This is the great thing about training in Z2 — it doesn’t produce the stress encountered in higher zones. It’s “healthy” exercise.
That said, you kinda have to swap volume for intensity if you want to build your aerobic capacity/fitness to a point of being able to handle those higher stress levels.
It’s tricky because doing a workout which leaves us sweaty and tired gives the impression that we’ve accomplished something, that we’re getting stronger and more fit; TB workouts leave us “surprisingly fresh” and maybe thinking we haven’t worked hard enough to produce any meaningful results.
I’m going to have a go at the Steve Neal approach as he described on a couple of podcasts recently.
Long Endurance rides keeping as far as possible in Z2 but capping it at my HR at what I perceive to be my LT1.
One maybe two rides a week with increasing lengths of Low Tempo capping HR at 83% of max.
plus the occasional hard group ride/VO2 max workout just to remind the body what it’s like.
I’ll assess where I’m at early in the New Year and take it from there.
I somehow have the feeling that TB is easier to pair with more intense gym work in the off season compared to SS. It’s just a gut feeling and something i need to research or try in the future. Still prefer the SS route because, like others have said, it’s more dynamic.
My reasoning: TB still builds up a lot of TSS but because the intensity is lower, you can push harder in the gym to build up strength. Don’t have research to back this up though.
Jumping into the thread, I tried sweetspot high volume last year and got a good progression, 15% bump in FTP. However I didn’t get many gains after that and plateaued through the year.
This year I am trying a hybrid SSBHV and TB approach basically on the basis that I want to do as many hours as possible but I struggle to do an hour on the turbo at zone 2, nevermind 5x3hrs in TB.
Plan is the usual SS sessions on Tuesday and Thursday evening (88-94%), with the standard tempo session (80-85%) on wednesday evening.
From there I am going to do an hour zone 2 on Tuesday and Thursday morning, 2.5 hr zone 2 on Friday and long Z2 rides (probably 4 hours one day and at least 6 the next day) on Sat and Sunday. Do this from this week until mid January, see how it goes. Incorporate more threshold, V02 etc. but try to maintain the volume and some muscular endurance maintenance.
Main goals for the year are standard road racing until the middle of May, culminating in my first A race, a 3 day stage race (each stage is 100-120 miles). Then the transatlantic way on the 4th June, do some more road racing through mid July to end of August (just for fun though, not targeting anything specifically), then the final event will be Transpyrennes at the start of October. So I will need the base.
Lower VI is more efficient for burning calories. Average power burns calories, but normalized power is more in line with the “difficulty” of the workout. If you look at interval workouts, like in SSB, difficult workouts have relatively low average power*. TB workouts are very low VI.
TB workouts are roughly similar in average power to SSB workouts (so similar calorie burn rate), but they’re easier, so you can do more volume.
You can survive TB workouts with less fueling than SSB workouts. More calories can go into satiating meals instead of sugar for your workout.
(* The dense Sweet Spot interval workouts actually have pretty high average power, but 1.5 hr of that is a lot more taxing than 2 hr of Z2.)
Little update on my side regarding the HV traditionnal base. I am currently doing the 3rd week of the second block of the traditionnal base and I must admit, it is too much for me. Even if I have plenty of time in the evening to do the workouts, it is way too challenging physically and mentally to be over 10 hours a week doing tempo rides on the trainer. You start to getting knee and back pain and the fun/motivation being on the bike is fading away.
The high volume is not for everyone. I think you need to be a really dedicated athelete with many years under the belt in order to complete successfully the entire block. I still plan to compelte the entire block, but for sure I’ll do the third and last traditionnal block on the mid volume plan.
It would have been easy for me to do the HV plan outside, but here in Canada the sun goes down quickly and it is getting pretty cold. So, the only way I can train is inside which make workouts a lot more difficult…
Yes, it is getting harder to ride outside! Not as hard as everyone further north - sunset at 6:16pm tonight. Up and working at 5:30am because there is a ~3 hour tempo ride on the calendar and need to leave the house at 3pm.
I cant make a direct comparison, but I am managing two leg focused gym sessions (with sauna) a week while putting in average 12hr weeks of Z2 with tempo sprinkled in. It is very doable, I will probably keep doing two gym days a week through TB1 HV and possibly cut to 1.5 ( one day legs and body + one day body) into TB2&3 HV
I usually keep them separate, especially with the heavy leg exercises, which is easy to do because I get all my riding in 4 days a week so that leaves one recovery day 100% off.
My last two weeks have been:
M: off
T: Gym: dead lift, squats, front squats, barbell press, stability exercises
W: 2.5 hr ride
Th: 4 hr ride
F: Gym: Single leg squats, Stability, push ups, pull ups
Sa: 4 hr ride
Su: 3 hr ride
I do appreciate how he emphasizes that the improvement in calcium-calmodulin pathway signaling can come from overall volume at low intensity, not just from the 4 hr+ ride.
All TSS is not the same – getting 100TSS of CHO burning, AMPK-pathway signaling 80-85% of FTP will not have the exactly the same aerobic building effect as 100 TSS of 70-75% of FTP that enhances the Fat-burning, Ca2+ pathway. If you want to improve fat metabolism and what I call “oatmeal fitness” – the AeT efficiency that stays with you for a long time, like that bowl of porridge – put the time in at low intensity. The more TSS below AeT, the bigger the bowl you’ve cooked for yourself.
That’s something which has rarely been mentioned – Trad Base is not an FTP boosting plan in the same way people think of SSB. Really, their only similarity is the word ‘base’, and this seems to be a source of confusion (much how SSB2 contains a minority of SS workouts ).
TB has almost entirely different means & ends than SSB, as explained very well by @RobertK.
At the end of the day, it’s down to what kind of fitness you want to build as @Captain_Doughnutman said:
For someone who wants to improve FTP in the short term, SSB will help but the question becomes “how many times can I do SSB while still seeing improvement”. Some athletes adapt really well to SS work but everyone has a limit before they need to grow their aerobic base to see further improvement.
So if you have the time to stretch build phase, or need to change up your training to keep improving I can see TB → SSB → Build → Specialty being a good mix of the two approaches. Seeing the targeted zone progress from endurance to tempo in TB and from SS to threshold and threshold+ in SSB and Build.
PS.
Not to open up a can of worms but the popularity of SS and crits seems to be tied quite strongly. In comparison to other disciplines like road racing or TT, crits don’t require huge aerobic engines and better fitness doesn’t translate as directly to results.
Maybe… having the first build be sustained build but otherwise the build plans are pretty intense and there might be transition problems coming off TB3.
That is also a very long progression. 12+8+12+8+8=48 weeks… Just add another specialty and you have two seasons.
Realistically, any mix of plans that provides increased training load and doesn’t burn you out will work just fine.
I personally can’t see training in 12 and 8wk blocks anymore, let alone planning a two season cycle. 4-6wks has been the ideal training block length for keeping myself engaged and seeing continuous improvement, and even more so when I’m putting in a lot of hours. In every phase I now allow for some intensity and plenty of aerobic work as well. I’m always evaluating and tweaking the game plan as I go if results aren’t what I expected.
With more and more data on pros (and Joes) available, I think the days of heaps of low intensity base work are out for all but the full distance tri folks and ultra the distance crowd. Note that I say this being a strong responder to volume. I feel and perform best in 14+hr/wk blocks.
I’m looking at TB > Short Power Build > SSB2 > maybe short build again??? as my biggest weakness is short power. Plus I’m still wrestling with learnings from Fast After 50 (Friel). No A races, just like to hang onto the wheels of fast guys.
I’ve got some ideas on addressing that using more of a polarized approach after base. And part of it is that during base I’m riding outside in TB2 and getting intensity from Wed night group rides, and if I miss that or do aerobic endurance on Wed then Monday is a short 30-second interval sessions.
Essentially for build I’m going to assemble my own custom plan by using progressions from Short Power Build. Design it around two key sessions a week, and take more of a polarized approach with a lot of endurance sessions and some tempo (long intervals).
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