Personally, I’ll likely do a block with some over/unders (with shorter, i.e. 20min interval length) and a bit f vo2 max work. Tbh it’s as much to vary the stimulus and keep me interested without any racing as anything.
Hoping by the end of March weather will be a bit better in the UK and I can get a few weeks of higher volume Z2 rides in as a block. Will also be able to get the TT bike outside in nicer weather and dial in some efforts on the road
I don’t know. A true mixture, mainly targeting FTP.
Zwift racing on tuesdays
Seilers 4x8 VO2max intervals on Thursdays
Overunders + SS Saturdays.
And Z2 every day but Monday.
Will you do a 20 min test outdoors on your TT bike? I’m gonna take mine out this weekend for first time in months. Planning to do a handful of 10 min sub-maximal efforts to see where I’m at whilst getting reacquainted with the position.
Sounds pretty similar to what I’m thinking. Will do some shorter sweetspot/threshold efforts, just to regain familiarity. I tend to not need much time in the TT position, and don’t have much/any power drop off, but thinking of doing some longer events (50, maybe a 100 who knows?!) this year, so doing some longer rides probably sensible. I live in London though, so the 45min urban/traffic light heavy ride out always puts me off riding the TT bike much…
Probably won’t do a full 20 minute test too, as on the TT bike they tend to put me way more in the box than on a road bike… Always way more knackered after a 10 than a 25!
Sounds good. I’ve only done one 100 and a weekly long ride helped massively, both mentally and logistically.
I live in Sevenoaks and used to regularly commute into town so I know exactly what you mean!
Yeah, there’s a lot of fatigue incurred during a 20 min TT test but it’s hard to work out zones otherwise. Might just do a series of efforts from 200-350 watts and try to ballpark where SS/threshold is from RPE
I had my three quality sessions of over-unders, high SST (92-94%), and threshold (97-100%). I prioritized threshold, then O/Us, then SST, which is why I did the first two Monday/Friday, then I could see if I had gas in the tank in between. (Along with 4hrs on a weekend day). Just sharing my layout…
Yay!! I passed ‘my test’: 1 x 100 at 92%. So that’s the extensive phase done. Now the issue is one of designing the intensive phase.
Cusick’s seminar says, per week:
Also, having got my SS out to 1 x 100, I don’t want to lose that. Would you keep some long SS work in the plan, perhaps every other week? And if so, how would you do it?
I’ve already learnt a lot from this thread and would really appreciate any advice as I knuckle down to the next phase of this plan.
If you can’t do 3 threshold sessions, you could always dial the 3rd one down and make it SST. It’s not going to be quite as strong of a ‘dose’ but still working similar adaptive signals as I understand it.
PS you’re not going to lose your aerobic capabilities doing threshold work, so just don’t worry about it!
I agree. 1 threshold and 1 supra-threshold is still a good week—see if you can go for 3 intense days and adjust as necessary.
I did 6 weeks of VO2/Z2 aka polarized last summer and didn’t do a single SS ride over that duration and could bang out long SS intervals with no issue—your engine will be just fine.
Curious how were the gains from this block?
@jacemano:
I started on 1 January, doing [a] the over-under progression from SS Base MV + extra Z2 work tacked on; [b] 2 SS workouts + extra Z2 work tacked on; [c] 3 Z2 rides; [d] 2 rest days, every 8 days.
In the first 8-day ‘week’, I did a 2 x 25 SS workout with a long recovery and a 3 x 20 with 5 min recoveries.
Then 3 x 20 and a 4 x 20; next a 1 x 50 [recovery week]; a week with Z2 and testing [5 sec, 1 min, 5 min, FTP, TTE]; then 1 x 60 + 2 x 10 before 1 x 50 + 1 x 25; then on 14 Feb the 1 x 100. Once I had found a rhythm to the SS power output and an appropriate cadence, I discovered that I preferred long intervals rather than repeated shorter intervals and that progress in lengthening the intervals could be quite quick at two SS workouts every 8 days and a O/U workout. So the gain was extending my ability to hold SS from ~ 25 mins to about 100 mins [= 2 x TTE at FTP].
Weekly TSS 600-800, which fluctuated since I was doing an 8-day cycle rather than 7-day. Longest week ~ 15 hrs; average about 12 [excluding the recovery and testing weeks, which were only about 6 - 8 hrs. A lot of that time was out on the road [Australian summer, after all].
Thanks for your advice, @4ibanez and @anthonylane.
See my intensive block i posted slightly above in the comments here. The structure is basically what you are looking for, adjust the TiZ as appropriate. Given you’re at 100min @ 92% i suspect your TTE is already quite long so you can step into some longer threshold intervals if you want.
Again the goal is progession through the block, and building out towards 150% TTE for threshold TiZ during a workout (not all in one interval) over the 4-8 week block period.
Three working sessions, one easy shorter ride. One long Z2 ride. Working sessions are threshold, over unders, or SST.
It’s funny following this thread, and dropping in on the dylan video thread that is getting all the comments. You really do not need a lot of WORK in a week. You need some volume, but the working days really aren’t all that much.
Yep, my 40 mins of ‘work’ today was plenty!
Yes, this thread is quite the contrast to the Dylan one - supportive, collaborative, informative… 
Just wanted to say thanks for posting your intensive progression. I’m on week 3 (of 4) of an extensive block and will then likely move to an intensive block similar to what you outlined. I just got WKO5 in December and have binged a lot of the webinars (including most recent ones. This is my first time through these types of blocks, so I certainly appreciate seeing a templated plan!
Doing my VO2max block right now… I did 3 VO2max workouts last week, and that was all I did due to time limitation. Each one was 20min TiZ, 1:1 recovery, and another 35-40min Z2 after… and I was trashed going into yesterday. I started another VO2max session, did two intervals, called it and Z2’ed it out.
To be young again and be able to do 3xVO2max each week. Not this old man!
3 in a row or z2 between?
I’m considering a 3 week 3 a week block next month before April comes
3 in a row. Overload really hard and then rest, wait 2-3 weeks till the adaptations kick in.
