But “Sweet Spot” is…we’re in trouble now…lol
Thanks for posting that up very interesting read.
Those letters from Peter Coe are fascinating. The coaching business was very different not so long ago!
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and thanks for sharing the link, it was very interesting to read.
Have I claimed that SST should replace long and easy? Or that this is suggested?
A typical Seiler paper, fitting the data to the story and not the story to the data.
No way the way they classifiy sessions provides a realistic picture of how they really trained. And no one can tell me that riding 209 km/wk vs 248 km/wk at <2mmol will make a difference. Especially since we don’t know how the boys really rode.
What we know and what is pretty evident from the data: non-responders (road) raced almost twice as much! Junior races are all-out from the gun. Interestingly this is not really discussed in the paper. The recent paper on power profiling of U23 elites shows something similar, those who raced a lot had the slowest development/tired the most later in the season.
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A good read, thanks for the link!
This trainingmethod of 2 hard efforts per day, i.e. “the ingebritsen method”, seems to produce some good results in sports and/or disciplines where you need to be able to perform at, or close to, you anaerobic threshold throughout the race.
If you copy paste it over to normal road race cycling, would it yield the same results?
The article mentions the Norwegian triathletes. Is short course/Olympic triathlon so different to road racing? And isn’t it often stated that anerobic threshold is the single most important predictor of performance in (almost) any endurance event?
However, one should note that the article is mainly about running. Running is a sport where volume is limited. Especially high intensity volume. Therefore, strategies are suggested which overcome this limitation.
And this is what I find interesting, seeing how different training models try to align race demands and sport specific limitations.
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I found that interesting too, thanks for posting!
One point that is quite clear is that the underlying question is “how can I do as much work as possible”. Think that is often missed by people trying to optimise their 5 hours/week. This is about doing a very high volume without breaking down.
Also the point about “muscle tone”, and the recommendations to break the daily training into blocks with recovery, and to do more ahorter intervals. I was wondering if that was neccessary on the bike. I’m not sure if threshold training on the bike has the same effect, or if (in running) the high impact plays a role?
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No, it’s more complicated. For many elites the gap between LT1 and LT2 is very narrow. For elite marathoners it’s almost identical. ISM says Pogocar never gets high La levels. It’s a characteristic for elites and Pog is an extreme. Blu and Iden do their endurance < 1mmol. This is far away from >2mmol. And the type of sport makes a difference, see his example on marathoner vs middle distance (or so) runner. Finally, he never specifies how he determines LT2. There are a dozen of different definitions.
As alwas, context is important. However, the key is, he advocates a different model to what the Norwegian Nordic skiers do. Here La levels for their typical intensity training
Karlsen et al. (2020)
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How long are the threshold efforts in the article, 6 to 8 minutes?
Is this because its pertaining to running?
Good article. Thanks for the post.
I also see threshold efforts at around 10 min as well.
For a moment I thought could @sryke be the one and same
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I think it’s because its middle-distance running mostly.
Thanks! One of the best articles for runners by someone who clearly understands and did the experiments himself. And he has the credentials too!
Do you know anyone who would do similar experiments in cycling and published them? The closest would perhaps be ISM. But if so then the optimal training for cycling looks quite different as I understand his training philosophy (lots of LT1 with some intensity mixed in). Or is that because the gap between LT1 and LT2 is narrow for the elites (as you mentioned) and with total volume being higher in cycling the intensity control is even more important?
I’m only aware of ISM. Not sure how widespread regular testing is in the pro peloton. I’ve just heard several times that it is logistically very difficult to get pros tested regularily. Travelling/racing all the time.
The common theme among all endurance sports is managing overall load. Train as much as possible w/o burning out. Different models came out of this.
With road cycling it appears it’s all about building fatigue resistance. So riding a lot with stuff every once in a while. You don’t see too much very intense stuff but they race a lot. Racing and racing into form has to be considered as well. But as I have just heard recently, a major difference between pros and amateurs is that pros adapt much quicker. Thanks to your genes they basically just have to look at their bike and they improve. Well … not exactly but somehow.
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The running article focusses on middle-distance runners. To me the equivalent would be someone focussing on TTs (10 or 25 miles). There are a couple of references to marathoners, which are probably more similar to pro-level road racers. Also I think because he focusses on the threshold sessions, he doesn’t really talk about the high volume of easy sessions - they are doing a very high volume overall.
He pointed out that the training is similar up to 10k and one might see more continuous threshold work for half and full marathoners. Yes, on time alone it would be similar to the distances you mentioned and also TT is the closest because the effort is constant. While the high volume in kms was given it still only translates to 10.5 hours of training at average speed of 3’30’'/k. There are some strength and plyo sessions too but it is far from 20-25 hours of pro cyclists.
One important aspect with running, threshold training does not only aim at cardio/peripheral adaptions but at the motion apparatus, too. Body must be trained to tolerate the extreme pounding at these speeds. Therefore, this intermittent tempo/threshold workouts for the second session of a double threshold day may serve a different purpose. And transfer to cycling, even for short TTs, may be limited. However, I don’t know, just a thought.
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Must admit I had the same thought / question. I raced 1500M, 3000M and 5000M in high school and 3000M steeple chase in college. Later in life did a fair number of 1/2 marathons. While nowhere near elite status, the type of training described makes a lot of sense. But I doubt a non-elite runner could handle the volumes and intensities described. Similar to how a non-elite cyclist is not going to handle 20-25 hours a week plus intensity well.
Fascinating article - tnx for putting up in the thread.
This may have been covered somewhere else in the thread, but to me it seems the biggest variable in all of these training modalities is the amount of time a rider can train per week. A second important variable is age.
What would be really interesting to see is some sort of guide by ISM, etc. which said: given 8 hours of training per week, do XX; given 10 hours per week, do XX; 12, 14, etc.
My training per week will fluctuate between 8 hours per week and will get as high as 14-15 hours per week… but I try to settle in the 10-12 range. I’m also 47.
If you could train only 8 hours per week and were 27 vs. 12 hours per week and were 50 … the same coach would recommend different things, correct? Isn’t that where much of the Seiler confusion/debate stems from? Seiler’s initial observation was on elite athletes training 20 hours a week, or something like that … and all of “us” tried to figure out what that meant for training 6 hours per week?
I understand proximity to races (like a UCI pro) would be a 3rd massive variable … but most of us here don’t need to consider that.
Just thinking out loud. I’m like most of you … when I am working really hard, I worry about digging myself into a hole; when I’m working long and slow I worry that I’m not working hard enough. Even in working with a coach I worry about this…
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But do they do 3:30/km for their easy runs too?
He also hinted at tempo sessions (in cycling speak) being useful for marathoners, while he sees no use in them for the runners he mainly talks about.
Also yes, I thought about the shorter-duration cycling events, and TTs have a constant effort. Thinking about it, disciplines like xc and cx are maybe more like field/teamsports, due to the frequent accelarations and whole-body involvement.
FWIW, Carmichael (the OG of “time-crunched”) does provide this sort of guidance. For those who don’t want to read his book (it’s been years for me), he touches on it a bit recently on FastTalk podcast w/ Trevor et al. The TLDR; is nothing new to anyone on this thread: classic endurance training model if you have enough time, if not, need to get creative w/ intensity.
I think they would. And agree this is the source of much talking past one another. (sidenote: love seeing “Kayfabe” enter the training lexicon. A physiology professor of mine in college, Gary Dudley, loved professional wrestling and would often use stories from pro wrestling to color his commentary about otherwise dry exercise physio topics). I bet Ric Flair trained POL. 
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