after warmup try starting with a block of tempo and then z2 - you might cut that down to ~3 hours.
I occasionally add some low tempo stretches (a la sryke a la pro-style “stuff”,
or batwood’s workout x2) but I’m not concerned with chopping time right now.
For ~3 weeks I’m after lots of aerobic impact and lots of volume (it’s still king); shooting for 1,000 Z2 TSS for the last week of 2020 — show it who’s boss! 
This is a very good comment.
First off, I’m very similar to you: I need approximately 3-4 hours of Zone 2 training for it to have any kind of effect.
Second, the
is so relatable and what all this conversation is really about. Sweet spot is something inbetween, you get some aerobic and some anaerobic benefits, but not the whole package of any of the two. You’re better off doing Zone 2 work + VO2 work to get the best of two worlds. And for doing SS 4 days a week and it loading up too much fatigue: that’s exactly the “too much of the grey zone” argument that coaches make. Once you have enough time to do 4 relatively longer workouts a week, you’re better off doing Zone2+VO2 than doing only SS. That’s the whole point of the polarised : sweet spot debate if you ask me.
And how do you even know this? How do you know that those shorter zone 2 rides do not matter? Serious question.
Yup. WKO’s Training Impact Score.
But…in 2019 all I did was Z2 rides (doctor’s orders) and all I had was sub/objective observation of my own self. I can confidently state that doing 5hr rides had a much more noticeable effect on my fitness than the 3-4hr rides. However, there’s no way I’m doing 5hrs on a trainer, that’s why I’m investigating what duration provides the min. effective dose and work from there.
There’s probably a WKO/TP free trial if that kind of analysis is interesting to you.
I really do think this is a time when people need to step back from the trees and look at the woods though…
Just because the TiS might say that about one workout, take a step back and look at a months worth of work. If we only focus on 1 workout all the time it simply brings us back to the ‘need to maximise every hour of time so I do SST’ argument again. While TiS may say 3+ hours for an impact I find it hard to imagine that racking up volume of 2 & 2.5hr sessions, for example, isn’t going to provide a lot of benefits.
One thing I keep seeing is everyone talking about weekly distribution. I’ve listened to a lot of Seiler talks now and he talks a lot about longer periods like months and seasons.
Lazy question - and just looking for a general answer of course. Minimum number of hours for z2 riding to have an effect per week?
I’m less excited about doing SS work this year. Last year I was pretty committed to SSBMV, and after flirting with, and getting sick a few times dropped to the LV for part 2. Looking back I’m not sure the bang for the buck was there for me - more fatigued than I think I needed to be without a big ftp bump. Maybe TTE improved? Even going to LV, I have notes indicating I was dancing around illness more than I should.
I’m considering a hybrid approach to base where I do only one SS workout per week then add endurance rides everywhere I can and progressively add some VO2 max eventually. I’m looking at 6-8 hours a week and 400-450 TSS that seems to work best for me.
I’ve just started riding the rollers again in the last couple of weeks and I’ve done one SS workout that seemed too hard (using my FTP from the fall so an obvious issue there, probably was a sub / threshold workout instead.) and the rest have just been Taku and Pettit. I did two days back to back Pettit and actually have a little DOMS today. Surprised by this a bit but it’s also maybe the contrast of no indoor riding from just riding outside when never I felt like it (ie 2-3 hours a week tops). Ah, fitness…
I’m also curious, I’m sure it’s pretty individualized but I’m in part 3 of TB MV and it has Sundays at 3, 3.15, and 3:30. Already did mount cook for 3 hours and it’s not something I enjoyed on a trainer, 2 hours is really my limit of enjoyment and beyond that I’m just doing it because I feel like I have to, not want to.
Curious how 1-2 hour Z2 rides, or an accumulation of them, benefits performance
Just a brief observation on how we sometimes get caught up on labels vs. the meat and potatoes of any particular training plan. I’m currently working my way through SSB mid volume 1 and 2. If I follow the plans as they were originally designed (i.e. I do the long Z2 ride on Sunday instead of the sweet spot workout), I end up with absolutely zero time doing sweet spot intervals beyond the 8th week.
Thats a HUGE ‘it depends’ answer, but in an interview I was listening to on my 90 min z2 rollers session the other day. Seiler gave a great example when asked about min effective dose of low intensity…
…imagine 2 twins and 1 sits on the sofa and 1 goes out and does 1-2hrs of low intensity work pretty much every day. What would be the fitness difference between them?
Of course if people are already doing 20+hrs cycling a week then 1-2 hr low intensity sessions wont do much, but for people in the <10hrs a week then I truly believe that OVER TIME they contribute a lot of benefit, especially when combined with an hour of quality intervals. I think its really easy for us to ignore an hour here and there while in reality its still a fair bit of aerobic work done, and then again the next day and .the next…
I can answer this with experience. Again, in 2019 I was doing 8-10x1hr Z2 during the week and 2x3-5hr on the weekend (3+ months). The 1hr rides were basically treading water; it was the longer rides, esp. the 5hr ones, which really boosted fitness.
Fewer hours will provide a benefit, but since I currently have no time constraints, I’m looking to maximize aerobic benefits via both volume (still king) and MED. I’m not going to get that with either SS or shorter Z2. I’m after racking up a string of 10’s without the fatigue of SS work. If it was summer, I’d probably be doing 5hr rides outside (even though I don’t really like riding for 5hrs outside…or 4hrs inside…gotta do what ya gotta do!).
My personal Z2 aerobic scores: 1hr = 2-3; 2hr = 4-5; 3hr = 6-7; 4hr = 9-10; 5hr = 10+ (+ = etherial benefits)
That’s why we build annual plans. 
It’s not POL vs SS, it’s POL and SS.
True, as other’s have pointed out. But I’m currently seeking a mix of volume and aerobic ‘minimum effective dose’; no interesting in shortening the rides at this point. When I am eventually time constrained, I will be turning to SS.
It undoubtedly depends on many factors, e.g., age, training history, etc.
For example, this past summer I went from next-to-nothing to over 60 hours per month of JRA (i.e., zone 2), and my FTP only went up roughly 10, maybe 15 watts. So for me, obviously either even 15 hours per week isn’t enough, or I need to train harder to make significant gains.
They all land between 65-70% FTP/HRmax (weird that it works out like that).
But doesn’t INCYD claim the exact opposite, i.e., training that way will severely blunt your VLaMax?
(FWIW, my personal experience aligns with INCYD and not WKO, as there is no better way to prepare for domestique duties than to just bang out miles and miles of tempo to turn yourself into a diesel.)
I’m doing this experiment right now. I’m mostly constrained to indoor riding and get outside once or twice per week if the weather permits.
I’m doing 5 to 6 60-75 minute Z2 trainer rides per week plus some dumbbell weight training plus 1-2 outdoor rides. Overall, it’s 6-7 hours per week. My FTP has been holding and it seems to be enough of a stimulus that I’m tired enough for a rest week now.
I agree, I’ve done a handful of 2 hour sessions but I can’t go longer than that. I guess that’s another point for SS work - it’s more enjoyable than the long endurance slogs even with the increased fatigue (for me). This just has me coming back to points being made on all these threads - TR plans (any plan) should be individualized and the rider needs to know themselves pretty well.
Were your 5 hour rides indoor or outdoor, mix of both?
That’s kinda what I’m thinking about my indoor sessions now. 1 hr z2 is probably just maintaining any/most of my fitness, of course the high end probably won’t stick around too long, but that comes back relatively quickly for me. Again, I’m surprised by the amount of fatigue I’m dealing with even with just a little steady pedaling z2. I think it’s that constant pedaling that only comes from indoor riding that’s different. It’s not like I’m new to riding rollers/trainer, but after months away from it, still a bit surprising to get this much DOM from low intensity efforts. Again, this isn’t anything severe I’m just not used to feeling sore what-so-ever from easy riding. If I do an easy ride outside, I’m completely fine the next day etc - obviously there’s a big enough difference between the two. I live in a hilly/mountainous zone so plenty of coasting outdoors…
Yes, Sebastian Weber and Inscyd say that that tempo/threshold/sweetspot training improves FTP by reducing the lactate production in the fast twitch fibres, reducing anaerobic capacity.
However, when listening to san Milan on that triathlon show he said that sweet spot and threshold intervals boost a anaerobic / glycolytic power, If I recall correctly. Going to give that one another listen.
All outside, it was summer.
Exactly what I’m finding. Indoor is a different creature. I’m guessing that long Z2 rides could contribute just as much to muscular endurance as shorter SS workouts.
I’m totally with you on this and agree on many people simply falling into this trap.
Last Xmas I had a slow time at work and a little extra holiday, so decided on the Rapha 500. Weather was reasonable, there were a few of my regular ride buddies around and I smashed it out no problem. I still had another couple of quiet weeks so did it again, and a bit more. I managed a block of 1000 outdoor miles over Xmas. It certainly wasnt all low intensity, as they were lots of well structured group rides with constant rotating turns on the front etc and a few hills to hit, but it was probably 60-70% z2 (Coggan). Had a week of rest days and a couple of easy rides and re-tested, and got a +20w FTP bump. I then rode big mileage this year and didnt really do much interval work at all, and managed about 8000 miles by Nov, and had a steady rise in FTP all year long, just from racking up lots of 50+ mile steady rides. Plenty of ‘grey’ in there along the way, but volume of lower aerobic work really works. This was all on the back of 10 years and about 60,000 miles riding.
I’ve just done a 12 week block of extended tempo & SST intervals using the rollers indoors and supplementing with a few endurance rides up to 4hrs a couple of times a week. I ended up with a 100 min TiZ SST ride and my muscular endurance certainly improved hugely but I’m also fairly sure I started digging a bit of a hole for myself. Even after a rest week I couldnt complete a 3x10 @95% and a couple of 3hr outdoor endurance rides had my HR running at +20bpm on what it should have been, so I’ve dialed it back again now and am simply doing easy endurance rides with some threshold work - did 4x10 @ 95% today for example - every 4-5 days. I hope to end up with 10-12hrs per week for a few months, with as much of that as possible in easy easy endurance rides. If the weather isn’t too severe I might even hit 15+ for a while as I don’t really have much of a job any more.
This, and working back through all the other big pol threads and Seiler podcasts has really helped me re-focus. I’m not a racer and all my goals this year are GF’s or multi-day trips, so getting back to building the biggest diesel this 50 year old can manage is priority #1 