Sweet Spot Progression

At what point does one decide Trainer Road plans are no longer beneficial and would be better served with custom workouts?

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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.

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When you stop improving

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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.

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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.

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Your ability to hold power without constantly looking at your Garmin will definitely get better with time. I have definitely gotten better at it throughout the spring/summer of doing tons of outdoor intervals. I practiced by consciously increasing the time between checking my Garmin. So I wasn’t just going minutes and minutes without looking and suddenly I’m 20W below target. But rather I went from checking every 5 sec to every 10 to every 20 and so on until I was better at going by feel between checking.

Also, when Garmin updated their firmware for the x30 series they got rid of the target power field that was previously recommended. You should use the “Target” data field within the “Workouts” folder. The update is detailed a little more in this post.

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Yes my power curve doesn’t look to good after the 5min mark. Bringing 1h power closer to FTP sounds like a good idea. I looked at some of the workouts and, granted I am coming out of SSB LV2, starting with these workouts should go smooth. There are a lot of information in this thread already, does someone keep a list of must read posts?

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You are able to bookmark posts by clicking the 3 dots icon at the bottom right of a post and then clicking the bookmark symbol. I don’t use it much but I probably should.

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Yes but still I need to traverse the entire set of posts and filter out what provides value and what not. This kind of progression seems to grow and maybe we need to create some written down guide/faq?

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There are 271 replies with an estimated read time of 51 minutes .

You could read the thread during a TR workout!

Or click the “summarize this topic” button at the bottom of the first post.

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Thank you for volunteering. :grin:

Things happen when someone values it enough to do it and is willing to share. A FAQ or guide would be fantastic… give it a try and see what you get.

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@AgingCannon thanks for creating these workouts! I just did 1x75 today

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That’s a great achievement and I will be there too in the next month.

Today I started with the first long (for me) SS workout too. I did 2x20min@90% and it went very smooth. Looking at the charts like decoupling I am sure I can increase it even further this week.

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Sorry if this has been answered before somewhere, but how do you incorporate these workouts/progressions into your TR training plan?

I’m starting over with SSB LV next week and am wondering if I’d be better off with these progressing workouts?

I made the decision to work on improving my time near FTP because my power curve dropped quite early below FTP but FTP is often referred to as One-Hour-Power.

I hope this helps me for long sustained climbs and TT like rides. Do you mind posting your power curve here? If it shows that you ride near FTP for 50 min I wouldn’t focus on this kind of progression.

You can just replace SS for SS. So, if you have 60 min as 3x20 like Galena or Eclipse on the calendar you can swap those for a progression block workout such as 2x30 or 1x60.

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Depends, if you ride Gravel, Grand Fondos or long road races. Then there is a good chance you want to be doing that for 3 hours or even more, which is a touch more than 50 minutes :wink: Basically there is always a place for these type of progressions no matter what your power curve looks like.

If it drops off dramatically before an hour you also need to get as much time as possible in the saddle imo.

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An interesting take on Sweetspot progression from Frank Overton. Wondered what people’s thoughts were on this method?

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I did the fourth workout of my SS progression to increase TiZ to from 40 to 90 min.
Previously I had done 4x10, 3x15 and 4x12 all manageable and with not so long interval duration.
Yesterday I tackled the 2x25, and I feel that while I could finish it, longer intervals are a different beast. The TiZ was not dramatically increased with respect to previous workouts but the perceived effort towards the end was high. Between intervals I am just doing 3 min break, but they really help resetting the body so much I realise.
Although from memory I recall Kolie Moore saying the opposite to your statement, that TiZ trumps interval length (as long as it is above 10 min). I see completely now the value and physical challenge of longer intervals.
I am still committed to reach in the next few weeks/month to 3x30, and then maybe 2x45?:wink:

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I scheduled 3x30 for tomorrow after successfully completing 2x20 and 2x25 this week. The first two set new all times PRs and doing them was surprisingly enjoyable.

Next week will be my last work week before a full recovery week, and then I scheduled a 2.5 hour sports medical performance diagnostics with the team that works with Patrick Lange and more. I am in no way fit enough to fully reason this investment, but I am a data driven nerd and since it is in my neighborhood why not.

Last year my lazy ass couldn’t ride up the hill leading out of my residential area without coughing and laying on the ground to recover, now I do Saturday and Sunday rides with both over 100 km and 1300m of climbs and no need to stop.

Looking forward to see the rest results and I hope to get some advice to improve even more with my body type.

I also thinking about not doing SPB this year and instead do some strength training but my schedule is already very full since I work full-time and go to university full-time.

Anyhow, SS work is fun and next week I will finish of with 1x60, I know it!

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