Sweet Spot Progression

Hmm, interesting.

Just started doing sweet spot work a month ago, and haven’t done much progressing. Maybe out to 50 minutes now. But I’ve done a LOT to develop basic aerobic endurance over the last 8 months.

On a related note maybe someone wants to comment on this climb of duration 17 minutes and 37 seconds (17:37) on a 10% grade. Rested and relaxed coming into this effort. This climb followed an earlier 35 minute climb:

Three observations:

  • breathing on that one felt like I was really really close to vo2max for at least half or two-thirds of the interval
  • could have gone 20-30 minutes at that aerobic effort but ran out of road, and my legs and HR were fine
  • WKO has modeled power at VO2max at 306W and 90% pVO2max is 275W. TR shows:

image

that I was at or above 90% pVO2max for 17:10 of the 17:37 interval.

Regarding heart rate I’m always a bit curious about using it as a measure of vo2max.

  • my LTHR is 160bpm which is 91.4% of HRmax (cycling)
  • therefore 157bpm is 90% HRmax
  • spent 3:21 at or above 90% HRmax
  • spent 0:00 above 95% HRmax
  • spent 0:00 at or above LTHR
  • 12:08 above 90% relative vo2max (WKO modeling)
  • 2:41 above 95% relative vo2max (WKO modeling)

This is a case where I believe the WKO model.

And FWIW I’ve always avoided using % HRmax as a measure of vo2max.

1 Like