Sweet Spot Progression

[nialljf]

Doing a progression as part of longer rides sounds like approach I’d favour. (Not into indoor training.)

Waiting for a new seatpost to arrive, but will then start a progression where I try to progress time in zone by stringing together longer stretches of uninterrupted road and climbs. The terrain around me is constantly up and down but no climbs longer than 10-15 minutes. Due to the rolling terrain, I’ll probably have to do intervals that include short downhill sections where I have to keep the power on. I suppose the changing cadence and torque will keep things interesting as I try to hold steady power. I don’t think the intervals will be ruined if the power drops a bit for a minute or two at a time though.

[kurt.braeckel]

It doesn’t ruin them at all. Generally what you’re trying to avoid is rollers where you are surging and relaxing, surging and coasting. You want it to be largely steady, and you want to accrue the overall time in that high tempo/low threshold zone. Often when I look at training peaks data for rides like this, I am adding up time in tempo and threshold assuming it’s described as a “sub-threshold” progression type ride. I can customize zones in WKO and do that, so I have lots of ways to see the time spent in zone… but ultimately when I’m looking at the power graph, I want to see long times spent in zone grouped up, if it drops for a minute out of a 30 min interval, not a big deal at all. If you’re going 1 on 1 off for an hour at 90 - 55 - 90 - 55%, e.g., then you’re missing the mark.

[visa.k]

It all depends on where you live I guess. You write about long hill repeats like everybody here has that kind of hills, while where I live the biggest hill within a couple hours of riding is about 50 meters of ascent, so good luck doing any intervals there! But when it comes to open roads, there’s plenty to choose from. After 20-30 minutes of riding away from the city area, I have several flat uninterrupted roads at my disposal that I can ride anywhere from 30km up to 200km with no stop signs, no lights, nothing. Where I live long sweetspot intervals are basically the easiest kind of intervals one can do.

[ZHVelo]

That’s kind of my point. I climb a lot, I have hills right next to me so even if they are relatively short, I do repeats on them because they’re uninterrupted and they train my climbing. Other people have something else. But most people likely don’t have something that allows them to do 1x30+ outside. The meticulous progressions suggested are very much an indoor concept.

I mean lucky you! That kind of stuff doesn’t really exist here.

[visa.k]

Trust me, I’d trade away many of those longer roads for even one single 5 minute hill Just recently my coach wanted me to do 2min all out efforts, and it sucked doing them on flat roads, but the biggest hill I could find here only takes me 1min20s.
What kind of natural interruptions do people have that interrupt those efforts, apart from hills? Just wondering because here in Finland the roads are generally very long and straight and outside of cities we don’t have any stop signs or lights because that would disrupt the traffic.

[ZHVelo]

Villages, traffic lights, and yes hills. At least for me. But I am sure if you live in Germany or the UK, a lot of places are just too built up.

[kurt.braeckel]

It’s why the trainer is such a good tool, even if it sucks to actually do all the time. It’s safe, it’s efficient.

[AgingCannon]

Yeah… I live in a pretty safe area, with relatively well-mannered and considerate drivers. And I’d still rather do most of my riding indoors because I want to live.

[Dexvd]

Just wanted to check in with this thread, in the past I got the impression that in some cases you should delay FTP increases in favour of progressing your SS90 durations. I’m coming back from a period of burn out and have had that in mind, TR has suggested increasing my FTP twice now (most recent was a 10 watt bump). I’ve declined this as I feel like in the past I was in a spot where SS90 workouts actually had me training in threshold heart rate and then when I went to do Lola as a test of my FTP what I could average for the 30 mins was 24 watts below my AI FTP (with All-Time x151 power PRs). I had also struggled in the past with low avg cadence in the SS90 workouts (in that Lola threshold effort, avg cadence was 74). So far since I’ve been keeping this ‘maybe’ falsely low FTP based on AI FTP, I have been better at keeping my avg cadence in the 80s, Z2 effort HR in the 120s, with Sweet Spot interval heart rates in the 148-150 avg range (~90% FTP power). From my perspective it seems like my FTP is bang on but some of the recent TR podcasts have mentioned that you shouldn’t focus on operating in the ‘high range’ and instead look to raise your FTP as quickly as possible. My thought was that I wanted to be able to accomplish workouts like Lola, Hart and SS90/50 1x50 before considering increasing my FTP and then when I do, working back up to those before raising it again. Am I misconstruing things? For further context before burning out my peak FTP was 237 (April 2024, I think this was likely falsely high but did accomplish SS90/48 3x16 (avg cadence of 78-70-70 for the intervals) and Schwaub at this FTP) and am currently training at 174 (detected March 2025).
I expect that if I just followed an adaptive plan and the AI FTP detections I would likely quickly get back to a >200w FTP but I also expect that once I did, if I went to do Lola or SS90/50 1x50, I wouldn’t be able to.

[AgingCannon]

Your FTP number is not a cause of anything, it’s an indicator. Your FTP number should simply be set at a number that indicates your current capability. And from what you’re saying, it sounds like your current FTP is about right.

Don’t raise it until/unless you are sure that the workouts will feel right at that new power level. An FTP that’s incorrectly set too high will lead to burnout FOR SURE. Apparently you’ve already been there, as I have.

[Dexvd]

@AgingCannon

Don’t raise it until/unless you are sure that the workouts will feel right at that new power level. An FTP that’s incorrectly set too high will lead to burnout FOR SURE.

Another factor that I didn’t mention that I’m also still getting reds and yellows after almost every ride or workout (I’m not sure if this is partially influenced by my FTP being lower than TR would like it set at) but also because my fitness is still quite low (29 after today’s long Z2) although its a peak since November 2024 (but still a fair bit below my peak of 59 in summer of 2024). However, I would think if I let TR bump my FTP by 10 wouldn’t that make these Reds and yellows even worse?

[JoPage]

That is a crazy amount of red days

[Dexvd]

I’m hoping that will fade, Intervals.icu has said my form has been in the green or grey for the past couple weeks.

But everytime I ride outside I’m getting over 100 TSS because so many Z7 efforts being detected (riding with power)

My actual suggested plan is ~220 TSS per week, with individual workouts ranging from 69-76. This week I did 3 workouts ranging from 56-95 TSS for 237 in total.

So its probably going to continue to dislike my 2 hard rides per week for a while yet (2h30m Z2 Miguel this week and will probably hold there for a few weeks) and modified forms of Table Rock (this week will be 2x22-minute intervals at 88% FTP with 6-minute recoveries between intervals), if I am successful with that though I am hoping I can bridge over to SS90/40 2x20 which is a 0.04 bump in IF and cutting the recovery in half but a drop in TSS by 15. The SS90 workouts due to their shorter recoveries are lower in TSS than the modified Table Rocks I’m using so can do SS90 2x20, 2x22, 1x40, 2x25, 1x45, 1x50 all without exceeding 81 TSS, which I’m hoping the TR adaptive system will assess to be reasonable for me. I would prefer to allow FTP bumps once I’ve confirmed I can do SS90 1x50 (SS 6.8), Lola (threshold 5.8) and some VO2 work (at >3 PL like Monte Ragnone as an example).
In the past what I felt was a mistake that pushed my FTP too high too fast is I would accomplish a workout like Half Dome (SS 3.0) and the system would detect a FTP bump but then I have always struggled with Kennedy and Wheel type threshold work, the lead out tempo always seemed to drain me before the efforts even started and then if I could do the efforts, I struggled to maintain the tempo after (to me if I can’t do a 3.0 threshold, my FTP is too high).

I want to progress through in a realistic way this time and not with messes like this (look at the cadence and inconsistency in power) at this time I was so pumped with the power PRs I was setting and my 4w/kg FTP, I didn’t have the awareness to notice that I wasn’t anywheres close to doing these workouts as intended until I did a consult with a coach.

[kurt.braeckel]

You’re overthinking this way too much. If you’ve been a ~240ish FTP in the past, and are now 175W, your FTP is going to go up pretty quickly when you resume training, especially with some intensity.

You should adapt your FTP when YOU feel like FTP has gone up, whether that’s by RPE, consistent HR indications, or breakthrough workouts, and last testing… preferably some combination of those. The strongest indicators I get for most of my athletes are the combination of RPE, consistently lower HRs at threshold levels and breakthrough workouts. For other athletes, you pull it out of them by asking them do things you think they can do but that they haven’t done yet (testing).

You should not base raising your FTP on completion of any arbitrary (or not arbitrary) single workout. If you think your FTP has gone up, then test it and find out.

If your FTP has gone up, you should adjust it up, take a step or two back in your SST progression and start again. If you have strong indications that FTP has increased (and I don’t mean by like 5W here, I mean meaningfully increased), then you should confirm that, and then adjust it and train to that new number.

Bottom Line: your FTP setting should be a realistic reflection of your current capabilities, nothing more or less than that, regardless of what adaptive training or your calendar says.

I typically tested a lot more frequently early in the season than in race/peak phases. I would do a full boat of testing at the start of training, and then I’d do confirmation testing at different intervals at least monthly, often more than that, and if I tested well and felt like FTP was up, I adjusted my progressions. Then I’d do some testing pre-VO2, some more post-VO2, and then I usually only tested if I felt something had changed beyond that or for a specific power that I was training for key events.

Point is, early season you might “hunt” FTP gains in testing as you’re coming back onto fitness after your offseason. Later in the season, you only test for FTP gains if you feel them in your training rather than doing so based on the calendar. That’s my opinion only.

[Dexvd]

@kurt.braeckel

You’re overthinking this way too much

An unfortunate habit that leads to focusing on the minutiae rather than nailing the fundamentals on a consistent basis unfortunately.

@kurt.braeckel

The strongest indicators I get for most of my athletes are the combination of RPE, consistently lower HRs at threshold levels and breakthrough workouts.

Yeah right now I’m still at a point where I’m rating a 4.3 level SS workout as Very Hard (and getting a red day in response) although I am able to do it with high 80s cadence, no getting out of the saddle and SS appropriate HR. Which is my basis for not wanting to let AI FTP start bumping my FTP again already. So is it generally just HR with threshold levels you use as an indicator? I haven’t started doing threshold work yet, was planning to continue with SS until July (want to progress through the SS90 stuff for a few weeks first) and then start with Threshold. Also wasn’t really planning to do ‘testing’ efforts until September.

@kurt.braeckel

If your FTP has gone up, you should adjust it up, take a step or two back in your SST progression and start again. If you have strong indications that FTP has increased (and I don’t mean by like 5W here, I mean meaningfully increased), then you should confirm that, and then adjust it and train to that new number.

In the past the AI FTP seemed to bump me everytime so I was constantly doing workouts with PLs in the 3-4 range. I would rather get >5 in at least 3 zones and then bump it and then progress back into the high 6 range for PLs with reasonable cadence, HR, RPE and then bump again.

@kurt.braeckel

Point is, early season you might “hunt” FTP gains in testing as you’re coming back onto fitness after your offseason. Later in the season, you only test for FTP gains if you feel them in your training rather than doing so based on the calendar.

As far as season, at this point I don’t even have a race license for the year, I don’t have a clear idea of where I want to be before I try racing again but feel that I need to be able to do 100+ TSS rides without triggering a red day (this month everything >56 TSS triggered a red day as my fitness is so low). Might be up for CX come October or for the last gravel race of the season in September, if I can steadily rebuild.

[huges84]

Here’s a rule of thumb for sweet spot: you should be able to ride at sweet spot for roughly two to four times as long as you can ride threshold (SST TTE = 2~4x FTP TTE). People that do a lot of long rides will be up near that 4xTTE, if you’re training mostly on shorter rides it will be close to 2x. And at the same time, your FTP TTE needs to be a minimum of 35 minutes (which you can hold as one 35 minute interval).

If you can’t do at least 2x your FTP TTE when riding at 90% FTP, then your FTP is set too high. Given that FTP TTE should be 35 minutes at a minimum, the fact that after weeks of training SST you only got to 50 minutes of SST is all the proof that I need to confidently say your FTP was set too high at that time.

I highly suggest that you only use Kolie Moore's FTP test protocol for setting your FTP, at least until you are very confident in feeling where your threshold is. And don’t bother with raising FTP by less than 10W.

Finally, FTP does go down temporarily with fatigue, poor sleep, poor fueling, and high life stress. Make sure you are taking all the necessary steps to reduce those factors.

[kurt.braeckel]

@huges84

If you can’t do at least 2x your FTP TTE when riding at 90% FTP, then your FTP is set too high. Given that FTP TTE should be 35 minutes at a minimum,

This is a bit too dogmatic for me, and I’m not sure he couldn’t do more than 50 min, just that he hadn’t to that point.

@Dexvd

So is it generally just HR with threshold levels you use as an indicator?

No, definitely not. RPE, what you can actually do in a field test. HR acts as kind of a “checksum” for me most of the time.

@Dexvd

Also wasn’t really planning to do ‘testing’ efforts until September.

This is a mistake, IMO. You should start every comeback from an offseason or time off with testing, otherwise you’re just guessing as to where you are.

@Dexvd

In the past the AI FTP seemed to bump me everytime so I was constantly doing workouts with PLs in the 3-4 range. I would rather get >5 in at least 3 zones and then bump it and then progress back into the high 6 range for PLs with reasonable cadence, HR, RPE and then bump again.

Can’t speak to TR as it currently is with PLs and AIFTPD. I dabbled with it when it came out, but it’s not a system I am personally fond of.

I would recommend being more simple with your progressions and progress total time and interval time at 90% of a solidly tested FTP as your starting point. That’s what this thread is all about!

[Dexvd]

@huges84

I highly suggest that you only use Kolie Moore’s FTP test protocol for setting your FTP, at least until you are very confident in feeling where your threshold is. And don’t bother with raising FTP by less than 10W.

Will give that a try. Don’t want to get into a position where I can’t hold my FTP again.

@kurt.braeckel

I would recommend being more simple with your progressions and progress total time and interval time at 90% of a solidly tested FTP as your starting point.

Thats the plan, I guess it wouldn’t make sense to even try the Kollie Moore test though if I can’t do SS90/60 1x60 first though.

[kurt.braeckel]

Point of the sustained power “Kolie Moore” type test is to “feel threshold”, there’s not a minimum time requirement for it. Most people I have do it for 30-35 min, call it, and tell me what they’re feeling in terms of TTE, or we can base TTE off of other workouts. If they’re tapped out at that point, then we know their FTP and they have a short TTE, but it gives the starting point. I have guys who can feel it early on, settle in and do it shorter, then we just start at a lower TTE if they have lots of time and are more aggressive with their progression, especially if it’s “known territory”.

There’s really never a good reason/excuse not to test if you don’t know what your FTP really is; it’s not something to be avoided. Just think of it as a good, hard workout, not some measure of your man- or womanhood. If your number is lower than you want, at least you know the starting point and you’re not guessing anymore.

Ideal test week gets your whole power profile, so I do: Monday: 1 min; Tuesday: 5 min; Weds recover; Thursday: 20 min or KM TTE/FTP test; Friday: 2x10-15s max effort sprints. Then you REALLY know what you’re working with. I have basically everyone do that after about a week of riding coming off their offseason. No guessing.

[The_Conductor]

@Dexvd

But everytime I ride outside I’m getting over 100 TSS because so many Z7 efforts being detected (riding with power)

Are you using the same power meter for the outdoor workouts and the TR workouts? If not, what is the outdoor power meter? Could you post a photo of the power readings?