If you are working at 95% then you are pretty much in threshold territory in my book.
There is always a benefit in progressing TiZ I believe, to a point that is…which leads to the usual questions.
How does what you are currently doing or planning to do fit in with your events/ goals?
I’m mostly just training for general fitness and to enjoy long summer rides.
I’ve been planning a 300km ride next summer.
I might also compete in a short hill climb and 10k time trials starting in may.
It felt like threshold when I started the block but felt more like sweet spot in the end so I guess the gains were ok.
Short hill climbs and 10k TT should both be above FTP as you will know - vo2 or supra threshold. If you want to target those events then I would start to look at when you need to factor that stimulus in and work backwards.
Probably don’t need to start right away so if you want to squeeze some more TTE out then go it’s not going to hurt but I would probably look to increase FTP now.
I’m going to do a VO2 block and a over-under / threshold block before may as a build phase.
I’ve done 3 months of base now, main focus on volume. I was thinking maybe a TTE block before the VO2.
Back on this topic with a question ;-). Should I do a SST or FTP progression?
Quick summary. Bummed up my training this year towards 12-15h a week. Currently 105 CTL. Mostly endurance riding and some LT1 stuff or a zwift race. No structured FTP or Vo2max work.
My event is within 10 weeks. Long granfondo (230k, 5500m with 4 long alpe climbs).
Last year’s my FTP was around 280w. But now I come to the conclusion that it has lowered towards 265-270. So my question…What should I do? Ignore the FTP value and focus on SST/tempo progression, as it simulates the long climbs on my event (cadence 75-85). Or try to increase my FTP again. Or try to do both?
Or maybe even a Vo2max block. But I don’t know if this is a good idea because maybe it is better to focus on event specific training?
Any ideas?
I’d do the above. If your FTP has really dropped, that 4% or 5% is not really going to make a big difference in your event. But running out of steam on a climb sure will!
Yeah. Maybe. Question is why my FTP-dropped. More Z2 volume made me a real diesel I think. 
But event specific approach is maybe better …
I have to mention, 2 months ago I did the two weeks zwift FRR tour. In that grand tour I did some races at SST level. For example these ones (not super fresh after days of racing…).
105min 91%
85min 94%
75min 93%
So it seems my SST progression is not that bad already? Working towards 2h? Or focus on 80-85% TIZ towards 3-4h?
What’ll it take to do each of those four long climbs? What kind of strength/power/endurance will you need to finish that long event at the pace you want?
I’m training for an event in three weeks: 136km+1930m. I figure I need 3x30 @ 90% plus seven hours of 65% endurance just to finish the event and – if I’m lucky – even beat the cutoff (which is already a stretch goal for me). So I’m working on extending TTE @ 90% and TTE @ 65%… more power would be nice since my current FTP is just 213W (and only 1.97 W/kg), but the main thing is to stay ahead of the cutoff long enough to finish, AND have the endurance to finish.
My training goals are very clear because I know what I’ll need in my event. It seems to me you should establish your training goals just as clearly based on the requirements of yours.
Sorry if this has been asked already…but I dont have it in me to go through nearly 3000 posts.
I’ve recently been thinking about progression levels vs FTP in trainerroad. Does it make sense to keep ftp maybe a tad low to make sure progression levels are a little higher, getting longer duration sweet spot workouts, rather than the 5-7 minute things? The system keeps bumping my ftp up, and then dropping sweet spot levels down in really short intervals.
If it matters…I’m preparing for CX in the fall. I race some crits in the summer as well…but dont really care about results there.
So it’s been a long time since I have used TR, and I’ve only dabbled with AIFTPD and progression levels so I was an informed body as a coach, so take my thoughts FWTW.
If you know you want to do longer sessions, why not just make your own using TR’s workout creator, or use the ones from the More Sweet Spot! group that’s discussed early in this thread? Messing with your training FTP number to manipulate TrainerRoad’s algorithms hoping you get the workouts you want to do seems kind of balky to me.
TR lacks enough long sweet spot intervals, as you said, doing 5-8 minute sweet spot intervals is frankly kind of pointless unless you’re off the couch.
All that said, this thread is mostly full of people that don’t really use TR in the traditional sense, so this question might be better asked as a separate thread.
What this tells me is that your FTP hasn’t dropped; instead I think you’re overly fatigued. 105CTL is a large CTL for 12-15hrs of volume per week. Back of napkin math shows me that means you’re averaging 49TSS per hour on the bike if you’re riding 15 hours per week. That’s a solid .7IF average at 15hrs per week, which, frankly, is probably too hard if you’re intending to do interval work again. And that’s if you’re doing 15 hours a week (and not 12) and doesn’t account for your recovery sessions.
I think you’re riding your endurance too hard, or simply doing too much tempo work, and when the time comes to lay down power, you’re too fatigued to do it.
RARELY, when you see a threshold drop like this - when you’ve been doing lots of riding - is more/harder training the answer. My $0.02 is you need some rest, then you need to drop the intensity of your endurance riding, keep the volume high, and hit either SST or FTP progression (SST is probably more race specific for you) and I’d bet your numbers will go up.
Now, you have an ultra event 10 weeks out, so maybe now isn’t the time to be worrying about it, since riding LT1/tempo stuff is probably very race-specific for you… but when the time comes to worry about your FTP again, that would be where I would start.
(Note that I haven’t looked at your training at all, so this is a lot of spitballing based off of two numbers: training hours and CTL).
Thanks @kurt.braeckel for this deep dive, really appreciate it. Maybe you are correct. My goal was to increase my endurance, so more focus on this. Here my IF overview this year:
I know that I missed some freshness when performing my test. Because I was building my fitness, this was often the case. Lack of some freshness at some rides this year. Good days / bad days on the bike.
It is not that every endurance ride was hard. Sometimes it was also just riding at 60-65%.
Your advice seems very good. I think about what I will do with my 10 weeks now…Because I also have the feeling that maybe some regulare endurance rides with a vo2max session when fresh could give me some increase in fitness again. But it is totally not event specific. So…
My idea is to keep my volume between 13-15h (maybe sometimes more, sometimes less). 3-4 easy endurance rides. And then 2 harder sessions a week. A SST/FTP progression ride, and then one tempo/LT1 long ride. When I look at my event I will be spending 5hours in tempo zone.
Fair enough.
I think the crux of my issue is that I’ve recently sort of figured out what sweet spot should feel like, so I’m fairly comfortable setting my FTP based on that to create manageable workouts. But I definitely am not there with say, VO2 or anaerobic work, so I dont want to go completely off the reservation.
Whether you set your FTP via some test you chose, or via AIFTPD, I wouldn’t mess with that. Keep your FTP measuring methodology consistent.
If you want longer sweet-spot workouts, I suggest you simply replace the ones TR offers (manually or via “workout alternates”) with something that has longer intervals. That’s why the “More Sweet Spot” team and its workouts came into existence… for a standardized set of sweet-spot workouts of nearly any length and interval configuration.
IMO/E, VO2max and especially anaerobic shouldn’t be done as % of FTP, but that’s a whole different thread. 
This is the way.
Redefine your easy. 50% of FTP for endurance riding isn’t off the table when you’re doing 15hrs a week. There’s nothing magic about Z2. This can be especially important if threshold/VO2 are the intensity. With tempo as an intensity day, you can err a bit higher, but I’ve learned the hard way in my own training and now in a more applied way with a couple of my athletes that are at this volume level, going easier for that longer time is better, IMO. So err easier on the easy endurance: still working, but don’t worry as much about % FTP. You wanna be BELOW LT1 and noticeably so, IMO.
But there is little doubt in my mind that your perception that your FTP has dropped in spite of your volume is not reality. Especially after seeing your monthlies. You’re just riding too hard too often to see gains around and above threshold. They might be there, but the fatigue is masking it.
Yea that was actually the basis of my thinking on this…align FTP and sweet spot workouts, then just manually adjust %s on other workouts or replace as needed
Oh my lol. This certainly explains why I burn out every year…
Added - I actually just went out for a bit over 3 hrs at ~60% ftp…felt much easier than what I normally do…I usually have gone fpr 70% plus on my easy days.
Recently went with
4x12min Geiger variant
3x20min Eclipse
6x12min Geiger variant
4x20min Tray Mountain variant
outside on sustained climbs except for the last that had some more unfortunate terrain choices.
I double checked the next workout when I felt good in the previous one, which was the case very time.
It was amazing to feel how I progressed through and was pushing for more with the next workout.
Don’t think AT would have given me such stuff. The last workout was tough for the last 10min but otherwise fine.
Moving to threshold for the next training block but this was awesome. Should I maintain sweet spot under this time? Probably not?
Not really sure what you’re asking here. If you mean, should you do maintenance SST sessions while doing threshold, then the answer is probably no, but it depends on your goals. Threshold/SST are essentially working the same thing.
