Sweet Spot Progression

Training
1504

W/O being dogmatic, it’s more a personal thing. Although, I’d love to see what lactate does at given durations. If anything, the longer duration possibly achieves a higher level lactate for which to buffer during the under. :man_shrugging: Going to say no more before the physio nerds call me out for something untrue. Really though, I like what a longer over does to harden me up before race season.

The last thing I’ll say (and then I’m moving on) is that I don’t think 120% is too hard, it’s very similar to what you might experience during a breakaway. Or surges during a CX race. I find them super beneficial to real-world riding/racing.

Agreed, which is better than being overly aggressive.

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1506

It’s definitely conservative – and purposefully so. Two hard threshold sessions, TT bike rides, long z2 are all stressful, so makes sense to err on the side of caution.

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1507

My original reply to you questioned whether or not you need a rest/easy day before Saturday, but I refrained because it’s too individual to comment on. What you have laid out is a big week. Let us know how it goes.

Alternatively, you could do an O/U session every other week and sub in another LSD ride the weeks you don’t have a Saturday O/U session.

1508

Funnily enough, when typing it out Friday was ‘off/short z1/90m z2’ but then I changed it. I intend to adapt the wed/fri session to make sure I give myself the best chance of getting the quality right.

Good point. As this is 3 weeks hard, 1 week recovery, I might make the weekends:
O/U / long z2
long z2 / long z2
O/U / long z2

1509

I really like that. I’m in the process of a SS + O/U progression and I’m finding that when coupled with a 1-2x per week weight lifting session the second hard workout of the week is really tough. I went back and forth on staggering the O/U bi-weekly, but opted not to in order to see how I could handle them. I ended up making them the first workout of the week when my legs are the freshest and have the longer SS workouts fall later in the week after a rest day.

Curious what your loading cycle is. 3 weeks on, 1 week rest or something else? This is something I also experiment with as I find 5:1 (load:rest) is really challenging.

1510

Weights are great but I wouldn’t want to be doing too much during a hard block.

Doing your first workout when freshest makes sense. I quite like doing Sweetspot work on tired legs. Feels appropriate.

I’ve been doing 5 on, 1 off during SSBHV2 and have gone from 320 to 340 in that time. I’m a little tempted to spend recovery week adapting to the TT bike, do a 30-40 minute outdoor TT test and just restart a Sweetspot progression.

1511

I agree 100%. For this plan, I would raise the under part up to 92-94% first before raising the over from 110%, but agree with your entry point.

1512

My only comments would be that 1) you do a long test to start (30min) to validate TTE. Having only done a 20min you may find your TTE is artificially short.
If you don’t do a longer test, keep an eye on how you feel during your first few threshold sessions. This brings me to my second feedaback 2) Your progression seems conservative. You might find 3x10 isn’t enough and you can actually manage 4x10 to start. And so be willing to push yourself a little to move through the progressions, but also try to build into maybe a 1x30 at some point in there to really get that long threshold adaptation and mental strength.

1513

Agree re long test. I am going to do a 30-40 minute outdoor TT bike test.

I foolishly forgot to mention that I’ll be doing this block outdoors in TT, having done SSBHV1&2 indoors on the turbo (not in position) which is why I was being conservative with the progresión.

The other reason was because my TTE is so short (perhaps artificially so because of a 20 min road bike outdoor effort) so I was aiming for 100% TTE at the start and working up to 150% TTE by the end.

I did do Phoenix +2 towards the end of this block so long SS was a strength albeit on the base bar on the TT bike on the turbo

1514

Thanks for posting this - I’d been struggling to put together exactly why my “race level” FTP that TP / Zwift keep suggesting is too high for general training, but this makes a ton of sense. I’d been beating myself up for not being motivated enough to make the solo workouts work with my “race FTP”, but knowing I should be using my “solo tested FTP” makes so much sense. Thanks for the insight.

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1515

When you are not motivated enough to make the solo workouts, than is motivation the problem, not your physical abilities. Look it from the other side: Trough racing you reacing your real psysical FTP. I know sometimes it is hard to get the numbers, but training is also a mindset. Make every workout a micro target.

For example: when your real FTP is 290 after a race, is that what you physical can do, you have to train in that zones. Let say Vo2max 125% of 290 = 362w. When you are not motivated enough to do 362w for let say 3x5min and you set your FTP at 275 = 343 VO2max, you are not reaching your real psysical ability.

Tuesday i failed 3x20 SST workout (i did 1x20 and 2x11 minutes SST) and uncertain about my FTP. Yesterday i did again and now finished 2x15 and 1x30 at 91% FTP with 3min rest. I was very motivated to achieve this.

1516

2@ sweet spot, 30s @120% for 20 or 25 minutes is literally a common workout prescription from Hunter Allen’s masters training plans. He also cautions not to let the sweet spot drop lower than 85%. This is one of my favorite workouts because time flies by and it is challenging but not ridiculous. I also feel like I get good adaptations from this type of workout. In his plans he also puts 2x 5’ at VO2 106%+ with 3’ ri after the crisis cross sweet spot intervals.

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1517

Cool! I don’t think you need to go that high to achieve what I was talking about. If it’s race prep, sure. That’s a viable race sim workout. If it’s large motor unit recruitment during a base phase? Nope.

I gave an opinion and explained why I thought that. Doesn’t mean I’m right. Just my opinion.

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1518

I wasn’t being critical, just saying that that is a BASE phase workout prescribed by Hunter. Not that Hunter is a magic unicorn, but I think he knows his stuff. Hunter also doesn’t only train base during base, he touches on vo2 and AC stuff every few weeks. It is literally my favorite workout. It isn’t a death slog ( the 2x5’ VO2 ARE), but the other part is really effective and “Fun” in a way that steady state isn’t. In regular sweet spot work I also like doing bursts every 5’ even if only just to change position and focus on a different cadence for the next 5’. 5’ chunks really makes things fly by.

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1519

Like I said, I don’t think you need to go that high. I’d prefer a higher under and 110% over in base, but again, depends on what the goal is. FWIW, I don’t love a lot of things HA programs, but that’s just me. But he’s been doing it way, way longer than me and is undoubtedly smarter!

Reality is these should be done in standard mode anyway, so the burst target is just that: a target. I’m sure I hit 120% in some of mine where I targeted 110-113% (for a nice round power number)Not the end of the world!

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1520

I think most of them should be done in standard mode, not sure what I would use ERG on these days. I used to use ERG on my computrainer years ago, but it just doesn’t feel right to me now.

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1521

I’m starting to love these, this was yesterday. Working my way up making the sets longer up to 3x25 over this block after my initial stab at it I found I could progress length of the sets longer much quicker than anticipated;

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Further to @kurt.braeckel point, given we are still in base phase for me this is meant to be a high-end SST workout not threshold or above. So if NP for each set is still 94% of FTP the way it’s configured with 2min under 30s over.

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1522

Some interesting reading here regarding O/U work as it pertains to some legendary runners. Hard for me to equate their pace to % of FTP, but it sounds like the under doesn’t need to be too hard, maybe even better to go on the low end of SS or high end of tempo. At any rate, these are amazing workouts that I benefit from and I love doing them for a good block.

https://www.peakendurancesport.com/endurance-training/high-intensity-training/pump-lactate-shuttle-make-lactate-friend-not-foe/

Magic in the float

The new science by Brooks, Thompson, and others has produced a theory for why it works, and with it, insight into how to fine-tune Prefontaine and De Castella’s decades-old methods. Brooks’ studies suggest that the ‘magic’ in this type of training comes from the float, not from the higher-intensity work that preceded it. The primary function of the fast parts of the workout, it turns out, is simply to work you hard enough to cause your blood lactate to rise.

Once that has happened, you transition to the float. This trains your body to clear lactate efficiently, while still running at a brisk speed – though not so brisk that you are still accumulating lactate. In other words, what you are training is the lactate shuttle.

There is no single best way to do this. Rather, it varies with your goals, personality, and, ultimately, inventiveness. Prefontaine did it by running really fast 200s—fast enough to quickly build up a surplus of lactate then following them with recoveries that were a full 33% slower.

The second part of this is what’s interesting, the intensity of the float or under.

Now should I re-name this thread to “O/U progression” ? :thinking:

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1523

That’s essentially it. I like to try to build the ability to work hard after a hard effort, thus for me I found good workouts at doing 30s/2:00 or :45/3:00 and focusing on a somewhat harder Under rather than raising the “over” power.

At the start, a :30@110% over might not burn, but after 30 minutes of this work, it definitely does. Now, I think you could potentially scale it in the same way that coaches like KM apparently prescribe VO2max work in that you scale it back later in the workout, just going by “feel” the entire time, but with longer sustained intervals, it’s going to be a lot harder if you burn up matches at the start trying to get a certain burn, rather than just letting it build as fatigue builds throughout the duration of the workout.

So, in base, I’m looking to shuttle lactate and increase the power I can operate at while doing so (the Under) far more than I’m worried about hitting a higher power target during the over. And then I want to train how many overs/unders I can do, and then I want to spend more time over.

The issue I’ve had with TR’s O/U structure is that I think theirs spend way too much time “Over”, personally. A lot of their O/U workouts are great, but some of the later ones they prescribe just spend too much time above threshold (and usually at 105%) for what I think they’re trying to accomplish.

Kind of what I settled on last block of these was 92% - 110-113% with a 4:1 ratio of under to over time. Then adding more total TiZ. I started with a 2x20 with 2:00/:30 at 92%-110% and progressed to a 3x18 on 3:00/:45 92%-113%. These were achievable without crushing me. If I’d kept going, I would’ve gone to 3x20 and bumped the under to 94%.

If I was doing a race simulation workout, I would probably do a higher over (120-140%) and then float at a lower power like 85-88%. I do really like the “over unders” Chad calls billats in short power build, but I wouldn’t do those in Base because they’re friggin’ hard.

All MO, I’m not coaching anyone, so do what you think is best or what works for you.

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1524

KM normally gives a number for the overs. I think it is generally pretty close to 5 min power.

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