This makes me feel really good about myself as I did 3x20 over unders today and then followed it with 1x80 SS. But I’m actively trying to train my fatigue resistance for roadraces… whenever they come back some day
I’m guessing pros do very little sweetspot training. We know Paris Roubaix was won by 6 hours of sweetspot, though so it is useful. I’d guess most would knock out 4 or 5 hours no problem if needed?
I believe it depends on the rider. A guy like Luke Rowe or some other diesel is probably doing a fair amount of tempo and sweet spot work. Where as Quintana might be doing less given they have different race-specific demands. But the notion that a certain power zone is avoided seems like total rubbish.
IMO, touching all zones at various points throughout the season is essential.
Powless is coached by fascas who are very very big on sweetspot. They say world tour guys should be knocking endless hours
As am I. I know Tim said you can look up the various methods to estimate LT1, which I have done, none of which give me any confidence in being anywhere near correct. Not that I expecting WKO to be but it might back up / give a bit of confidence in other methods. At the moment I’d only be confident in a lab test and that is not going to happen or be repeatable for me.
And Alex Dowsett has said he rarely finishes his 2x20 O/U sessions.
Perhaps it’s because they are putting out more watts, or maybe, as in the Kuss interview, they are done in conjunction with other efforts.
I didn’t suggest they do no sweetspot. I had believed the vast majority of pro training hours over the course of the year is done in Z2 (Coggan).
Or maybe it is the 4 hour session that is the key.
O/U in a 4 hour session, normally after 3kJ+ ouch.
I think the ‘6 hour SS’ headline is a bit misleading. Looking at the power file, he seems to spend most of his time high z2 with surges. If you had to call it anything, I’d say it was a solid tempo ride (Even though I know the IF is 0.91.)
That’s the actual P-R race file. Hayman did a 6hr SS session on his indoor trainer w/ a broken arm.
I’m most of the way through it and it’s pretty clear watching the webinar that (1) he knows he’s got an overlap of terms between iLevels and his own modality descriptions; (2) in almost every sense that he’s using it with these webinars, “Intensive aerobic” refers to SST/Tempo in a pyramidal TID, “Extensive Aerobic” refers to HVLI with the transition between the two introducing tempo (e.g.) a couple of times per week.
Again, this is just his suggested modality and his language, but if you listen to what he’s saying in concert with the slides, his use of the terminology is clear - modality vs. iLevel intensity.
Oh shit, really? Do you know the details? Sounds insane!
Thats my opinion. Starting a year ago, I’ve been doing shorter intervals in 1.5-2 hour z2 workouts. Something like 3x10 or 2x15 SS, or 4x12 Tempo, or 2x18 threshold. Surprisingly fitness ramped up just fine, and I had no problem going out and doing 50 minutes at FTP. Really didn’t need to constantly be doing long intervals, and if I need fatigue resistance my self-coaching sense is that I could just do that over two week blocks ahead of the event (but I haven’t tested that theory yet).
I also switched to doing most of my FTP and O/U work after some Z2, as suggested in Coggan’s books and by Tim in his webinars. I find I’m a lot more likely to do a bit more volume if I hold the intervals to later in the workout, and if it provides gains in fatigue resistance, great!
Not sure if I’ll carry that through to my upcoming SST block or not since I will be aiming for 60-90min of TiZ there. Maybe on the shorter ones.
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That’s what I’m doing this season. Front loading rides with Z2 or tempo and then hitting some SS or threshold intervals late in the ride. I put together a couple custom workouts that do this. I realize this is a simple workout, but hopefully I can grown my “pre intervals” time to 60-90 min of Z2 prior to hitting some efforts. I think this will pay dividends.
Can’t find the exact article/interview, but this snippet gives you a good idea of his indoor training (my apologies, I doubt it was a single 6hr session but 6hrs total/day):
With his coach Kevin Poulton, Hayman worked on double sessions on most days, and up to three or four on specific occasions.
Please, do not… because then I would have to try it and I really do not want to do this ![]()


