Easy as pie to create a big set of those with TR’s Workout Creator. Create your 4x9@88%. Then clone and increase the height of the bars, three times. Now you’ve got a set of 4x workouts.
Then you can take each of those, clone and add a recovery/work interval pair to it, and now you’ve got a set of 5x workouts.
It takes really very little time to create what you want. Have you done it already? Sounds like a really interesting idea.
Slightly off topic, so please delete if needed.
I am wondering if a SS focused phase would be of best use for me? Im a believer in working on my weaknesses rather than my strengths. I consider myself more anearobic biased rider and my weakness is definitely my 20m power upwards 290w 3.8w/kg via a ramp test, so no dlubt my ftp is a bit lower than that. Would SS hit those areas for me? I can provide more details about my training history etc if this helps give you guys a better idea.
If you are more anaerobicaly inclined ramp test probably overestimating your ftp. I would start with proper, long ftp test and then go with SS. If long, steady state intervals are your weakness it should definitely help you. But be careful going to the SST and threshold workouts with overestimated ftp as it can crush you.
Which test would you recommend? I’ve never had any trouble completing my z3/4 sessions (apart from lemarck) so it not sure it number is massively away from being correct. Looking back at my previous plans, I have had the biggest gains from sustained power build.
Personally I’ve always used the 20min test, but I suppose you could do 2 of the 20 min test, 2 x 8 min test or ramp test and use the midpoint of the values collected.
You could check out this thread.
If you think you are more anaerobicly inclined, the longer the better. I would recommend Kolie Moore test as always.
This is the testing method I had in the back of my mind. I wasn’t keen on the 20min test as pacing plays too large a part. Although I have completed all of my SS or threshold sessions with my current ramp test ftp, do you recommend that I manually lower my FTP so that I dont blow out during Kolie Moore version too early on?
No, try your current ftp. If you blow out - you blow out, so at least you know your ftp was too high, if not - your ftp is correct. There is no bad test.
I’ll give that a go and see what happens. Could be fun or I could need a bucket…
This is very similar to the Dardanelles/Dunderburg/Unicorn progressions in the 40k TT Plan, just SS instead of thresh.
Is that on Zwift?
No they’re TR workouts. They are in the 40k specialty plan and accumulate between 48-55 minutes of nearly continuous time between 97 and 102% FTP.
I am debating if I should do this kind of training or do SPB next. I want to be good at long road rides with climbs and MTB Marathon. My FTP is set to 245W in TrainerRoad-
Looking at your power curve you definitely should try longer SS intervals. In my opinion block of this will give you way more than SPB and should be way easier (I must admit I hate this plan, a lot of pain, not enough gain in…sustained power).
At what point does one decide Trainer Road plans are no longer beneficial and would be better served with custom workouts?
After finishing the plan completely trashed with no improvement in the thing it suppose to improve.
This is only my personal experience but my main issue with SPB is are the suprathreshold intervals (especially combined with “precision” of a ramp test) and lack of proper progression through real sustained power workouts.
After this plan I have used only custom workouts and plans with way more benefits. Training composition is highly individual case but progression through SST and threshold is quite a concern from many people here. Basically SST and threshold workout are too short or have too long recovery time in plans. As I said this was my personal experience with this particular plan, and as we know there is a lot variables in training so maybe other people have different experience.
When you stop improving
In my specific case I find the high volume sweet spot manageable from physical point of view. But after 5 days of sweetspot per week for some weeks I do not want to touch my bike anymore. Mentally I find it taxing. I do not look forward to pain every time I ride. I also want to enjoy.
That is why I have decided to move starting this autumn until next spring to 2 SS long interval sessions per week, with the kind of progression described in this thread and the rest z2+gorup rides.
This way I have a sustainable base plan and will always be mentally fresh to smash it on my interval days.
My plan is to include VO2 max and anaerobic capacity work when my A events come closer (say 2 months out), but if I feel I can not progress TiZ or increasing power I will do a 3 week block with some VO2max workouts earlier.
For me the purpose of the shorter intervals is to gradually build the time and the inteval length. If I can do 10 min intervals then I know I can do 12, if 12 is feasible then 15 will be fine and so on.
