Adding 90-minutes rides every workout day

Hello,

A question about a well-discussed topic: adding z2 to a training plan.

My current situation:

  • Base Training, medium volume
  • 900 TSS by week, including outdoor rides
  • “Unlimited” time for training (freelance job)

In these 900 TSS, half is from TR (I changed the 60-minutes to 90-minutes workout) and half is coming from 75-150km outdoors rides. However, being in hilly region, it’s pretty difficult to keep these rides at low intensity.

Hence I’d like to keep my TSS and volume up but convert a part of these outdoor rides into indoor rides. My idea was to add 5x90-minutes z2 workout (1 by TR workout day: z2 in the morning, workout of the plan in the evening) and keep a rest day + 1 long outdoor ride (100+ km).

So my week would be something like:

  • D1: Z2 workout (90 minutes) + VO2 max (90 minutes) - 160 TSS
  • D2: Z2 workout (90 minutes) + Endurance (90 minutes) - 140 TSS
  • D3: Z2 workout (90 minutes) + Threshold (90 minutes) - 160 TSS
  • D1: Outdoor, long ride (250 minutes) - 220 TSS
  • D1: Z2 workout (90 minutes) + Threshold (90 minutes) - 160 TSS
  • D1: Z2 workout (90 minutes) + Sweetspot (90 minutes) - 160 TSS
  • D1: Rest Day

Approx. total: 20 hours of training for 1000 TSS.

As said previously, I can sustain this volume (I’m around 900-1000 currently and 18 hours). My question is about the 90-minutes z2 workout:

Are 90 minutes good enough for fitness improvement or are they too short for correct progression or should I stay with longer, outdoor rides? So the question is basically:

90-minutes daily z2 indoor rides vs >120-minutes unstructured daily rides vs resting vs another suggestion ?

Thank you for the reading and for your suggestion!

Example of my last month of training/riding (some irregularities due to the bad weather):

Screenshot 2023-05-04 013234

3 Likes

You must be from the planet Krypton.

9 Likes

To your specific question - lots of folks are probably going to chime in and say you have to do XX hours in a ride for there to be Z2 benefits. Those with experience will know KJs are KJs, and splitting into 2 90 minute rides is just fine to keep progressing.

I actually follow a schedule of 15-20 hours/wk and do doubles throughout the week to get 15,000kjs/weekly. I’m not going to opine on the rest of your program other than to say you may consider stacking workout days (as in threshold morning, sweet spot evening) and then having days where you do 2 90 minutes endurance rides, rather than having 4 days of “harder” riding plus one long ride, which is also stressful.

To make progress, regardless of program, you really need to hit your hard ones hard - your outline leaves zero recovery (except for the off day).

I could do that plan you outlined for a month and then be completely smashed, undoing all of the gains made.

2 Likes

How did you manage 724 TSS in one day? :exploding_head:

1 Like

With a really long ride :smiley:

Screenshot 2023-05-04 031545

9 Likes

The only suggestion would be on your double days do the prescribed workout first so you maximize its quality, and then do the extra endurance ride second later in the day. This also has the advantage that if you feel fatigued you can tone down the extra ride / cut it short / skip it if needed.

3 Likes

Concur.

1 Like

I would probably make one Z2 a bit longer so you can have one easy (1hr Z1) and one rest day per week. And skip the sweet spot, 2 hard sessions per week is plenty with that volume.

Don’t think you can sustain this for very long. TSS isn’t created equal.
I’m around 900-1200 TSS weekly with 20ish hours of volume but I only do 2 hard sessions and one long outdoor ride with a lot of tempo and SS, rest Z2.

My week looks something like this:
Mon 1h recovery
Tue 1h hard, 1h Z2
Wed 2h Z2
Thu 1h hard, 1h Z2
Fri 2h Z2
Sat 5-6h Z2 indoor
Sun 5-6h outdoor with lots of sweet spot and tempo.

I can’t imagine doing another productive hard session. If I want to ride more, I just do more Z2, often with double sessions. Keep in mind that these double session can really creep up on you. I have done some 32h weeks this way, but these are not sustainable long term.

4 Likes