I am looking to adjust the SBMV which I will start end of October. Reason is that I want to increase training load, since I believe I can handle it based on my training experience in the past. Here some info on myself:
Age: 29
Experience: completing second year of structured training
FTP: approx. 325 @ 64kg
Since May TSS has been at a minimum of 600 per week with buildups to 750 and exceptional weeks of over 1000 if did a planned overload, e.g. 4 day training camp
Adaptions to make:
Include easy ride on Friday, i.e. Petit
Add strength training twice per week
Exchange Sunday ride for longer Sweetspot workout, either by chosing longer version or selecting workout from SBHV
Add 30 mins of additional base to each weekend ride
Once I get my gravel bike exchange one weekend ride for a long endurance ride, i.e. 3-4 hours
Do you think these adjustments are reasonable and is there any benefit to tagging on the additional 30 mins to the long sweetspot and Over & Unders on the weekend? For the latter I believe they mentioned it could train the same muscles that would get fatigued from a long base ride?
Biggest question mark here for me is adding volume and adding strength training. If you’re new to strength training, it could be really easy to smoke your legs, especially if your strength routine doesn’t consider the workload you’re already putting on the legs via biking. From your description, you also are going to have at least one day and perhaps two in which you do both cycling and strength work, which may not be ideal.
My own suggestion would be to successfully incorporate strength training before adding any cycling volume at all beyond the MV plan. Once that is well in hand, see what additional bike workload would be beneficial (if any).
thanks for mentioning the point with strength training, very much appreciated. I will definitely need to see how my body reacts to the strength training since my last gym visit is a while back.
Reason I am adding strength training on training days is that they had mentioned on the podcast to keep the rest days as rest days and to not do strength training then.
Your second point with adding volume to the mid volume plan: I do not feel like this would additional volume to my existing training (just finished climbing road race high volume) but rather additional volume to the SSBMV plan.
Probably need to test and feel how the adjusted plan and strength training work together!
I modify the base plans as well for more volume.
Adding in one extra day on Friday I would recommend riding for an hour below 120bpm. I found doing petit over and over wasn’t really helping me recover.
You’ll find it’s a mid z2 ride so it’s not that much loss in TSS.
You could also add the + variant to Tuesday /Thursday for an extra 15 mins.
For the easy ride I would use my wahoo headunit to control the KICKR so I could play with the power to keep my hr low. Or you could do petit but lower the % to keep it below 120.
The problem I’m running into now is ssb 2 on Tuesday/Thursday don’t have any variants. But I’m hoping my weekend rides start back up soon. So yeah don’t rely on the + variants too much.
