Just because I can, should I? (Fuzzy's Training thread now!)

Honestly, I’ve found the Kolie Moore baseline test to be much easier mentally since it’s gently ramping even though it comes out to 40-45minutes.

The first 10 minutes at 92-95% is pretty easy. The next 15 at FTP isn’t too hard unless you don’ t have a good ftp target in mind. The last 10 minutes you suffer a bit. If you fail the 2nd 15 minute step then you learned that your FTP was too optimistic and that you can try again another day.

That will work…do an 8 minute FTP test outdoors.

  • Warm-up for about 20 minutes. Don’t soft-pedal the whole time; mix in some bursts of intensity.
  • Do your 8- or 20-minute effort. If you’re doing the 8-minute effort, take 10 minutes to recover in between your two efforts. You’ll want to take your best average power of the two efforts to calculate your FTP.
  • Cool down for 10 minutes.
  • Calculate the average power of your test effort(s) and reduce it by 5 or 10%, depending on the test you did. Reduce your best average power by 10 percent if you did an 8-minute effort and by 5 percent if you did a 20-minute effort.

ETA - but if you decide to go this route, understand that you may be setting your FTP too high for workouts you can do indoors. Most can hold a higher wattage outside due to cooling, motivation, etc. And if you struggle mentally indoors with hard efforts, then having your FTP set too high can make your workouts unbearable.

FTP tests need to set your correct training zones…setting the highest possible number may prevent that.

Hello All,

Sorry for the delayed reply but I felt that I owed you all an update after I asked for advice.

I did the ramp test on the Wednesday as I specified in a comment above and the FTP went from 242 up to 258 which is ok.

I have since hit the 10 ride threshold for the Auto FTP detection and it has put me up to 271. I have done 2 rides at that level and am still finding them very manageable. They have only been sweetspot rides but the levels are above my old (242) FTP and they are pretty easy. I did slide mountain last night (whilst fueled by Haggis and Irn Bru) and needed to release some energy at the end

I have a bank of VO2 max and Threshold sessions coming up so I will see how I cope with them

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You may simply be an athlete that can manage SS efforts well. I am definitely one of those athletes. I could knockout Slide Mountain without even thinking twice about it and upping my effort as you did in the last interval would be easily accomplished. It really isn’t that hard of a workout…which is somewhat the goal of SS. The whole point of SS is that you can work “relatively” hard but not go so deep that you thrash your legs…using SS you can stack more intensity days in a wekk without developing undue fatigue.

Trust the plan and see how the VO2 Max and threshold sessions go…AI will continue to adapt your plan as needed.

Thanks for the reply.

You may simply be an athlete that can manage SS efforts well.

When I did the Sufferfest 4DP I was classed as a Time trialist because I could work at just below Threshold for quite a while after doing a number of other tests.

I think I could maybe up the number of sessions that I do per week. I do 3 at the moment but I think I could slip in another adhoc session using the “Train Now” feature or maybe try and get outside.

Fitness is coming back and so is the power.

I’m glad your FTP is set correctly now! (And maybe it’s still too low).

But, it seems like you are always trying to “beat” the workout - that’s not the point. Sweet spot should feel medium-hard, not hard - you should still have some energy left at the end.

One case where you might take the reigns and go as hard as you can for the duration of each interval (as long as you can stay at that power throughout) would be the VO2 max and higher intervals which are pretty much (but not always) at the max you can go for the amount of time of the interval. But even so, if your FTP is right, there is no need to do this.

It’s good to refresh the “why” of each zone:

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Lol…I’m not used to workouts where I have plenty left in the tank…it feels wrong.
I keep feeling like I should be “balls to the wall” every time.
My head knows that I should follow the workout hut the legs want to go hard.
Maybe I’ll feel differently after the VO2 max ride VO2 is crap.

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I think most of us are a bit type-A that way :wink: Looking for extra credit! But it’s a fine line. What I hear over and over from multiple sources is consistency is the most important thing. Your FTP might still be a little low, but answering the workout questionnaire honestly plus just having more data over time will help it to adjust!

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I’m back again…I may just rename this to Fuzzy’s return to training thread.

I have been a good boy this week and did the workouts as prescribed…they felt pretty good…mostly sweetspot so pretty easy on the muscles. I can feel the fitness building.

Then comes today…I got a bit bored and my bum was a bit sore on the saddle doing sweetspot…I wanted something that would put more weight on my legs to lift my butt a little… (perhaps I should get a bike fit but that’s another story).

I started the “Bald” sweetspot ride…had a little chuckle to myself when the first line said “Welcome to Bald Knob”… incase you weren’t aware, “Knob” in the UK can be slang for a male lower dangly bit!! :slight_smile:

Anyway…on to the ride…got 30 minutes in and started looking at Strava and checking out the power curve for this year versus the last couple…I noticed that my 15 minute power for last year was above my current FTP…I just happened to have a 15 minute section coming up so I decided that I felt good and set out to beat it whilst doing the prescribed leg drills pushing over the top, pulling through the bottom etc…
I managed it ok…was still not experiencing laboured breathing and was able to lower my heart rate if I took deep gulps…The legs had some lactic acid but it seemed stabilised.

Here is the workout chart…I think the FTP will be going up when I get to push the button again.

This leads on to my next gripe…I have obviously sat at Threshold with a splattering of VO2 Max for a while and only my endurance stat has changed…
As a bit of a stats junky I though the software would look at what I actually did not just what I was supposed to do.

Still having fun…I’m expecting my legs to be a little heavier for my 90 minute ride tomorrow so may be a good boy and do the sweetspot drills as requested…will see how I feel

Not yet. Right now, AT and PL’s only adjusts levels for the energy systems for which the current workout is assigned (and in some cases, a secondary, LOWER, level may be adjusted)… in the case of “bald” that would be endurance. That extra effort at the end where you went above FTP was for naught in current state PL…

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Yes, your “extra” won’t count for PL but will feed into the FTP detection algo

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It’s almost time for another FTP adjustment and TR has decided that it is finally time for some Vo2 Max work.

I did Grassy Ridge-2 on Tuesday and despite being good for most of the rest of the month I let my ego out to play again.

5 minutes in to the warm up I added 15% and then decided to stick with it for the rest of the ride as lowering it again would have been quitting (in my mind at least).

Towards the last 10 minutes I had slightly achy legs but nothing too bad so decided to start ramping over the last 5 intervals. Given more intervals I could probably have pushed well into the 500 watt or 600 watt ranges for 30 on 30 off…I wouldn’t have managed 9 reps but maybe 2 or 3.
I did have one eye on getting a bigger FTP adjustment this month so pushed into Anaerobic/Neuro territory

If you think this is a bit mad then here is my Strava power graph from this ride VS my 2021 stats…On an outdoor ride in 2021 my 30 second max was 740w. That was 28km into a 32km ride where my normalised power for the ride was 292w.

I still have a fair distance to go to get back to my 2021 stats…my 2020 stats were a bit higher still with 811w for 30secs but due to inconsistency I dropped in 2021.

Hopefully Trainer Road will give me a FTP bump when I run the FTP adjustment later tonight…Still really enjoying TR and definitely getting fitter through consistent practice.
I still need to practice breathing…I’m glad that the text reminds me to actively inhale and exhale sometimes as I can tend to breath in a shallow manner…I don’t start huffing and puffing until my heart rate gets north of 165bpm (I’m 44 now so my max is somewhere around the 180’s).
I’ve got a nice relaxing Spruce-2 Sweetspot ride later tonight so I may just watch the Europa League football while I do it.

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I just ran the FTP detection and got a mild bump from 271 to 285.

5% is a decent jump in the space of 4 weeks…If we go back to January 6th when I started with TrainerRoad I was at 242w (via Ramp test) which is 15% in 6 weeks.

I’ve only been doing low volume - 3.5 hrs per week so I am pretty happy. Now begins the push to 300w ftp but I am scared because I have a 90 minute threshold session (Warlow +1) on Sunday at the new FTP. That is going to suck majorly!

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Embrace the suck. :wink:

That is not a “mild bump”, that is a significant jump (especially in just 4 weeks. FTP progression is not linear and once you start getting high enough, every extra watt is hard earned.

As for your workouts, I strongly suggest going back and reviewing @dirt_cruzer points above….it still seems like you are trying to “win” or “beat” every workout. That is not the goal. Complete the workouts as prescribed and let the program do its job.

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Cheers Power13… I did read Julie’s post and I did take notice. I have stuck to the workouts religiously apart from the ones that I post here where I get a little bored and try to beat the system.
I would suggest that once my FTP levels out and the rides are a good challenge, then I will resist the urge to push the boundaries.

The weather is getting better in the UK so I’ll be looking at getting outside in the coming weeks to get rid of the urge to push too much.

I find it takes me about 6-8 weeks to get back into decent shape after a break. However, I am pretty strong just getting on the bike anyways as youre finiding out for yourself.

Comparing your old data to what you do now isn’t that meaningful since you’re looking at your 2021 best watts for the time intervals as opposed to say, ‘x weeks of continuous training in 2021 relative to the same amount of training today’.

I usually take 2 weeks off the bike once or twice a year. Afterwards, I ride 4-8 weeks or so and do a 10 minute test on the trainer as a leg check and see what intervals.icu says my eFTP is. This gives me a good idea of where I’m at relative to being in good aerobic form.

This time around, about 9 weeks of training put me in ballpark fitness of the race season just from doing a key tempo/SS workout once or twice a week plus base miles. But I dont have the same kind of high end power and repeatability that I would to actually race.

All that said, I wouldn’t pay much attention to the AI ftp detection until youve been continously training for a few months. Its nice to see it go up, but the big changes are obviously happening and its probably not very accurate since your getting into shape so quickly (ie most models aren’t great at predicting huge fluctuations, but are better at steady changes). Also, smashing it on a workout isnt the biggest deal once in a while, but if you do it regularly, then youre really missing the boat on the actual point of that session from the perspective of the training program.

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HI KWcycling,

I have done a bit of regimented training on Sufferfest before but it seemed more “balls to the wall” than TrainerRoad. Perhaps my goals were different at that point.
I am struggling a little with the monotony of 1hr sweetspot rides…