Also for those still following some of the WKO5 webinars there is one from last year with Kolie that never happened that is finally going ahead tomorrow, all about VLamax, etc. I’m sure a recording will eventually get posted to youtube if you cant join live.
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I’m on my 3rd block of base training and doing some sweet spot progression after a tempo block.
I’m doing 2 sweet spot workouts per week next ones are 2x40min and 2x45min.
Wondering if it’s ok to do them on consecutive days like tuesday and wednesday?
Or is it better to space them out, does the adaptation differ in any way.
I ride 6 days per week, one long ride and 2 gym sessions.
I don’t see the harm in doing them back to back if you can manage it. I would assume this might help further with increasing fatigue resistance as the second SST workout will be done on “tired” legs. Give it a try. What % are you doing the intervals at? You could lower the % for the second SST workout. I have seen that approach used by others in the thread when doing back to back work.
Thanks for the reply. I’m doing them at 90%, or close to, I’m not 100% sure of my ftp during base.
I managed them fine last week but final weeks 2x60min might be tough.
It’s fine, the adaptation won’t change. Grip it and rip it as is.
Intuitively we might think not due to fatigue, but last winter when I did this progression I actually had some really good results on the 2nd back to back day after having a nightmare the first day and failing after 50-75% of the way through due to fatugue. Came back the next day and smashed it!
Try it and see I guess.
It’s not going to change the physical adaptation provided you recover appropriately afterward. It will condition you to better deal with fatigue, mostly mentally in that regard.
In the past, I’ve not had problems with 2x intense days during base, but when I try to throw in a third SST or tempo session, I tend to fall apart. YMMV, you know yourself better…
My question is if you’re riding 6 days a week, why do you need to do the two sweet spot days back to back? I’m also assuming these are probably your hardest workouts of the week since you’re in base. If they’re not, and you’re doing a third or fourth (!) interval session, then that changes things.
I’m only doing 2 intense days, riding about 14-18hrs per week so I think it’s enough.
2 days in a row is just easiest to schedule. I find if I do the sweet spot workouts before gym even with 5 hours between takes away from my squats. Also doing sweet spot day after gym makes the rpe go through the rough. 2nd day after gym even with doms is ok.
Last other option is to do sweet spot day after a long ride (4-5hrs), I find the rpe higher then too. Surprisingly 2 days of sweet spot in a row hasn’t been so bad.
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Was not criticizing your volume. I was wondering why with 6 days and 14-18 hours of riding you think it’s necessary to do the rides on back-to-back days? With that schedule, I would generally spread the rides out unless I was intentionally messing with training density for some reason (which I do sometimes).
But as mentioned, you won’t alter the adaptation. You could build more fatigue resistance this way, but on the flip side the quality of the second workout could be impaired. If you consider these your key sessions, I would separate them most of the time. I guess there’s only one way to find out.
FWIW, when I schedule back-to-back workouts like this, I will generally do SST first then a tempo ride next. In base, that qualifies as “intensity”… in late base, I am pushing power higher, so the SST workout is key. If I have to dial back the tempo ride or do fewer bursts or whatever, that’s a secondary consideration.
Anyway, my $0.02.
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Yesterdays was 2x40min SST and today I switched up 2x45min to 1x60min + 30min. Mentally it was a lot easier. Went surprisingly well, heart rate was actually lower on the 2nd day, rpe about the same.
I guess one reason for the schedule is that it’s just nice to get them done early in the week. It’s just Z2 rest of the week and 2 gym sessions.
I think next week I might need to space them out as the TIZ increases, probably combine SST ride and gym right before rest day.
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How do you decide whether to progress TiZ or FPT (or % thereof) vs increasing difficulty by doing hard starts, bursts etc.?
My A race is still a solid 7 months out, so my instinct is to keep it as simple as possible and just progress TiZ and FTP, retest, repeat.
If you are using WKO5 keep an eye on your mFTP as a % of VO2 chart. While this is not perfect, a good marker is that once you get into the 82-85% range its time to move from FTP growth to focus on VO2max for a short while to “raise the ceiling”.
Example;
When i started my current block i was around 80%, i’m now sitting around 86%. I’m going to move shortly to a dedicated Vo2 block to hammer that up and then go back to working the SST/FTP related work.
I wont start hitting the FRC/anaerobic power until about 40 days out from racing which isn’t for another 3 months
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This doesn’t really answer his question…
If you’re following the guidance from Tim Kusick’s webinars, then the general method is to progress TTE for 4-8weeks, then push power up by changing %FTP for another cycle of about 4 weeks.
E.g. my 2021 progression, I aimed to get to 90 minutes TiZ. Once there, I started raising power at somewhat shorter durations and progressing back out, this time including over/under intervals as well (kind of an “aerobic build”.)
You should have a decent idea of how long you want to push your progression before starting. Most people probably don’t need to get out to two hours in sweet spot if they’re racing criteriums, for example. A decent rule of thumb stolen from FasCat coaching is to do SST for as long as you expect your primary events to be. If you’re aiming for 90-minute road races, then move your progression out to 90 minutes.
Once you get to 90minutes, start working on increasing power.
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we are saying the same thing.
You provided the “rough timing” guidance, but in those same webinars Tim discusses the metrics you should be tracking to know when to move on, which is what i provided (mftp % of VO2).
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Thanks @RONDAL and @kurt.braeckel, very helpful insights!
My A race is a ~100mi MTB race (course record <8:30h, my far from ideal attempt last year >11h, target is <10h this year). While there are no super long climbs (max is probably around 30 mins, most of them <10min), I doubt I’ll do anything more than SST given the overall duration. 120 is an arbitrary goal, mostly dictated by how long I think I enjoy doing workouts on the trainer. Would you recommend capping at 90min for now and focusing on pushing up FTP, and potentially working on more TiZ closer to the race?
Did you have a target FTP after which you just stayed there and achieved progressive overload through over/unders and pushing out durations for anything between 90-100%? Trying to understand when to retest once I hit 90min vs hard starts, bursts etc.
I have WKO5, but still finding my bearings there (and haven’t done any efforts above FTP in months) - I’m still below my FTP from last year, so should be able to push up with a FTP block, followed by a SST and then VO2max block.
Thanks for that guidance - what types of races are you targeting?
First question: I think two hours is appropriate for you. Seems like you have lofty goal in that and having a good tank of muscular endurance is certainly a necessity for that kind of effort. 2 hours isn’t overkill for you like it is for most Cat 3 crit racers. I had aimed for 2 hours for myself this year… my long term goal is Kona qualification even though I’m mostly doing 60-90 min road races right now. That got derailed when I got COVID last month, so I’m settling for 90min for now, maybe build it to 2hrs later in the season… we’ll see. Anyway, that’s my thought process.
No target FTP. I just tried to push my FTP up under my VO2max cap, and then I pushed VO2max like @RONDAL described. From experience, I can get up around 280-290 before I need to push VO2max work. So once I get there, I’ll start thinking about my VO2max block.
If you’re testing your residuals for your WKO5 PDC model like they recommend, you shouldn’t really have to “formally” test to detect a rise in FTP. One of the clear advantages of this kind of self-coaching methodology is that you do max efforts from time to time, whereas in TR you just… don’t. No matter how much machine learning and AI stuff they throw at their client base, they’re never going to be as accurate because their plans and workouts never call for max efforts beyond a ramp test.
Enter the periodic short, medium, and long duration “tests” that are key to maintaining your PDC throughout the year. I “test” my residuals one per week, with the short and medium duration “tests” being part of a longer workout (often part of a zone 2 ride with one or two efforts at the prescribed time frame), and then the “long test” IS the workout: e.g. 40min “all-out” then add an hour in zone 2, and that’s that day’s workout.
Do that, your model updates, FTP moves while you train, no real need to do a formal FTP test all that often.
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Sounds good, thank you.
I hope you can get back up to speed and don’t have any long term effects from this - Kona is a great goal!
I like that approach - haven’t formally tested in a while because they just added stress, but with these continuous mini tests I think it would just be normalized. I’m still going through the videos on planning the different phases and WKO5 in general, but will try to replicate something similar once I’m there. Thanks again
have you looked at the mftp/vo2 chart i referenced over a multi-year time period?
You mentioned that as you approach 280-290w you feel you need to switch. When you look at these points in time and the % of mftp of vo2 is it in a similar spot? Or is it all over the place for you?
Seems like I generally hang out between 81 and 83%. Never get much above or below that, so when I push the VO2max workouts the ceiling goes up (last year the model was 59 up to 65) and FTP tracks up accordingly confirmed by residual testing.
This is my second full season on WKO5, and I was progressing ahead of last season before COVID derailed me… right now I’m just trying to make sure my base legs are good before I hit VO2max work again.
If there’s a hole in my training from the last 15 months, it’s being able to really push my FTP up via aerobic build. I never got that kind of block dialed last year… part of it because racing really started about the time I wanted to get into it. This year I should get a solid block in before I start sharpening the blade. COVID has thrown the timing of the last two seasons for a bit of a loop!
Training density is an interesting thing to mess with, and provided you allow recovery from it, it can spur some adaptations. I just wrapped up a four-day block:
- 3x25 @90%
- 75min @80-85% with 15s bursts to 5min power every 3 to 6min
- 40min low Z2
- 3x30 @90%
That 3x30 was absolutely brutal for the final interval. I wanted to attack a block like this aggressively to hopefully get back on track with my base phase. So, now I need to make sure I recover from it before moving forward.
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