They had Bob Seebohar on the Flo podcast, I think it came out yesterday, if anyone is interested.
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I thought it was a good listen and I just bought one of his books.
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Thanks.
I’m 37 and life time athlete (soccer) but been training for 4 years on the bike. 2017 was first year of structured training for me.
Congrats on the progress you’ve made, definitely doing something right 
I had a look at the guy’s website and had to sit down when I saw the cost of his base metabolic efficiency test! Interesting podcast though.
The diet stuff seems easy enough to implement, which I guess is good if it is 70-75% of the equation. But not sure how much one can really do with the rest of it without the testing (expensive testing).
I’m curious how that works though once you do it. How often would you check it again? How about the beginning of next season’s training? I’m sure they have answers to all of that, but it is expensive and I know I’d need to add in travel etc.
A few observations from trying this kind of training for a few weeks.
(Disclaimer 1: self-coached. Disclaimer 2: also doing 2 weight sessions a week.)
- The tempo intervals at <83%maxHR feel like they’re really good for your aerobic system and endurance. Certainly they’re a good way to burn a lot of Kj while not burning yourself out. I’m looking forward to using them during race season to help keep me fresh.
- The 15min grind / 15min normal / 15min spin workout is a great one when you’ve only got an hour. A few modifications in Workout Creator to Pioneer work nicely.
- For me personally, the tempo workouts are still very much carb-burners. I need to be well-fuelled to do them.
- Recently I started increasing protein and decreasing carbs in my diet. However I found that doing the tempo workouts that my heart rate was getting higher (and my resting HR has been higher too). I even got a bit of ammonia taste in my mouth after 3x20mins. For this reason I’m going to increase my carbs again and only go low-carb / fasted on Z2 or recovery days.
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I think Steve’s advice was to drop the intensity so HR does not exceed the 83% threshold. And doing this, along with diet, trains your body to burn more fat. Are you no longer looking for the adaptations Steve was talking about? (I think this was also one of his points, that people rely too much on power to inform zones, and as a result, nearly always go too hard)
I am mostly sticking to the 83% limit and reducing power where necessary. But I’m getting to the point where I’m questioning whether I have enough need for fat adaptation to go through doing the workouts on limited carbs. I’m doing L’Etape next year but my main goal will be 2hr max road races and 10-25 mile TTs.
Overall I like the training purpose of the tempo work, but I think I’d much rather do the tempo workouts fully fuelled and combine them with carb-restricted or fasted endurance.
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Makes sense. Fat burning more important the longer the race gets. I’m usually fine below 2-3. 3-5 I have to be more careful with eating and pacing. 5+ are tough!
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I don’t have the problem of a high FTP!
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I’m trying the same tempo workouts at the moment, but I view it as improving aerobic development rather than fat adaptation. I still think some sort of dietary adjustement is necessary as substrate availabilty is going to affect muscle fibre utilisation and aerobic adaptations as I understand it (please call me out on this if this is bad science!). I do all my workouts first thing in the morning anyway as a necessity, pre breakfast.
I’m training for even shorter races than you as it happens (track endurance), but my improvement is being hampered by a lack of aerobic development, so I’m trying this out for a change.
Did you fly somewhere to get the metabolic cart fatmax measurement? I live in Iowa usa… there are not any metabolic carts in this state for a cyclist to use
What’s the lthr protocol? I couldn’t find it on the tr workout catalog
Look in the INSCYD website and see if there are any near you. I live in Chicago and they have a facility here.
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tyvm! looks like there is one just 30 minutes from me!
It’s also possible to do the power-based INSCYD test remotely from anywhere in the world.
@batwood14 Hi, Can you describe how your training will look like during the base period (winter time)? How much time do you have for the next race in the spring?
My training so far doesn’t really look different than what I was doing “in season” - we are working through an overall uptick in TSS, but not necessarily intensity. Meaning, the SS intervals will be longer to add stress, but other than that, not much different.
My next race is in April, so I have quite a ways to go.
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@batwood14 Are you using LBP to determine tempo/SS or just the 80-83% HR cap?