Has something happened to the more sweet spot! Team workout library? I just went in there for the first time in a while and no workouts are showing up.
Yeah, too bad he didnât cover my question regarding periodization.
So, assuming my target event next summer involves ton of extended climbing, when should I focus on SS intervals?
Until now SS was part of winter base (following TRâs programs). This year Iâm considering doing vo2 throughout the depths of winter and leaving SS for closer to the event.
My only fear is whether doing vo2 while being very far from my top shape is going to yield meaningful results.
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Why?
Why?
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Why not both? If sweet spot is relevant to your event, then it has a place both in your base and in your build up to your event.
Not sure why the concern on when youâre doing VO2max. It doesnât go away provided you continue training. You want to do it 6-12 weeks before you need to see an FTP increase, and probably further out than that so you can âbed inâ the gains in threshold. For example, for a roadie/crit guy if Iâm aiming for an April 1 âpeakâ, I will do focused VO2 in January, if not a bit earlier. For someone doing longer events with lots of climbing and sustained power requirement, I might do VO2max 5 or 6 months in advance of their event.
If your goal event is âtons of extended climbingâ, you want to get your threshold up earlier, then train at that threshold, THEN train at your actual climbing power until youâre ready. The process of raising FTP and then raising TTE at that new FTP (or sub-threshold efforts) takes more time than raising FTP and then getting ready for anaerobic repeats in a crit (for example). In the crit case, your ârace prepâ period might be 4 weeks long. In the ultra/climbing case, your race prep period might be more like 2-3 months long. Race prep in this case being what you go into after threshold training (which is after VO2 training⊠your âbuildâ).
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Fwiw, itâs working for me
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Thanks, good to know. Itâs weird, tried multiple browsers and 2 different devices, and canât get the workout page to load with workouts showing. Itâs just blank. Finally got it to work by going directly through the app.
2% is an arbitrary target for sure. Polar H10 for error for cycling is about .6% of an ECG according to a white paper, but up to 5% for all activities. If you ask me (you didnât 
) youâre not seeing much decoupling in those intervals at all, let alone that decoupling over 20 min isnât a great measure, and for rides that are like 3-6 hours long, I target 5% as the marker of aerobic fitness, but certainly not as a hard and fast progression rule. Youâre talking about a change of 1bpm over a 20 minute interval making the difference between a âgoodâ workout and a âbadâ one (3.4% isnât âwhoppingâ).
Sweet spot crosses pretty heavily into glycolytic energy, so using aerobic decoupling for something that is necessarily a good bit glycolytic is a mistake IMO.
Further, HR is not a good indicator of fatigue generation, let alone why are you trying to do back to back 4x20s or tempo the day after a big SST set? More likely you were tired because most people get tired after doing a 4x20 at 90% of threshold, and now your heart rate response is better because youâre likely working at a lower % of your FTP. To wit, looking at my most productive offseason, in my 4x20 workouts I saw up to 6% decoupling in single intervals, and 6.4% decoupling in my 1x90 workout. Nothing wrong with that⊠that was taken from the year where I achieved my highest W/kg and best race results.
When was the last time you properly tested sustained power/FTP?
A lot to unravel there, but I think youâre just overcomplicating your training with confounding factors.
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Yeah, doesnât work in browser. I imagine getting it fixed is low priority for the TR folks since Teams functionality is deprecated.
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Makes me wonder a what TiZ duration one reaches the point of diminishing returns. Probably where you ended at 2 hours sweetspot for training efforts.
Thatâs a fair question, I guess it really depends on oneâs goals. Iâm sure if youâre doing stuff like long gravel races etc, then extending TiZ even further than 2h could be beneficial, but for me (racing mainly road races that last less than 3h) 2h TiZ has been plenty.
@ivegotabike I must say that I pay no attention to my HR in general, as it varies greatly depending on fatigue, sleep etc. For example, in my best ever 5min effort, I hit my max HR (193) with an average of 188. Earlier this year in my former best ever 5min effort I only hit a max of 188. Both of the efforts were maximum, but I guess that in the former there was a bit of residual fatigue that subdued the HR response.
I just try to hit my power targets and let the coach analyze the HR data if he so wants.
@ChrisDe good point, that might also be the case! 
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My concern is not fear of âlosing itâ but rather doing VO2 during a period in which my FTP is not at its peak. That is perhaps my only âfearâ in this new approach Iâm curios to test out.
The rest of the periodization youâve laid out is exactly what I have in mind.
Target event in June, so Iâd be starting a vo2 focussed block in december and january a mixed block. From then onwards the focus would be on threshold and sweet spot.
Historically Iâve always done the âclassicâ SS plan over December/January and even February to then move to vo2 and then threshold. So I was curios to change things a bit also considering the cold weather in winter does not really support doing long hours outdoor.
Im
Iâm not a coach or sport physiologist but based on my own experiences. I would not use the Ai FTP or ramp test if I was worried about aerobic decoupling. My hr can be ±5-10+ bpm on short all out efforts.
Also how do you track aerobic decoupling in the summer? When itâs 85° at 8 am with 75% humidity my heart rate on an endurance ride will get into zone 3.
I have learned the power of RPE and only do long form tests as a way to determine my FTP.
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Iâm honestly amazed at how many people train hard, dive deep into determining which workout/week/plan is best, develop a deep understanding of all kinds of different science and training methods, fret over whether they should target +/- a watt or two on an intervalâŠbut never actually test their ftp.
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Sure donât, but we didnât compare sweet spot decoupling numbers after the races. Iâve trained about 15 riders for the last three seasons and I can tell you that I donât spend any time whatsoever looking at decoupling numbers in sweet spot workouts because it is not a meaningful metric for that particular type of work.
No quibbles with the training you are doing overall, just this one thing.
I recommend: 1) do a long form FTP test (kinda just my preference, if you are happy with your number keep it); 2) progress your TTE when you achieve the workout without unplanned breaks, 3) stop looking at decoupling for short and somewhat glycolytic efforts. I believe your FTP is maybe a bit low based on your HR trend (though it could be correct - I donât know your history), and that you are unnecessarily limiting your progression which ultimately will cause you to underperform a lot more than if you have 3.4% decoupling during a 4x20 instead of 2%.
Now, this is all unsolicited advice, I admit. I hope you enjoy your training. Cheers!
You donât need to worry about âpeakâ FTP, but you DO want it to be in the ballpark. Like say youâre a 300W guy, youâd want to be hitting VO2 when youâve gotten up around 290. You donât want to do a big block of VO2 when youâre off the couch at 260 or whatever. But I wouldnât worry about getting those last few watts. In my experience, most people are pretty close to previously achieved FTP values following a quality block of sweet spot/tempo base work.
Iâd caution against the mixed block (including VO2max work) following focused VO2max work. More is not always better. This obviously depends on the type of VO2max work youâre doing, but in general, if youâre doing a big block of VO2max, I wouldnât follow it with smaller doses of VO2max. The mixed block post VO2 block isnât going to provide enough stimulus to solicit a gain in VO2max given the massive stimulus you just gave it, so youâd be better off focusing on just raising threshold at that point. If you feel like you must chase the highest FTP possible before VO2 training, do the mixed block before the VO2 block. Again, my $0.02.
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Thanks!! very interesting perspective on the mixed vs dedicated block especially as I feel my fitness is still lagging after my post season break.
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If as suspected youâre referring to accessing Teams via the main left-hand-side TR menu (menu item âTeamsâ), then this issue of all the workouts being missing was flagged up by me and acknowledged as a bug by TR on October 17thâŠ
The workaround for now is to access the Teamâs workouts via the âWorkoutsâ menu item in the LHS menu instead (not the âTeamsâ menu item), and then use the Filters controls to display just the workouts from the Team of choice:
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Thanks, I eventually figured out that I could access them through the workouts page directly, or via the app through the teams option.
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No worries. Best of luck.
Might be a good idea to do that mixed block just to get things moving before VO2max. Donât expect miracles with a single block, but if youâre lagging, it might work.
The other thing that might be is not enough recovery from prior training âseasonsâ. So some recovery might be required before itâs âtoo lateâ to take a week off or so. Did you take an offseason break? If so, what did it look like and how long were you training hard before it?
Oh I took the usual week off (also got sick in those days). The comeback over the past two weeks has been somewhat slow so the past couple of weeks were also low volume although I started to insert again tempo and a sprinkle of threshold.
You might have a bunch of long term fatigue you need to get rid of. A week off may not be enough, especially if you got sick. If youâre feeling sluggish two weeks in, thatâs most likely it.
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SighâŠI think my AIFTP is set too high. A well fueled 3x16 SS session was way harder to complete than it should have been forcing me to stand multiple times to finish. The watts gained on my FTP over the last couple of months can not be accurate. I suspect my singlespeed MTB rides on the weekends may artificially inflate my FTP. I will lower it by 10-15 watts and feel it out. Just here to shed a tear.
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