Really good effort! Heartrate remained flat during the interval!
+10 on mental toughness 
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Is there a TR āteamā similiar to the sweet spot team where there are some workouts already built out for intensive aerobic workouts? Wondering if I can save myself some time this afternoon.
@RONDAL I didnāt mean to sound pretentious here with this question, so Iām sorry if it came off that way. I often negative-split my endurance rides, but Iām pretty anti-erg mode in general for endurance/Z2 rides, so the idea of restricting your effort to a set percentage seemed odd to me.
I do all my endurance rides in free-ride because some days Iāll feel good starting at 55% and ending at 75%, other days starting at 65% and ending at 65%, and just about every other variation there is. If I were to always start out my endurance rides at a set % and stick with it in ERG mode then increasing the power throughout, Iād probably end up feeling either that I didnāt do enough, or did too much/went too hard. Iāve followed the same approach as Kolie Moore of riding endurance/z2 to RPE ā āfeel like youāre working, but could do it all dayā for several years now (long before I even knew who he was), and starting off easier and ending harder (negative split/ or progressive z2 as you call it). I would say my aerobic fitness has done very well because of it, much better than when I used to sit at a set wattage for hours on end. Some days I would go harder and other days much easier. Side note - through testing Iāve found Iām often riding at LT1 when riding to RPE, but with set wattages Iām either above or below. Getting used to that āendurance feelingā is also really important to me
Anyways, just thought Iād say where I was coming from and note that me saying āWhy?ā, looks pretty pretentious and annoying of me to say. Sorry about that, and thank you for sharing your workouts in the thread!
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None taken. I will say the group in this thread has been super helpful in learning more about SST progression and helping each other out along the way.
Cheers
Took my progression up to 1x103@90% over 8 weeks, Just did a ramp test before starting my next block and debating changing one of the SS workouts each week for a threshold progression.
FTP went from 271w to 275, not a big jump and would probably get a larger number from the 20 minute test.
The progression of time at 90% isnāt likely to give you a big boost in FTP if youāre already fit. It will help with your TTE at FTP, however.
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Exactly, my debate is extending to 120 minute interval(maybe another 4 week block) or just going back and starting with 4x15 but run it at 99% and work the back up.
I would definitely go with FTP work - push it up and then extend.
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Do you have a reason to need to extend TTE beyond where it is or be able to sustain 90% for that long? If not, raise power, incorporate over unders and other hard rides and raise FTP.
My A Event in April is a 340mi single stage gravel race. The fatigue resistance that doing this SS progression has given me seems valuable for that event. Also keeping a large 5-7hour Z2 ride on the weekend, so can probably step away from the SS stuff for a bit to drive power up.
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Oof. Think I just found my current limit: 1x100min @ 90%*. Goal is 1x120 @ 90%; 12 workouts total. Happy halfway!!
*this was definitely a breakout workout!
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whatās your thoughts on best way to drive FTP up? just under threshold? just over? or O/Uās? lactate tolerance or clearing isnāt of much use for my type of events, Itās all the long game, would riding at 99-102 be a good stimulus to drive the FTP up? We need a thread like this about threshold work!
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Sorry for replying not asked, but my personal experience (60W increase) was 97% intervals and progression to 80 min TiZ. I was doing threshold 3x a week but that had an impact (or rather lack of) on my dynamic power burtst and muscle fatigue over ftp (my 5 min power and vo2 max was also improving but the problem was muscle fatigue).
āMyā solution (and it worked wonders) was incorporating once a week SST with 30s power burts. You can also do threshold with 5s-15s burtsts. Working couple % under FTP has a huge (positive) impact on recovery. I have created some short experience in this topic:
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Two things I like right now, and @jarsson covered them:
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Ride just below threshold, 97, 98% progressively in a few intervals out to TTE or just beyond.
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Over/Unders as he described: high sweet spot with 30-45s bursts progressing TiZ. You can see a couple versions of O/Us up about 30 posts. These are hard, but build lactate tolerance quickly.
Long rides help too.
Iāve been able to get a lot of threshold work in with these and recover from it without excess fatigue. Will it drive FTP up? Feels like it, but I wonāt know for sure for a couple of weeks.
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I second this tactic. Did it last summer (every 5mins). It works.
Have started doing similar, in the second half of my SS block, during the long 1x workouts: 10-15s @ 100% every minute for the last 10min or so. Nothing hardcore or set in stone, just working the fatigue resistance and getting acclimatised to future O/U & threshold sessions.
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My current O/U for this week is trying 3:00 at 92% followed by :45 at 112%, repeat five times, three sets (about 18min per set). Weāll see if that one goes better than last week.
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I find this interesting. I did an over-under progression this summer ending with Carpathian Peak +3. All were standard TR workouts (x @ 95%, x @ 105%).
What is your reasoning for doing a progression with larger changes in power/shorter over segments? Is this to target a higher avg heart rate?
For one thing, I think theyāre easier to recover from than spending almost 15 minutes at 105% of FTP as in Carp Peak +3 and another 15 minutes at or over FTP. For another, itās a better simulation of how youād actually ride a fast paceline (I do these in standard mode), so thereās direct applicability to my outdoor riding.
Over the years, Iāve found TRs more advanced O/U workouts incur a lot - a LOT - of fatigue. I think you can get a similar lactate tolerance benefit from a shorter but more intense over and a still-challenging but lower under. This should allow for a longer interval, whereas TR really only has one set of O/Us that I would consider being long intervals and that appears in the build programs. Thatās been my working theory, but I admit I havenāt dialed in a good progression.
Iām experimenting with a 1:4 over:under ratio. I did :30/2:00 for 20 minute intervals and had a great workout. I then progressed it way too much (more intervals and a :45/2:30) for the second one, so my third one is a shorter overall interval (only by a couple of minutes), with a 1:4 O/U ratio again but longer overall TiZ. By TSS and IF, itās only slightly less intense than Carp Peak +3, but if it tracks post-workout fatigue like the others Iāve done, Iāll recover from it faster.
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Hi @kurt.braeckel and others.
Saturday i did 75min on 94%. Iam training for crit racing and Iām thinking about to move to SST over/unders. The reason i have is that the crit races are max 90-120min so i dont need to progress a lot more in time and i do allready 94% with not so much fatique, the day after i did again a good 3 hours endurance ride. At this moment my TTE is 55 minutes.
I think about to do tomorrow (today rest) 3x20min with 2min 90% and 30s 110% FTP. And in the weekend i will do outdoor longer SST blocks like last saturday.
What do you think about this?
Iām about to embark on a block to attempt this.
Tues 2:00/:30 O/Us
Thur TR Suprathreshold
Sat TR longer O/Us
Hopefully can budge FTP, and then will focus on the slightly easier (for me) TTE work again. Will report back.