I’d agree that for someone with a strong background, and assuming FTP is accurate, building up to 60-90min TiZ and reducing (or eliminating) rest is going to be most effective. I don’t want to speak for KM, but when he talks about “being nice” being giving 2x20, I’m pretty sure he means to build his athletes well beyond that point.
My n=1, I started at 2x20 in my first week of this season’s base, plan to do this progression for at least eight weeks, and get well into the 75-90min TiZ if not fully 1x. I’m coming off of two seasons of SSB completion and then another “Return to base” in late spring each time. We’ll see. Not anticipating a massive bump in FTP, but I’d like to extend my TTE at my end season FTP if I can get back there.
Thought about it, but I’m coming off a broken collarbone and three weeks off the bike with no events coming up, so staying conservative this early in the off-season. Today’s 2x20 was much easier with lower RPE and HR, so I’m going up to 2x25 or 2x30 @90 next.
You give me too much credit: I read about extending sweet-spot workouts in this thread myself! All I did was put a couple of hours into creating the set of custom workouts I shared.
In this period i do 2-3 times a week strength training in the (home)gym. Is it possible to combine this with SST training, or is that to intensive for this period of the season?
Or is it better to do more D1 and tempo with strength?
I think that’s very personal, although my N=1: since I’ve added more Sweetspot to my weeks in base, I noticed that I was getting fatigued all of a sudden. Not surprising as I went from 1 per week to 3 per week on top of Z2 volume and strength. Now on a recovery week
After this 8 or 9 week block I’ll probably tip to less volume, more Sweetspot, but keep a long Z2 on Sunday.
For what it’s worth, I created my own 18 week masters base plan using the SST progression if anyone is interested. It’s a mishmash of of SSB low and mid volume plans. It gently builds TSS each week and progresses on several fronts… the SST progression, tempo long rides and the last 6 weeks working in Vo2 and threshold. This plan should deliver me to build with plenty of deep base from which to work from. I will do some of these outside when weather allows and of course there is always flexibility to customize to your situation. Get stronger!
I’ve also incorporated the idea of sweet spot progression into my training plan. Came back after summer with no structured training for 2 months, i.e. I needed to start training again. And since currently on paternity leave, when there’s not much time during weekdays to train other than late in the evening, SST is sort of the only way. Also felt that I needed to raise my power curve further down the duration axle for next season, hence seemed like a good fit.
So, 3 blocks, each block 4 weeks long. Increase in total TSS per week (per block), 4th week is rest week. Focus on TiZ progression rather than increasing watts.
Heart rate not over 90% of max (fine if at the end of an interval)
Listen to my body. It’s OK to reduce the watts. Winter hasn’t even begun yet.
I do the SST workouts 3 times a week. They have priority over the other workouts (e.g. if I need to take a rest day). During a rest week I do one or two shorter SSTs.
In addition, I also have strength training 2 days a week and on weekends 2 longer endurance rides (of which one includes one of the SST sessions). The seventh day is usually easy endurance, cadence drills or rest day.
Just finished a 1x75min SST workout at 90% of FTP. Physically it felt OK. It’s just so boaring!
After these SST blocks I plan to do one build block before really starting to focus on next season, i.e. 2-3 base blocks and then 2 build blocks before race block. Haven’t yet decided if I’ll use same approach during base as now. Will depend on the training results
Thanks for sharing both you and @2fst4u. My base plan seems to be ever changing right now… as you said, it’s early! So it’s nice to see what others are doing to customize their plans.
This is a really nice alternative to TR’s SSB progression. I like how you laid out the SS progression and added blocks for tempo, over-unders, and then VO2max. I’ve already progressed to SS90/60 3x20min workout and was looking for what to do next. My modification would be to do the tempo and endurance rides outdoors (weather permitting) on the MTB and the SS interval progression and over-unders indoors. Thanks for sharing… this is great!
I’ve just come off a program very similar to this and am now outdoors a lot more. What really changed things for me was the VO2 block that I did after all the SST and Endurance rides. My fitness went through the roof!
Since my goal was to build out a small library of sweet-spot workouts with consistent characteristics (same warmup, cooldown, rest intervals/levels, etc), I looked at a lot of what’s out there and added a few to the More Sweet Spot team library.
The library covers every useful step between 30 and 120 minutes of time in zone, with 1, 2, 3, or 4 intervals per workout. In detail:
That’s 36 workouts total: hopefully it provides all the combinations people find useful. To avoid too much discussion of this library in the bigger thread, I suggest that anyone who has requests or ideas offer those in the team forum.
People can also use the workout intensity to make it easier / harder as desired. For example I’m planning on doing 1x60 next week as prescribed and then trying to do 2x20 at 110% intensity (close to actual FTP).
Also, it was said that you should do 3-5 sessions per week in these zones. (with endurance as “always”
So my question is, given the parameters below, HOW would you progress through these?
A base season of 16 weeks, 3 weeks build, 1-week recovery
3 weekly sessions, any split is possible (fatigue dependent, 1 ON 1 OFF, 2 ON 1 OFF, all good)
Workout duration of 60-90 mins, possible to go up to 120 mins at times if necessary
Endurance miles during the weekend can be excluded from this planning
My current understanding is it goes quite well with the fatigue dependent model so
SST>Tempo>Endurance - So how long would you keep building TiZ before →
FTP>SST>Tempo - and again the same question, spring is coming, when would you go to →
VO2>FTP>SST - And would this be too much already?
I can see myself getting pretty fried if I do VO2 on Monday, FTP on Wednesday, and SST on Friday paired with long endurance miles.
I have truly enjoyed this discussion and learnt so much already, thank you all in advance!
