en route?

The good news is you know your 8 minute power now. Next step is to test your short (5-10 seconds), medium (5 minute) and long (try something like 45 mins so your PD curve has a decent spread of maximal efforts to plot.

That is what I'd assume. Fatigue.

Sweet spot can be very painful - I dread my weekly session.

My happy place.

That might have been a lie.

I've found a new training ride that destroys me. Purpose it to kind of simulate a road race, where you ride easy for a bit then have to make a good effort. Plus it's glycogen depleting so gets harder and harder.
Feel free to try, make it shorter if lower CTL.

30 min easy
45 min mid Z2 70%FTP
10min 90% FTP
5 easy
45 min mid Z2 70%FTP
10min 90% FTP
5 easy
45 min mid Z2 70%FTP
10min 90% FTP
5 easy
cool down.

Leaves me fucked.

Nice, will do in a couple of weeks when I start putting some miles in.

BTW, my new happy place is vO2. I think I may have just set a new (and badly paced) 5 min power PB.

You lost me at

30 min easy

Just started Sweet Spot Base II - Mid Volume on that there TrainerRoad.
Will be moving to Short Power Build and then Criterium Speciality.

Hoping to get more out of this than my usual approach of generally riding fast 2-3 days a week. Will start my racing season after completing the build phase.

I've actually just realised that I was riding the SS intervals at the very top end of the band whereas my target wattage for that workout ranges from 278-291w based off the test average of 323. This makes more sense as I would imagine holding 280w for 10 minutes quite a bit easier than 290 at this stage. I will keep with it on this basis.

I also agree with people on the idea of my FTP being lower than the 299 this book has told me (5% off the 323w in the 8 minutes tests), but for the purposes of the plan the resulting zones should do the trick.

What are people's thoughts on this kind of plan with reasonably low volume that focus on work above Z3 at this stage in the year - very soon it will include a lot of sprint intervals as well as O/U etc.

I know some people like to build more steadily through Jan/Feb? I really don't fancy doing anything below Z3 on the turbo.

FTP estimates are normally -5% off a 20min effort.

My FTP (estimated) is 282W from a 296W 20min test. My 8min max is 322W looking over recent power data.

I thought it was 10% off the second of two 8 min intervals?

I think @TTM does his testing using this method so he can probably offer better.

As an aside, using an 8 or 20 minute test to determine 60min threshold is guesswork at the end of the day, some people are more geared towards shorter efforts which could give higher FTP's than they are actually capable of. I tested my 20 min effort at 299W, which would equate my FTP to 284W using the -5% rule. I can't imagine actually pushing 284W for an hour. No way I could do that.

FTP is an imaginary number used for metric gathering and target setting. It doesn't actually tell your maximum 1 hour power threshold. If you want to know your 1 hour then you should go ride a 40k TT (because to hell with trying to do 60 mins max on a trainer!)

Yes you are both correct, it is minus 10% not 5. This figure seems a little more reasonable.

And I completely agree with you, my previous posts may have been poorly worded. The tests were done in order to establish the training zones in the way this plan lays out. As for what's possible in 60 minutes, I'll likely not find that out till Spring as like you say, screw doing that on a turbo.