your true max is probably rarely reached in training. Depends on the race type to generate it, or there are protocols to try and figure it out. Mostly it’s something along the lines of doing 3 or 4 minute VO2max style intervals on low rest, then for the last one you do 1 minute FULL gas, as hard as you can go and that should be your best estimate for sport specific max.
At risk of being Captain Obvious…
My time in zone (power) chart looks a lot like figure D. Except my total time is estimated at 1/3 to 1/4 of a pro’s week. So… how much of what we are seeing in pro training logs is first burning 2,000 calories “just riding tempo” for a few hours before or after doing the work bouts (intervals) for their day?
Since I never have to perform after riding 4-5 hours of tempo, because my races are TTs of 10-25 miles which start after a 15-20 min warm-up, I’m never going to take the start line (or hit a hard race effort) in a depleted state.
The questions we keep seeming to come back to for “regular Joe’s” are:
a) What’s your potential so you know how close you are to extracting max performance?
b) What’s the optimal training plan for 8 hours a week?
c) What’s the potential gain if I somehow manage to get to 16 hours a week or 20+ hours a week (and of course what are the best plans for 16 and 20+ – e.g loop back to B)?
All of this “what the pro’s do” seems somewhat not useful other than for fun. I’m struck by a comment in one of the podcasts (paraphrased): “When you see certain training and diet plans remember those methods were to extract the last 1% of potential performance from a single specific athlete, not a recommendation for other athletes”. Essentially saying: you aren’t Froome or Sagan so don’t replicate their training.
After about a year of really interesting discussion, it seems to me the recipe for Joe’s returns to:
- One to two good structured interval workouts per week during the work week
- Long tempo rides on the weekends for as long as you can fit in (3-5 hours)
- Pick a reasonable plan and be as compliant as possible in sticking to it
- Work toward actual riding at FTP (MLSS) for a real hour (durability, resilience, etc)
If you aren’t working, or are amazingly motivated and able to add time… the prescription of 1-2 hard workouts a week still stands, then you add a lot more time in Z2 and reap those benefits.
*** Looking forward to the ML/AI analysis of TR logs when that finally comes out.
-Mark
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We also need to remember that there’s more than one reasons why the pros train as they do, e.g. Pol.
Yes, they do have to train to perform after a high level of kJ depletion but that same depletion (aka Endurance work) is also developing a strong aerobic system which provides the basis for (and greatly contributes to) most other levels of intensity.
So even if you (or any of us) personally are never having to race past a state of depletion, a ‘pro style’ aerobic development will still greatly serve your 20mi TT efforts.
That said, Joe Average can still adapt and apply the same kJ depletion training to his/her own specific situation.
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I did an hour of power on the indoor trainer by setting off at just below FTP for the first 10 min in erg mode, then upping the % of FTP intensity to FTP for minutes 11-45. From min 45-60 I had to adjust the intensity back down to 99%, when my cadence dropped from the previous 90 rpm average down to 84 rpm.
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Yeah, we dont’ get to see when they are applying those power in relation to the segment of their ride. From the many posts @sryke has posted, many of the pros are doing significant tempo periods in their longer rides. I think that long distance athletes also do more of a periodization strategy with regards to intensity distribution than the athletes Seiler has studied for the polarized model. Also, he usually only studies VO2 max increase, while fractional utilization is a big part of race specificity for cyclists, but not quite as important for athletes doing 10-50 minute races.
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it’s all about building a huge Turbo-Diesel. May it be for a 3-weeks-stage race or 280K one day classic. The one who dies the least wins, all about fatigue resistance. And Tempo/SST within longish rides seems to be the method applied, even at this time of the year. Last 3 years for a pro tour team leader, rode in Monteal last week, now back in Europe.
The only exception is Valverde. He just rides with his buddies. Day in, day out. Group ride after group ride. No apparent structure.
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No idea what all those charts mean, but you definitely have the correct number of tabs open. 
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I have a question… If I’m following tr lv progression of standard plans From base to build to specialty… am i making A mistake? I honestly am so burnt out on this theory shit right now… I’ve been tracking my time in zones and find that the tr plans do in fact stay away from the Coggan tempo zone Soo aren’t the tr plans mostly in agreement with polarized? With the caveat that tr plans make the claim that heart rate is not a good reliable marker for how your muscles are performing? I think tr should invent a special implant that we can put under our skin which measures lactate and reports via Bluetooth to software. Then we cyclists would have a much better picture of how we are recruiting our muscles.
the other caveat is that the TR LV plans do probably apply more of a 50/50 approach between the z1 and z3 in the 3-zone system.
In a word no.
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4 hours on a trainer is hard core
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I’ve also done a couple over 5 hours and they are no joke. Wrecked me for a couple of days after.
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Zwift gives a special jersey for a ride over 100 miles so you can show off your badassery on the island.
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I’ve just stumbled across this paper which says that one way of determining LT1 is to do a variety of 8 minute sub-maximal tests. I just wondered if anyone else had seen it or would like to have a read and comment on it.
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Interesting! And I knew it, we all come boack to good old Conconi! Well, not really but reminds me a little bit of the early 90s.
Will definitiely give it try, seems pretty easy to implement. Would approach it slightly different.
The only caveat: they had folks do 60rpm cadence. This is low. I can tell from my observations that heart rate is quite impacted by cadence. We can’t say for sure that the PD relationship holds for more realistic rpms as well. Furthermore, those threshold wattages in Table 1 are low. And then, young men. Does this hold for masters as well?
Finally, this paper hasn’t been cited once by any other paper. Does not have to mean anything but this is always a little bit odd.
From the discussion:
HOWEVER: while this may be interesting from an academic perspective, personally I don’t see the value of knowing LT1 or LT2. There is no clear anwser on how to train these thresholds. Should you stay well below LT1 to train it? Or at LT1? Or slightly above it because you actually have to stress it in order to see improvements? Or a mix of the three?
The cacophony of different belief systems is testament for this lack of clear evidence.
No need to implement it for me, I just carry on with my training.
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What shorts do you wear? !!
I have heard that a 2 hour indoor endurance ride is equivalent to almost 4 hours outdoors, but I don’t know what the source was. Is this accurate?
I suspect that 60rpm was chosen due to the fact that couch potatoes were one of the groups and would probably have had difficulty spinning at anything higher.
Depending what type of training belief system you choose to subscribe to knowing LT1, in particular, appears to be very useful for making sure you are not going too hard when you think you are going easy. It would also appear to be one of the hardest to ascertain. Even lactate tests to pinpoint it seem to subject to interpretation and different protocols. As to your question about how to train these systems - who knows?!. Only the Gods perhaps
Ones with built in analgesics.
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