I’ve gotten away from trying to figure out adaptations, but FWIW my mid to late base had a lot of z2 and some z3 intervals at low cadence. Looking at torque, which is force on the pedals, and translates back to force recruitment in muscles, the force/torque at upper z2 and lower z3 was usually (a good bit) higher than doing TR sweet spot in Erg. So yeah, I think you can aerobically work fast oxidative glycolytic fibers below sweet spot intensity. And if not, then its likely making the the slow twitch more fatigue resistant. Or both.
All I know is that every time I’ve peaked my fitness, it was after doing a fair bit of low aerobic work at higher force/torque. So I know that it works, and it really doesn’t matter why because I’m not going to do a muscle biopsy or any other lab tests. I’m just going to do the training that I know produces results.
We are saying the same thing, and i agree with Tshortt. The difference is the labelling.
Everything thing is based on how ftp was measured.
My ftp could be 300W based on a 20 minute test.
325W with a ramp test.
295W with a Km style test.
312W with a lactate test using OBLA
292W using a fixed 3.0mmol Norwegian style.
To back that up, here is another Tom Bell article on the subject of polarized training for time-crunched athletes:
"A trap that many athletes with restricted training time fall into is that they make all training moderately hard. This is often to ‘compensate’ for limited training time.
Many time-crunched athletes also worry that, with limited training time, a polarised approach won’t be effective due to the high proportion of low-intensity training.
However, the study discussed above (Muñoz et al., 2014) showed a polarised approach to be more effective than a threshold approach among recreational athletes. Crucially, the training volume was low in both groups (averaging 39.1H and 36.3H of training over the 10 weeks respectively).
From our own experience working with over 100 athletes that fall into the time-crunched camp, we’ve also found that a polarised model is effective when training time is limited (in the region of 5-8 hrs/week)."
Source, with an example week for someone with 5-8 hours to train:
No, I’m just trying get at the fact that even riding sub-threshold intensities can be high enough to deplete glycogen stores. For most riders, sweet spot almost definitely is high enough. If they merely bumped it down to tempo (no, not tempo all the time. Hi, Brendan ), they might find a way to do more work without fatigue associated with near threshold riding. When they are on > 15 hrs / week, likely no need to do as much (or maybe any). But most of us can’t ride our bikes that much. We have been conditioned to look to SweetSpot, which ultimately compromises our ability to do (for example) 4 hours of TiZ by only a seemingly slight increase in intensity. Say, 80% to 88-92% FTP.
“More glycolytic” is important because it’s “more glycogen depletion”, which compromises your ability to do the single most important thing in all of endurance sports: more work.
Reminds me of the ISM Zone 2 and FatMax discussion. What is missing from those discussions is the crossover concept. That is important not because of what is happening with fat. Who cares if it’s max, near max, or kinda high? High fat oxidation is almost always happening, and it’s almost always adequately high. It’s not directly trainable, anyway. FatMax shifts or widens with training likely do to increase mitochondrial density, function, etc. And what causes that: doing more work.
It’s what happens with CHO that is more important. When you see that first uptick in CHO (or lactate, or respiration, etc.) you now have a ballpark intensity for increased rate of glycolysis. Why care? What feeds glycolysis? Blood glucose and most importantly: glycogen. What happens when I’m low on glycogen (either from a single ride or a series of rides)? I compromise my ability to do the most important thing in all of endurance sports: doing more work.
What if I could find an intensity that gives me a few more of the same adaptations as Zone 2 but wasn’t slamming my glycogen stores so that could do even MORE work? I’d try not to overdo it. I wouldn’t chase TSS. I wouldn’t think it was magic. But I would sure as hell do it. As much as I can in my low or mid volume life. I wouldn’t skip my long ride. I wouldn’t dork around with RCA…you get it.
Why not go even higher? Higher is better right? More adaptations! Yes, until you’ve gone so high that you can’t do the single most important thing in all of endurance sports: doing more work. Did I hurt my training by not spending adequate time in the FatMax zone? Did I ruin my aerobic adaptations with glycolysis?
No. You chronically and unwittingly depleted your glycogen stores and can’t do the work day over day. If you don’t base it off of FTP, you have a way to ballpark an intensity (individualized) that provides an approach to “do more work” above and beyond dilly-dallying around at .65 IF for 6-8 hrs a week.
What about intervals? Yeah, you’ll want to intentionally do those. But not before you do more work. And not if they compromise your ability to: _______.
SweetSpot is a concept. Not an intensity.
“SweetSpot sweetspot sweetSpot sweetspot SweetSpot sweetspot” is the correct answer to the OP’s question (with the caveat that there is no “conversion”, etc…he just wants to get more aerobically fit).
Also, I know you know all of that and could school me on most of this stuff. Maybe someone reading it can learn something or recalibrate me if I’ve messed something up.
Thanks for your feedback. That makes sense to me. One of the main issue I had in recent year was recovery and I feel I cannot handle all the instensity my teamates are doing.
If one want to go use your approach, I guess maximizing volume is the key parameter to work with. And do you see any benefit of doing tempo or it would be better to stick to Z2 as mucch as possible ?
80-20 z2-z3 would be the top end of how much z3 I’d recommend, and only if you truly enjoy it. I have no evidence that that is even required. My wife did probably 60-40 z2-z1 and saw great improvement.
She also ran and swam, and her running more regularly pushed her up into zone 3 on accident… maybe 1-2 hrs per week. Just full disclosure.
EDIT: I’m totally making these percentage numbers up and have not checked the data. Just rough estimates but my estimates usually tend to be pretty reasonable because I spend so much time with my head in data.
I am, or I was, an incredibly anaerobic athlete. 100m sprinter previously. A lifetime of power sports.
If you really are an anaerobic athlete, then very much pay attention to what Brendan, Alex and others have said. I’ve had the exact same experience. Dramatic aerobic improvement. It has however, taken years. Years of intensity discipline. Lot’s of Z1/Z2. All of my power durations have improved. Apart from 15s or under. They are essentially the same. I can increase my short term numbers to max levels in as little as 2 weeks.
Please ignore the low carb talk entirely. It’s incredibly risky. I made many mistakes chasing this very dated solution. There’s significant risk for almost no benefit.
On a side note, I genuinely think low carb, fasted training talk etc, should come with an actual warning label on any internet location. There’s endless misinformation on the subject, just waiting to ruin someone’s athletic potential…
Fuel your training appropriately. Follow current science.
Make certain your Z1/Z2 is actually that. (It’s usually miniscule power for beginning anaerobic athletes.)
Do huge volume. Tons of low intensity aerobic training.
Doing lots of sweet spot intervals won’t work. Well, it likely won’t work to start with. Once you really have converted or developed some fibers to function as aerobic fibers, you will be able to tolerate more threshold work. This could, or more likely, will, take years.
This will all depend on just how fast twitch dominant you actually are. It’s a huge spectrum. So, taking a single persons training advice verbatim is risky.
What does make sense is listening to experienced coaches who have trained numerous riders across the range. They, like many here have mentioned will tell you a similar message.
Lots of aerobic volume. Endless high intensity intervals is not the solution for anaerobic athletes.
To be very clear. Sweet spot IS high intensity for anaerobic athletes.
Yes, that. So much of that rang true for me. And yes, low carb when you’re very anaerobicly biased is disastrous. For me, it’s just lots of Z2, I’m finding as I’m getting more aerobic I can add in higher intensities without it burning me out quickly. The combo of very anaerobic plus not that aerobically fit plus Sweetspot intensity is a disaster.
I’m actually doing it for health, no way that the macronutrient that literally makes the teeth rot out of your mouth is any good for us and that’s besides the damage carbs do to protein due to non-enzymatic glycosylation. I don’t mind a slight loss in performance for my longevity and keeping my teeth are more important
I actually really do enjoy sweet spot workouts but after doing SSB1 & 2 and sustained power build all LV my 30-60s power increased much more than my FTP and 1h+ power. I really would like my FTP to be close to the same percentile as my 30-60s power but I do really enjoy sweet spot workouts on the trainer
That is as far as I’ve heard anyone go, regarding dialing back work above threshold (ftp).
Say that you during race season (road racing ~2,5hrs) race on the weekends, would that leave any intensity for the weekdays? Or keep it Z2 till the next race?
For context my training is my commute, 30km each way, 2x a week. Sometimes have time to add a longer way back.
I have decent long sprint to 2min power, longer that that is not my forte.
Hmm… this sounds like you’re not someone who just gets better and better as the sprint get shorter.
You might not fall into the category of “can do z1/z2 all the time and always get better.” If you’ve got time for enough z2 volume, then probably mostly z2 is great. If not, hitting z3 isn’t a bad idea.
The folks who I have do the “no need to ever sniff z3, let alone z4” approach are the rare few who will be winning the bunch sprint if they’re in the pack. The people who always get told you should do track! Or it’s just assumed that they’re a match sprinter until told otherwise.
I’m averaging around 8 hours/week and 60-80% is z2, the rest is z3 and a little bit of intensity. For me, a little bit of intensity seems to work better than none at all.
You are right, I’m not a pure sprinter by design.
Thanks, this is more in line with what I’ve done these past few seasons - with decent results despite low volume.
I guess what I need to look at is managing fatigue during the week, as the high intensity stuff can put a big dent in me. When I’m in shape I can then increase from Z2 to Z3 during most rides, while still recovering well.
The recommendation of HV/LI for anaerobic athletes is really interesting. Thank you.
On the flipside, it sounds like there is a real concern about doing the opposite: burying themselves deep with lots of intensity.
Can you elaborate on why there is higher risk of damage and fatigue for anaerobic gifted athletes? (I am assuming compared to aerobically gifted athletes)
Conversely, is there less concern for doing high-intensity if you are a naturally gifted AEROBIC athlete? I get that poison is in the dosage, so too much of anything is obviously bad. So I hope the spirit of my question is coming through, and this doesn’t derail into a “how much is too much” discussion.
Am genuinely curious why anaerobic athletes are more susceptible to damage. Would love to understand where that risk stems from.
Some of us who ride ultra endurance events will do 16-20 hours of Z2 with a light smattering of low Z3 per day on our A events. Then have a 3-4 hour sleep and go again the next day. For ultra endurance, Z2 is event specific.
A total of 20 hours Z2 per week won’t kill you but you’d need to progressively build up to it like anything.
My guess would be, to generate SS watts (for example), they’re relying (a lot) on the glycolytic system - i.e., running the system ‘hot’. There’s only so long you can do this for before deep fatigue sets in.
Athletes who generate SS watts aerobically, will be using a greater % of Type I fibres, which have faster recovery rates.
), they might find a way to do more work without fatigue associated with near threshold riding. When they are on > 15 hrs / week, likely no need to do as much (or maybe any). But most of us can’t ride our bikes that much. We have been conditioned to look to SweetSpot, which ultimately compromises our ability to do (for example) 4 hours of TiZ by only a seemingly slight increase in intensity. Say, 80% to 88-92% FTP.
For ultra endurance, Z2 is event specific.