Not a single soul.
Or maybe a break, change is as good as a rest etc.
Biochemically or physiologically probably not. Anecdotally, sit back grab a beer and hold on…
Always have been a sprinter (track), placed lots of soccer/football, was a pretty thick and stocky alpine ski racer. Still very thick for a cyclist up top with no upper body lifting for years.
Off the couch or after a month or three of JRA and very low volume (5 hours/week) like this summer I can hit peak power and very close on anything out to about 5 minute power. Maybe more important than peak power is I have always been naturally gifted with just better than average snap. Again, off the couch anything longer than 5 my power predictably declines as expected from a detrained state. For example, a 20 minute all out effort might be 330W trained and closer to 260-270W untrained. Durability and repeatability are disturbingly low untrained as well.
After 8-12 weeks of decent LSD all power metrics across the PD curve are pretty damn close to PRs and TTE, durability, repeatability are shockingly good.
I attribute this to having more fast twitch fibers that only get “trained” if I fatigue them via LSD. That and the whole mitochondrial density and lactate clearing associated with volume.
1 Like
Zwift racing is kinda what I was thinking. But going a bit further, you have an end goal and presumably understand how you work as far as motivation / dedication / consistency go. With that understanding, can you reverse engineer an approach that you can tolerate the gives you the ‘training’ without it feeling like training? I’ve made a number of adjustments over the years to smooth out road blocks to my training and racing to ‘trick’ myself into doing things that get me closer to my end goals, based on insight into my own areas or lazyness or motivation or whatever.
Example: Today is 1-2hrs z2 - Would a steady-paced and appropriately paced zwift group ride give you the immersion and interaction you need to not hate the experience? Or ride in a monster blob with a pace parter?
If today is vo2max - can you find a race like Surrey Hills routes in London or similar? If today is threshold - can I find a long / climby race? Or do a flat route and just hammer the front and try to blow it up. Basically trying to find a race over a course that matches your goal or gets close enough for the day,
1 Like
I may give Zwift another try. I couldn’t keep it and TR going at the same time just due to cost but I could try it for a month and see if it works.
Thanks for the details, I appreciate it.
I’m in the same boat as you, 25+ years of powerlifting, martial arts, and zero endurance training. I picked up cycling in mid-2018 and plateaued after about a year. I tried TR’s program and got a coach later, nothing seemed to help my aerobic power and I would just end up burned out at the end of every year.
The only thing I haven’t tried (because I have no time) is LSD. I listed to @empiricalcycling 's recent podcast about Z2 riding, and while I know there’s nothing super special about it I just have to wonder if it’s more beneficial for anaerobic athletes than we think. We know anaerobic athletes fatigue quicker and take longer to recover than aerobic athletes, so maybe long Z2 rides have a bigger bang of the buck for us?
2 Likes
I’m not sure what the deal is now but RGT was cheaper (or even free if someone else organises a race/pays) its a slightly more realistic virtual package, especially for racing but its not as busy as Zwift.
1 Like
More endurance riding. It works. For everyone.
Or you LSD and can go the Nine Perfect Strangers route with microdosing & therapy 
2 Likes
I think so. With a higher % of fast twitch fibers I believe we end up doing more work (Kj’s) during HIIT than slow twitchers and for me I don’t recover as quick which equals less work overall. Another way I look at it is I just don’t need to do much HIIT as slow twitchers. Sounds bizarre but, I do believe ftp gains the most with lots of LSD and a sprinkling in off tempo, sst and threshold. And by sprinkle I mean more of a spritz.
It doesn’t sound bizarre to me.
In middle and high school I was clearly not fast twitch. By 7th grade it was clear I wasn’t good at short track events. Focused on the mile and did better against the sprinters. Does that make me slow twitch?
However on the bike my 1-sec power is a high % of FTP, which often phenotypes me as a sprinter or all-rounder. Does that make me fast twitch?
FWIW WKO analytics have me bouncing back and forth between fast and slow twitch.
More endurance plus ‘stuff’ for the win.
2 Likes
Personally I don’t think of people being “anaerobic” or “aerobic”, just how well trained they are in each department since everyone has equal access to both systems within certain parameters… intertwined as they are. I train pro sprinters who can out-aerobic people who would consider themselves highly aerobic, even if we control for vo2max and ftp.
So even if we were to classify athletes into those two categories, in my experience everyone responds to them approximately equally. So whether it’s better for one or the other is a bit of a false dichotomy to me, though I can see where it comes from.
10 Likes
I agree with you but there is a ceiling. Some people are power lifters and sprinters. Usain Bolt wont ever be an elite marathoner but he might be able to finish one.
Yes, a personal dose discussion applies to both endurance riding and Tranquillum therapy!
1 Like
This is a fairly anti-TR take but: don’t train for a while. I’m in the same boat, have been racing on zwift 2-3x a week and Z2ing everything else. It’s fun and in the last two weeks I’ve hit lifetime PRs for 3’, 20’ and 40’. I have been training and racing for 4-5 years now, close to 5wkg, so gains are not so easy to come by.
Especially if your main season is next summer, you aren’t going to pay a big price giving up structure if you are doing any kind of riding+intensity for a few months.
1 Like
I’ve also got an anti-TR take… just ride your bike most of the year. Take breaks when you feel like you need it. Avoid overdosing on structure, when I push volume over 6 hours/week it only takes a little bit of structure to maintain and increase fitness. Simple workouts. Works for me, may not work for you.
1 Like
They’ve never recommended continual structured training, so it’s hardly anti-TR.
1 Like
Yeah just the other day I heard Nate on the podcast recommending people use Zwift racing instead of structure.
Would it be more accurate to describe it as fast twitch or slow twitch? Because genetically I’ve always been an “explosive” type athlete and favored sports (alpine vs nordic skiing etc…) that benefited from having this innate characteristic. And while my coaches made me do an insane amount of running (early dry land for alpine skiing) I was just a horrific endurance athlete.
Both slow and fast twitch dominant people benefit from lsd but, I still feel us fast twitch dominant need to focus more on lsd to even be close to the true slow twitch athletes. All things equal of coarse…
Tell that to plan builder 
3 Likes
Many years ago (20+) when I raced far more often than I do now, I often said “I train just so I can race”. It was just the means to the end for me.
Now, I enjoy training much more…but I also don’t race as much (and I know race longer events such as gravel vs. crits). Also, back then, I was nowhere near as structured as I am now. The structure offers me variety instead of doing roughly the same thing all the time.
Also, I don’t relalyf ollow too much strucutre during the season…my Tues / Thursday rides are hard, fast group rides, my Weds / Friday rides are easy recovery and my Sat / Sun rides are group rides or long gravel rides.