Sweet Spot Progression

Erg gets a bit of a bad rap from coaches, IMO. The stimulus is slightly different, but there are times where there’s benefit from zoning out and putting down power. I mix my workouts now, whereas years past with TR I’ve done them all in erg. Recovery/easy rides I’ll do in erg. Sometimes on the days where I’m pushing limits of time in zone, I’ll start the workout in standard/resistance, then switch to erg for the last portion to reduce the mental burden and just focus on turning the legs over. I do all my testing in standard mode now.

1 Like

I realize this is going to sound a bit silly, but “get in the zone and zone out” is exactly what I do out on the road and indoors. Going to sound a bit hippy but so what… “turn on, tune in, and drop out” baby!

Disconnect from the world and connect with yourself :man_shrugging: its what I love to do while cycling or skiing 35-50mph down a mountain. Personal opinion - I’d rather be driving the work and have inside feel more like outside. Thats just me. More power to ya if Erg does it for you.

1 Like

Rollers then?

I’ve done all my indoor this year on rollers, using a magnetic resistance unit when I need to crank it out.

I figured the very low inertia might be beneficial when my goals are essentially mountain GF events. No idea if it really makes a difference but you certainly have to drive the work!

1 Like

I’d love to try rollers but the Kickr is long bought and paid for, and no room in the garage to store stuff!

2 Likes

I have the rollers folded next to my Kickr. Its a Gen 1 and had a lot of use over the years but this year I have really clicked with the rollers again - even got to the point where I can zone out on them during intervals now!

2 Likes

Plus I bought aero bars and a couple other upgrades. Need to put the fenders on my bike, I’m still riding outside and we’ve got rain in the forecast.

3 Likes

2x40 on the plan for last night. Got to the end of the 1st interval and was feeling good and decided to skip the recovery. Was still feeling adequate at the end and tacked on the extra to get to 90 minutes.

after reviewing and comparing to previous SS work, I noticed that my HR was ~10bpm lower than other sets. Now I’m thinking something wonky with my PM. I always calibrate prior to every workout.

I was carrying a good amount of outside stress to this and felt my HR was higher than normal because of it.
This one is what i would call more ‘normal’

Thoughts? was that a legit 1x90? Or do you agree that the PM was off? I put a new battery in and at the very least we will find out next Tuesday when I do my next SS workout.

1 Like

There could be a number of reasons why your HR was lower, as it wasn’t by a huge amount I wouldn’t worry too much.

2 Likes

Not sure but -10bpm is a lot if you ask me - makes SST almost top endurance for me or the other way its top of threshold.

Simple answer is to try it again and see what happens. If you smash it then its another good workout and if you really struggle then you’ll know!

Good luck

1 Like

Did my 1x90 today. Man it was a fight for the last 20min. HR was high, but I got through it to close out the block. Probably do more 3x30s, 5x20s in the upcoming intensive block, but don’t wanna touch that 1x90 again any time soon. :laughing:

13 Likes

Thanks!
How do I calculate tss for a workout?
The workouts in the SST Team here are all at 90%, so I can only see the tss for 90% intensity.
I have now completed 2x30 at 90% which felt really hard, HR was at 90% of max HR in the end.

Not sure where I should go from here. Also not sure whether I should continue with base II or Build I after the progression? I’d like to continue with the TR plan once I’ve hit 1x60.

Before the workout? Afterwards, it will just show…

TSS is IF**2 * time, IF is NP/FTP. For long steady intervals like sweetspot, you can substitute average power for NP for an estimate.

TSS = [(s x NP x IF) / (FTP x 3,600)] x 100

s - is the time in seconds
NP - Normalised Power

Pretty sure its IF squared?

Well I tried it to see if it simplifies to that and didn’t get the correct answer, I use the formula I posted and it equals the values in TrainingPeaks & WKO

https://support.rouvy.com/s/article/What-is-TSS-and-IF?language=en_US

Ah wait, I read your equation again, and it has IF x NP/FTP … which is of course IF squared.

It is somewhere on the TP website, but it is very hard to find, I do have a bookmark for it somewhere…

Download the TR workout creator, and play around with making workouts. It’s very easy. The workout creator calculates the TSS and IF for each workout you create.

Simplified from the above equation…

TSS = IF^2 * T * 100

where

  • IF is intensity factor
  • T is time in hours (e.g. 1:15:00 / 75 minutes is 1.25 hours)

Example:

TSS = .63*.63 * 1.25 * 100
TSS = 49.6125
TSS ~ 50

1 Like

Which is what I put first…well I forgot about the 100, but thats just the decimal point. :smile:

How do you calculate IF if you don’t have it provided already?