Tough? The way I look at it - doing intervals outside gives me greater cadence/torque agility and makes me stronger.
I’m not arguing against doing workouts outdoors, I’d do more of them if I would lose at least 2 x 30 minutes just getting to roads suitable for hard workouts. Also, my point wasn’t to say it is tougher to do steady state work outdoors, it is that it feels a bit unnatural as it often runs counter to how I’d pace terrain where it is advantageous to maintain momentum e. g. to power over a small kicker.
But certainly, I’d train outdoors much more if I had the time.
Your point has been you ride outside and train inside. So of course it feels natural to maintain speed outside and ignore power. But that’s not training, it’s riding.
Yes, because that’s at present the best use of my time. I ride outdoors once a week on the weekend, during the week, I train indoors. Although my outdoor rides almost always have a training purpose (e. g. cornering, bike handling skills, Z2, …).
Learning to pace yourself, navigate terrain, corner and riding offroad are all part of training in my book. Cycling isn’t just about fitness, but other skills. Today I went scouting for new trails, for example, because one of my staple trails now looks like this
(This used to be a >2 wide path.)
The last two weekends, I did mellow endurance rides. If I did have the time to move more of my “fitness” part of training outdoors, then I’d pay attention to my power targets.
what is the best - latest ?..
on Trainingpeaks there’s another table…i dont know what is better,accurate?
Everything over 1min has a role in increasing threshold.
Zone 5 raises FTP – four weeks of it will top off the engine, but after that there’s often a plateau, and just doing 5min intervals at 115% of something won’t make you a good 40ktt’er. You need to work above it, and below it.
Zone 4 raises FTP – eight weeks of it will raise the level that you let decline in the off season, but at that point there will probably be a plateau, and you need to change the stimulus by hitting some harder stuff. Just doing sub-2 hour rides with chunks of zone 4 work will probably raise TTE, and will make you a pretty good TT’er relative to your potential, but it won’t max that potential out without some work above and below zone 4.
Zone 3 – well, same as zone 4, but with less oomph to it. Just riding zone 3 will make you pretty good at riding sort of hard and burn moderate-demand glycogen, but you won’t have anything above it. So you need some above and below.
Zone 2 raises FTP, because years and years of it slowly increase lactate removal, substrate utilization, yada, yada, almost all the cellular stuff that helps you go fast – but it’s increasing displacement. At some point you have to bolt on the turbo with work above it, and then dial up the boost with zone 5 and 6.
All intensities are needed, and no one is the magic bullet. The hard part is hitting the right blend for your stage of development (or of regression, in my train-8-hours-a-week-at-59 case).
Coggan’s adaptation chart is absolutely on the money – but it’s not a how-to guide for training distribution.
