And that’s because you don’t do all out efforts of 5 minutes. Most people who are regular TR users are probably similar and have power PRs from 3-5 minutes defined by ramp tests. In my two full seasons of almost entirely TR training with some racing, that was also the case for me. That just means the power curves are incomplete. In all likelihood, 3-min power is probably as much as 20% higher than a ramp test tells them. That’s significant, and is something that might matter to a lot of racers and will certainly impact training.
Thus, it’s a shortcoming of TR training: the lack of maximal or near-maximal efforts. As others have attested, maximal efforts interspersed in training are quite effective, and have made a HUGE difference for me personally this season across the board.
I apologize for allowing myself to get roped back in here. I do not expect to convince anyone of anything. My opinion is out there. Take it or leave it!
If I go for a KOM/Top-10, then it is an all-out effort.
Perhaps it is coincidental that this hill takes 4–5 minutes, which is a period where my max power is close to what I achieve during ramp tests. That’s why I was specific. If that hill were closer to a 2- or 3-minute effort, would I see different power PRs? Certainly. Would it be higher than what I’d get during that ~5-minute effort or ramp test? Sure.
On a larger scale, as far as I know people don’t populate their power curves by doing max efforts in second or minute-increments. Something like 4D power tests give you sprint power, long sprint/VO2max (1 minute), “long” VO2max (5 minutes) and a correlate for FTP (20 minutes). That gives you 4 data points. With my rides and TR, I get reliable numbers for three of them (sprints, 3–5 minutes and FTP), which are validated by my numbers outdoors. Ok, I don’t sprint much when I am outdoors, and I haven’t participated in a race since 2019 (the first one will be in about two weeks, can’t wait!). Even during races where adrenaline tends to push you farther than normal, I don’t think you’ll have an easy time to get many more data points. For example, I like to use a 5-minute effort to attack, although that may be paced differently depending on the situation.
When you write you target those efforts, do you mean you do that during rides or you do it Phil Gaimon-style?
To be clear, I usually don’t do the latter, and I usually don’t thrash my legs completely on one segment. Because that’d make the rest of the ride supremely unpleasant. Sometimes I do simulated attacks with my team, but these are not steadily paced.
This is quite a tangent but, I think it looks like the new plans are leaning a bit more towards spending more time at/near max (for specific duration) effort with longer rest.
This is just an early hunch and I’m hoping @chad T gives us more insight at some stage on the pod. Based on what I’ve seen pop up on my plan since I turned AT on, and the workouts discussed in the Pol thread etc that seems to be a bit of a change… I could be well off though.
Same here. And for that the power curve data I have is perfectly adequate.
Right, because outdoors you can’t and shouldn’t ride steady state power in most situations, especially over longer times where terrain and traffic play a role. What is more, when I ride outdoors, I set myself training goals, which are usually not compatible with getting KOMs. Last month I got lucky, because my training goal was 4-5 hard VO2max efforts with Z2 in between. Fun!
I’d need to write a paragraph or two, but all-out is all-out. The simple version is that “all-out” 40-70 minutes to failure is easier to recover from than 8x30-second “all-out.” By far the easiest recovery is tossing in a couple 5-second all-out sprints.
I know it is easier to recover from short efforts physiologically, but the psychological impact may still be massive. I did a few long all-out efforts (e. g. a hill climb TT race over that lasted just under 70 minutes), and psychologically, it was way, way easier to recover. Took me 5–10 minutes. Unfortunately, I do not have any power data for that effort, because of an iOS bug (I didn’t have a bike computer at that time).
In my case the reason is very simple: I do not have a lot of fast-twitch fibers, I know I am not good at sprints and this increases the mental load. But I am very good at long, sustained efforts (relatively speaking, of course).
My point is that there is a mental/psychological component to fatigue that changes your perception of efforts, all-out or not. Physiologically speaking, a ramp test is not very fatiguing, but I do understand that many people dread it for various reasons.
An all-out ramp test makes me feel physically sick for at least 2-3 hours. That’s why I hate it. Not psychological. I’m good at both sustained and very short efforts, FWIW.
I think this is quite unusual. I’m not dismissing your experience, I’m just saying it seems to me that you fall way outside of the bell curve here. (We are all individuals, so that’s totally cool.)
I don’t think I’ve ever been physically sick in the way you seem to describe no matter the effort, including super long days in the saddle that left me with sore legs and required several days of recovery.
Whatever. I think a lot of TR Erg loving users don’t know what all-out feels like. I started doing all-out long and short efforts from the beginning of my road cycling (December 2015). Doing hard efforts makes me stronger. Doing more intervals doesn’t. That has been the one consistent signal I’ve seen in my data.
For the record, I have a direct drive dumb trainer (an Elite Volano) and never ridden one with Erg mode.
No doubt, although hard ≠ all-out I’d say and intervals can be hard
Conversing with other athletes like you has taught me a lot. When I began training, I did the rookie mistake of never going really easy and going too hard on hard days (I wouldn’t be satisfied unless I felt fatigue in the legs). The biggest revelation for me training-wise was that going easier sometimes and proper recovery is better at making you faster (doh!). Seeing the different approaches to training and time management — even if the other’s training style isn’t a good match for myself — is quite valuable. Thank you, you have been quite consistent in being able to back up your arguments in other threads and helped me understand things better.
We are not a statistic: what works for the majority does not necessarily work for you or me. So you do you
I am still tweaking my workout schedule to fit my current life and life stresses. For example, just psychologically speaking I don’t think polarized plans are a good fit for me, because I need hard efforts for my mental health. (Z2 efforts are only hard in the sense that I have to fight my inner boredom.) Hard workouts teach me focus and give me an outlet for all my emotions. Perhaps that’ll change one day, but at least now I really like the type of efforts I do. And I could see how I might feel differently if a ramp effort made me sick for 2–3 hours
Now I wonder if the only reason I was added in the first hundred or so to the AT beta was because I’m an Assioma user, providing identical indoor and outdoor data accuracy.
Being called an outlier and this… reminds me of posting on the forum over a year ago that TR plans were too hard and not enough built in recovery like FasCat and Velocious and CTS. Then TR built an ML computer coach, and this year they reduced intensity and built in more recovery into the plans “because data.”
I did not intend to put you down or dismiss you and your experience when I called you a statistical outlier. (And I only called you that because I have literally never heard of anyone being physically sick for that long after a ramp test or any type of hard effort on the bike, unless they were ill.)
Quite the contrary: understanding that your body does not react the same way most others do is IMHO important for you to adapt your training. Knowing that you should not necessarily expect the default recommendations to work for you would seem like an important insight to me. For TR specifically, they must cater to a broad audience that includes statistical outliers and adapt their offerings to be suitable to people who are not close to the statistical mean. AT is the proposed solution, and I am curious to see how it works not just for me, but also for people like you.
I think you speaking out about the troubles you have is good, because you run into problems that many other people don’t. Again, this is not meant as a value judgement. (Judging from the iOS betas, me using a 12.9” iPad Pro for TR is also a statistical outlier … )
I’ve just been admitted to the public beta a little over a week ago, not enough to speak about my experiences with any confidence. But my initial impression is that AT is erring on the easy side, which I think is the right choice to make for this product. But the progression levels of sweet spot, threshold and VO2max are in the ball park of where I’d place my abilities, too. Currently, it does leave me wanting for more when it comes to Z1 and Z2. (AT did not have time to ingest Z2 workouts at an intensity I would consider “normal“.) Tomorrow I’ll spend my recovery ride doing a slightly “harder” Z2 workout to teach AT what level I’d consider normal/easy.
I think the AT style of training will not get rid of the requirement to ramp test completely but does introduce a new comparison of FTP to PL balance. I.e what is the point of a ‘new bigger FTP if you can’t use it?’
I would be interested if anyone has thought or discussed what levels to try and get to before taking the ramp test again. For example from my last block I am sat at 277w ftp after 4w increase last time. I’m at sweet spot 4.1, threshold 4.4 and VO2 max 4.9 and thinking of subbing my next ramp test for a sweet spot workout instead and let AT focus on improving my levels this block. The question is when to retest vs improve levels if my goal is general fitness, I have no more events left on the calendar for this season? 6? 7? I don’t plan on waiting until I’m at 10 across the board, but what is a good compromise?
If only. .
My FTP numbers are a joke right now. I’ve pretty much given up on using the ramp test for a remotely accurate FTP assessment.
Progression Levels are looking like a very handy tool. I can’t wait until they’re released to the masses and I can stop spinning the Train Now slot machine.
Take a look at levels in training plans. It looks like they progress you from about 4.5 to about 6.0. So I would say that if you can complete key workouts at 6.0 or above, your FTP has likely increased.
That has been the one consistent signal I’ve seen in my data.
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