you can follow him on Zwift and see what he has done there. I haven’t checked the history to see how far it goes back or details.
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Seiler said that LT1 is at 80% of 1hr power if you are estimating. And if you are messuring it is close to 2mmol. I couldn’t find his definition.
Some of them use 2mmol, some use first change in lactate, and some use 1mmol diff above base.
You probably didn’t want to but you just made OBNYD’s point. LOL. One thing about using “close to 2mmol” is that 1.7mmol when you look at the numbers looks close, right? It’s only .3mmol different. Any reasonable person would say: “about 2mmol or thereabouts”. Yet the amount of intensity (in terms of power) between those two seemingly close numbers can be very significant (and is for me).
That’s why I was stuck for a long time going “so is mine 195W or 235W?” <— yeah, that different.
Seiler is just giving you a standard response to “what would you call LT1 if you couldn’t measure it”. I’ve heard Alan Couzens give that definition (or close). I’ve heard Alan Lim give it. And back it the day, everybody seemed to use it. The reality is (no I’m not mimicking Tim Cusick) they would just measure it if they were interested.
I would either find a way to measure it (not estimate, measure) or use some other proxy.
Yes, this LT1 thing comes up a lot, but the endurance community puts a lot of stock in what amounts to, at best, a soft (but useful) metric (my opinion), or at worse absolutely meaningless (an idea I’ve considered but still not sure).
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Do you think this is what Coggan means when he says: “sweet spot is a concept, not a training intensity”?
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Meanwhile, I’m getting ready to head out for a couple of hours. It’s dark and wet but still has a certain charm.
I’ll hold back as much as possible on the hills and press on when on the flats. I’ll listen to my breathing to confirm I’m keeping it sensible.
This will be classed as a steady ride and I’ll colour it green on my calendar.
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That is why i said close to 2 but not 2.0mmol. When host asked him is it 2mmol he said that for cyclist that doesn’t have to be but he didn’t mentioned how he deteriminates LT1 from lactate testing results
Yeah I know and I’m not trying to call you out. But I am calling out his suggestion of how to determine it. It hasn’t been helpful for me and now that I’ve actually measure it a few times over the last year it’s not the same as what I would get using his method.
Truth be told, he probably doesn’t even want to answer the question. But Trevor pushed him maybe LOL.
Right. And what I’m saying is that’s no different than saying “just spitball it”. It’s not helpful. Which leaves us doing what @grawp is about to do: breath and think about it. Like yoga.
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If you shorten steps power and start low enough for example 15-20 watt increment every 6min you should be able to spot LT1 as the first rise. Just stick a bit below that watts for your endurance rides.
Why?
Is this directed at me? If so yeah, I recognize that as a protocol to get LT1. I’ve measured LT1 many times now. It’s nice because you don’t have to go to max or worry about the comparatively useless LT2 (you made your point about that @old_but_not_dead_yet, so no need to tell me again). I just use FTP. (and FWIW, MAP or ~5min power for upper range stuff).
The guy who taught me uses a slightly different protocol (dang it, OBNYD’s point again LOL), but no matter. It’s likely close enough.
And I spent a lot of time riding below that, at that, and right above that.
You can prescribe endurance training a number of different ways, e.g., power, pace, perceived exertion, heart rate, etc. Regardless of which you choose, though, why feel the need to stick close to so-called LT1?
Come on, you know why. It has a cool name and it’s science-y.
But seriously, I hear you. It’s a good question/point.
You can see all his rides on Zwift going back for many, many months or maybe even years. I don’t think he rides outdoors so his Zwift profile has his routine. Even if your Zwift account is expired you can still view his rides.
Just curious. Was your time on the bike the same for both approaches?
Interesting discussion - maybe as obndy pointed out mostly theoretical or of limiting use - but I’ll give you my perspective and another way approaching it:
I want an intensity for a long workout that 1) I can recover from fast but 2) at the same time giving me some stimulus. Minimum effective dose.
And as proxy I’m using aerobic decoupling. Pick a long enough duration…let’s say 3 hours…then I’m trying to keep aerobic decoupling flat at least until 30min before end of ride (heard something along this in some podcast recently).
If you ride long and constant at 195 watt or 235 watt…how does HR curve or aerobic decoupling compare? After how long in the ride starts the decoupling?
Answers to these questions might give you some hints for what to use in your training instead of focusing on some unknown LT1.
Yep, I’m with you.
I think Trevor Connor, but I could be wrong. No matter, I’ve heard similar. Question though would be why?
So you would have to do some benchmarking. Not an all out “what’s my 3hr power” benchmark, but “when does power move away from HR” at a certain effort.
What I like:
- Simple
- I like riding my bike this way anyway, so the “benchmarking” isn’t really like a test/assessment and can be a natural part of your training. Certainly not a max effort, as is common for PDC feeding
What I’m not sure about:
- I think the 30mins could be a general recommendation, but based on what? Fatigue management? Still a bit of experimenting you’d have to do
- How much decoupling is “starts decoupling”. Friel’s 5% is a coaching thing he did to assess “base fitness” and not applicable here, IMO
- The obvious, which is all the shortcomings of using HR (hydration, heat, etc). We don’t have a way to measure stroke volume (and therefore cardiac output) and that’s what we really want
Fun (maybe) side note. I was watching a Phil Gaimon video (one w/ cameo from Froome) and he said something to the same effect. “[At the end of a long ride], when you start to see power and HR move away from each other it’s time to call it a day and go eat pizza” (paraphrasing, but I definitely got the pizza part right).
-
Nothing that long, and only about every 16 - 21 days, three examples,
5x 8 minutes 98 - 105% on 3 min recoveries
4x 7 minutes 90 - 95% with mid interval 15 second surge to 125% (hated these, lol)
3x 15 minutes over-unders 2M over ~103% 1M Under ~ 80 - 85% -
No recovery weeks in six months with a coach, unless I’ve missed one when looking. Not really needed in my experience training POL. Having said that I did have a 3 day holiday with the family, I suppose you might class that as a recovery week. There were a few weeks with slightly less volume.
Note: on recovery, there werent many days off. Once every 14 - 21 days based on feedback and how the Z3 and rare threshold sessions were going. There would be a recovery ride of 45 - 60 minutes every week @ ~50% ftp.
Hope that helps.
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How often were the tempo rides? I see you referenced the VO2 and OU sessions below.
What percent of FTP did you use as a cap for the rest of the (S1) days? What test did you base your FTP on?
I can only count 4 in six months