I’m 65, new to both indoor cycling and structured training ( I started both about 4 months ago). I began outdoor cycling over the summers about 8 years ago when I was diagnosed with reduced lung function due to COPD. Forcing myself to extreme breathlessness makes me feel a little in control of the disease, and it has not got any worse over the eight years.
Since starting the indoor stuff I’ve only been doing around 3 hours cycling a week, initially I focussed on vo2 max workouts as I was also doing club time trials, which took me several days to recover from. When the tt season ended i started the low volume base.
I’m pretty sure sweet spot training could make a big difference to me but I really struggle with anything over 94 % and cannot conceive of ever progressing to anything like an hour at this kind of level. My FTP has gone up painfully slowly from 177 to 191 on TR.
My lung function is at a dismal 58% on the bell curve for women my age who take a spirometry test.
I’d really appreciate any advice on what training zones I should most usefully focus on to help me make the most of this reduced ability to take in oxygen. I want to take part in events that last 25 minutes to an hour, and I particularly want to improve my ten mile tt time.
A friend of mine had the Covid pretty bad. It’s been about 2 years and he still has some oxygen problems. What helped him was riding every day. Not hard rides and not long rides. He now can ride with the semi fast group. I think his rides now are about 30 miles two times a day . He is retired and has the time.
First, an 8% gain in FTP in 4 months is huge, I definitely would not call that painfully slowly. Also, 94% FTP is quite high in the SS range, so those are not going to be easy workouts, especially when you’re new to them, so I wouldn’t worry too much about whether you can do an hour at that power.
Having said that, my guess is that your FTP is set a bit high. TR should learn to recognize that and assign you workouts at a Progression Level that will be doable, so, for example, you might start with something like Monitor and go up through Mcgregor -3 or Antelope -2 as you increase time at SS.
If you just plain want to know if your FTP is even close to accurate, a good workout that used to be frequently recommended for that is Lamarck, but if you’re new to structured training and haven’t spent much time above 90% FTP, you might just be better off letting TR work you up through the PL’s.
I did pay to see a private respiratory consultant to ask the same question- but all he could tell me was a) there are 2 types of exercise, anaerobic and aerobic, and, b) just overdo it
So he wasn’t a great deal of help!
I just really wanted to know if sweet spot, for me, should be a lower percentage of FTP to gain the same benefits as a healthy person gets from the 85 to 95% range - I thought maybe there might be a medic amongst the very knowledgeable training geeks on the forum who could give informal advice.
Apart from all that - I’m really enjoying the training and reading the forum!
Thank you, that’s really helpful - it’s difficult to judge how much the training fatigue is normal and how much is down to the COPD.
My outdoor power was up to 260 average on one occasion for a half hour tt, and was more usually around 200, but I suspect the Giant power meter was not accurate! It was a blow to get 177 on my first go with the indoor trainer but, as is often stressed in the forum, it is just a training tool !
I’ll be very interested to see if the indoor training makes a difference to me next year - it’s certainly made me increase cadence a lot and ride in a less sporadic way.
Your target event time is 25 minutes to an hour, which will be an almost entirely aerobic effort. You can improve aerobic fitness without doing any anaerobic work or even any aerobic work close to the anaerobic threshold i.e Sweetspot, you just have to make up for the reduced intensity with an increase in volume.
Is this because that’s all you have time for? I’d probably start by riding more but at a lower intensity. You can get lots and lots of adaptations that don’t require doing hard intervals just through straight volume. Especially if it’s your ‘off season’ away from competition I’d go through a bit of a block where you lower the intensity a bit and try to ride more. If the fatigue is staying at a manageable level then try to layer in more intensity. You may also find that the adaptations from more volume allows you to handle more intensity without so much long lasting fatigue since recovery is done primarily through aerobic pathways. So better aerobic fitness = faster and better recovery.
If there’s a huge difference between your indoor and outdoor power, make sure your cooling is good. You can almost not have too many fans blowing on your on a trainer. The heat can be pretty incredible without any moving air and it can sometimes sort of mimic a breathless feeling.
Thank you - the principle of what your friend has done sounds good, and I do feel like frequency could be more important than duration for me - but 30 miles twice a day wouldn’t be two short duration rides for me!
Thanks for this - I think I will try reducing the intensity a little, but wouldn’t be able to do more than 3 or 4 hours on the trainer- so I think I might get the old mountain bike out with the intention of zone 2 rides on forest trails over the Scottish winter.
I agree with Eddie. There are a lot of very smart people on this site, but the fact that you don’t have an answer means I believe this answer was inadequate. Also even if there are lung docs, I think you need advice specific to someone who knows your case.
I’d email them and just explain you re-ran the convo in your head and believe you need more info. you’re happy to schedule and pay for another appointment with them, or if it’s not their thing who would they recommend.
perhaps you didn’t exactly explain you’re gonna be on your bike training systematically with certain days designed to crush yourself.
when most people think of someone on a bike (no offense) especially a 65 year old, they are gonna think of someone casually pedaling around a park.
I think you need more clarity as to what are signals of “overdoing it”? can I hurt myself by overdoing it? or can I just train as normal? and maybe give a sample week of training that TrainerRoad would suggest…point out the intensity. just translate that to english…i.e. “4 hours of riding at a pace where my breathing is at a conversational pace, 20 minutes riding where my breathing is almost at max, 60 minutes riding where my breathing is rather heavy but i can control it”
I missed your reply first time round, just picked it up today - so thank you for taking the time to give me such a sensible response. I think you’re right and the consultant had no idea about the level of intensity I was talking about, he really wasn’t listening, just talking non stop !