This. My bread and butter “sweet spot” workout is one extended block at 90%. I’ll start with 60min and work up to 120+. Now, muscular endurance and time to exhuastion are my strengths, and I was doing this silliness as HR-based back in the 90s, so I’ve got the base and the “head space” to start off with those 60s at the start of Base, but I’d argue that anyone who has been through a year or two of structured training could start off with a 40-45 block and work up from there.
Everyone is different, but I’ve found my wattages on FTP work are higher after I’ve worked up to 120min @ 90% than they are when I do something like 3 x 30 @ 92-94%. For sub-threshold, time in zone tends to trump intensity.
A podcast that I just listened to discusses the benefit of increasing threshold interval lengths. As I understand it, the goal is to increase training stimulus by increasing the interval lengths, as opposed to increasing the intensity above FTP. Increasing duration is used for progressive overload.
The question I still have is if I’m at the point where I can do 3x20 SS, should I ever bother with 6x10 SS? I see how changing interval lengths gets you a nice progression, but if the first part of the progression is ‘too easy’, is doing those leaving some adaptations on the table?
great input guys, I’ve definitely noticed that the shorter 8-12 min Sweetspot workouts were not challenging/stimulating enough as opposed to the 20min blocks.
I’ve now started incorporating 45min blocks and working my way up to polar bear/phoenix sweetspot blocks
One of my challenges is that my weekday early morning workout is limited to 60 to 75 minutes. It seems like the suggestions are to increase the intervals up to 1x60min (to fit in my time constraint) and then bump up the intensity (90% → 93% → 95%).
I find the fairly short intervals (Monitor +1, etc) to be harder than the 12-15 minute intervals, personally. A one minute recovery feels like it breaks my rhythm more than it actually helps. Although there is probably some value in getting used to the gas on / gas off aspect of small recoveries, even if the ‘gas on’ intensity isn’t that hard (relatively speaking).
Is there different adaptations that happen when you do say, 3x20 at 90% vs 6x10 or even 12x5 at 90%? Same time at sweepspot over a 90 minute workout. I get the psychological impact of gutting out long intervals and the ability to do them, just not sure if it’s the same physical demand.
I have been wondering the same thing; but in my case building up the interval length from 3x20 to 2x30 to 1x60min. This morning I replaced a 3x20 minute workout with 1x60min at Sweet spot:
Keen to hear feedback. I did this the other week on SSB II substituting Juneau -1 for Eclipse +1. From a time crunched point of view if I can do my long ride time in zone in 1hr 45m total work out time vs 2:00, clearly helpful.
in my experience, I get bigger jumps in fitness from doing bigger blocks vs having them broken up. It takes time to build up into those +45min blocks, so a steady progression to those workouts is recommended.
I have seen someone post this on the forum, some examples below
4x15 (tallac +2)
3x20 (Eclipse)
2x30 (wright peak)
1x45 (reynolds -2)
1x48 (Needham -1 or regular)
1x60 (white)
1x70 (leavitt +3)
1x80 (Echo +3)
1x90 (Phoenix +1)
1x105 (Polar bear)
