Any benefit to Traditional Base vs Sweet Spot?

How long have you been cycling? Personally I’ve been very very very happy with Traditional Base vs Sweet Spot mid and high volumes.

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Around 3 years I would say, along with marathon training and duathlons. I’m thinking traditional base to start with and then assess from there.

This:

I’m cycling and lifting during early base, and only 5 years training with ok vo2max and late fifties. I’ve found easy aerobic endurance rides plus two intervals days a week is still pretty potent to increasing fitness on 8-12 hours/week. Definitely better for me versus doing SSB High Volume or Mid Volume. Fresh is faster for me.

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Is that 8-10 hours indoor or outdoor right now? Either way, if you can carve out that time to ride indoors starting with the TB plan seems like it would be a good place to start, especially if you want to do a longer term base build. Each block is only 4 weeks so you can also reassess after each one if you feel like you wanted to move on to something different earlier than the 12 weeks to complete the plan. Note that the first block is truly uninspiring with the same workout repeated all week long, but it gets better in the second and third blocks.

Probably around 6 hours on the trainer and 2-4 outside, depending on the weather!

Thanks for the heads up, RE the first block!

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It’s easier doing the first and second block outside, if possible. At least with mid volume those are some long rides on the trainer. More about my rear end tolerating long trainer rides than boredom.

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Yeah, if you have the time to ride outside that would probably be easier - - might be tougher finding the time these days depending on where you are with the daylight hours becoming shorter and shorter. :sob: I did mine in the dead of the Canadian Prairie winter so other than fat biking outdoor rides weren’t happening! :joy:

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Outside would be ideal. However, a snapped spoke on my road bike would mean my alternative would be a fixie used for riding around town!

It’s doable. I did my first Festive 500 on a single speed. Definitely Z2 and definitely legs of steel (and jell-o) after a week.

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I have done both trad base medium and ssb medium with mixed success. The previous training season I was nearly complete with trad base medium until illness and a ski trip knocked me off the plan. However I achieved notable gains and spent more time in the peloton in criteriums and road races. I also hit a PR for an hour on-road effort that season and grabbed a Strava KOM.

Last training season I got through the first two months of Trad base medium and jumped over to SSB medium volume. SSB is quite a different thing and with TB I was 100% compliant and making gains, but with SSB medium block 1 I was less than 100% compliant probably 75-85%. The reason is it took a much harder toll on my body (I’m 53 yo got into cycling about 8 years ago started racing seriously about 3 years ago). I would get through a week 100% and then wake up on Monday feeling like I was coming down with the flu, skip a couple of workouts and then after a week of training I would feel the aches again. I finished SSB 1 and shortly into SSB 2 I got a cold and then a week later a flu. COVID19 started to become a real worry and I saw the writing on the wall with respect to WCA racing and decided to stop with the training and devote this summer to reduced volume and intensity.

TSS for TSS SSB is very different from traditional base. I am mulling over the idea of starting up TRAD BASE medium volume in the next week or so and then either after it is all done or after two months I’ll move to SSB low volume.

I have read (sorry no links to back me up on this) that traditional base type of training does pay dividends during race season.

Obviously, you are able to tolerate the SSB. I would say yes, add in TB training. It is arduous – spending 3+ hours on the trainer (at the end of the program) is difficult in and of itself, but it will build you up too.

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Just my experience this year doing training exclusively indoors with no big rides. I did SSB HV this spring/early summer and I broke my outdoor ride hiatus with riding a century outdoors at a steady endurance pace. Since July I’ve done short power build HV and just yesterday went out and knocked out another century, and I feel like I could have gone out today and knocked out another biggish ride. I guess my point is that following any high volume plan is really going to help with base endurance, so while I’d love to someday do like 20hr endurance weeks, I think SSB delivers most of what I need and probably more than I’d get just doing 12ish endurance hours per week.

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Sorry for bringing this thread back to life again - I’ve just started TBHV2 and I figure this is probably the best place for my question.

Having read through the whole thread on some recent rides, I haven’t seen fuelling addressed very comprehensively, other than TB will allow you to do fasted rides. I’ve read that this can promote fat metabolism and conserve CHO stores etc…

So is that to say that if possible, TB-style rides should preferably be:

  • done fasted?
  • or if not fasted, then without taking any additional carbs on-bike?

I’d consider myself to be at the glycolitic end of the spectrum, having done mostly threshold riding for quite a while (preceeded by a VO2 block), and usually having a bottle with c90g carbs for 1.5 hours and 2 bottles for 2 hours+. Fuelling really helps with these Z4+ workouts and lowers RPE.

Having done 3 x 2 hour TB workouts the last 3 days, I found my legs feeling a little fatigued yesterday and again today through some high Z2/tempo stuff. Is this normal? I’m under the impression that other than one’s backside, these workouts should be very comfortable.

Given my FTP’s set at 355w, I’m burning through about 800-900kj per hour. When it’s multiple hours (especially at the weekend), this going to cause a big calorie deficit. Just to add, I have no desire to lose any weight as a side-affect of this training.

I’d appreciate your thoughts on a fuelling strategy. Of course I’m looking for the available gains, but don’t want to be left in a hole by under-fuelling.

Fasted for the first 60-90min, then start taking on “real food” carbs.

Sorry your FTP is so high. :roll_eyes:

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Thanks Captain, makes sense that highly processed sugars aren’t really needed for these less intense rides. I’ll take your suggested approach for my weekend rides, which are in the morning. My mid-week rides are normally pre-fuelled on some normal food (breakfast and then a few hours later an apple, banana, sweet potato etc), so will decide whether to eat, or not, based on feel for those ones, especially as they’re not as long. Will be nice to have a break from all that processed sugar!

PS including my FTP wasn’t supposed to be a humble-brag or something - just thought the context would help :laughing:

Interesting to hear what others say. I did warren now like 4 times in the last week. My goal is to drop 3 kg ang get used to the long trainer rides. And dail down intensity for a few weeks, then i start with SSB low or mid and some additional Zwift races at Threshold. If i do a race i will adjust Tss so the week total is to what is subscribed. Thats my the plan right now. But i guess after a 2h +ride on the trainer you are allowed to be a bit tired. Sure not destroyed. I normally eat something after 90min on this rides, sometimes peanuts and dry cramberrys i feel i need the salt mainly.

^ this and only do it once maybe twice a week. At least that is my takeaway from various articles/podcasts/blogs/etc. The idea is to encourage adaptations, but think of it as chasing marginal gains and don’t do it if you start compromising quality of any downstream workouts.

yeah thats a big deal when you burn so many KJ compared to those of us with FTPs ~100W lower.

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Start baking, eat lots.

I’m under the impression that other than one’s backside, these workouts should be very comfortable.

I think this is a misconception just because it’s low intensity it’s still work, and you’ll be better off treating them like you would your least favorite type of workout. Eat more and they will be easy!

Plus burning 800-900kj/hr you’ll be burning fat so as long as you’re not “prerace nate carb loading”. Might be worth playing with your carb intake during the rides, and sources of calories, but doing the work your body will figure out what it wants.

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just curious after your first season around this SS base, how’d it go?

I dont think its for me - but life is not one-size-fits-all

This. After 90min imo there is no real benefit unless you consider feeling like crap and poor recovery some sort of weird benefit. If a bit more fat adapted you can push this a bit further out, maybe 2hrs. After this for most it starts to really affect down stream training.

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