I can still recall debating “sweetspot” with Hunter as we were leaving a restaurant in Boston after a USA Cycling coaching webinar. He was advocating for a discrete, narrower “zone”, whereas my counterargument was that there was nothing about the classic 7 levels to stop him from prescribing training at that (or any other) particular intensity if he wished to.
That said, one difference between the “sweetspot” concept and any ol’ training intensity is the notion of cost vs. benefit, something that isn’t true (or goes unspoken) for levels 1-7.
This isn’t true. It’s the power at a metabolic quasi steady state. Most people can hold it for about an hour. But “about” can typically range from like 45m to 75m. The “your FTP is your one hour power” was an over simplification.
This of course is where it gets interesting. Is there a use for Sweet Spot? Sure, for some coaches. If you give it a reasonable range then its under threshold, advanced aerobic work, many can hit some reasonable numbers outside without getting freaked out they aren’t riding at some exact %. And then a Tempo workout would sit below that, again advanced aerobic, but a little lower stress yet more load than doing just endurance. Its playing the game of aerobic loading while balancing stress/recovery across 3 intensities (endurance, low tempo, upper tempo/low threshold).
But you could easily just divide tempo in half (or thirds) and not get OCD by strict zone borders. Upper tempo outside, with excursions into low threshold (90-94% ftp), as long as you don’t freak out about “border crossings” - well thats basically sweet spot. A little more load, a little more recovery, and depending on the athlete, more or less benefit.
So I’m with you now, I’ve dropped sweet spot from my vocabulary.
Over time I’ve come to view my training as follows. Spend a lot of time working on limiters. For myself that means lots of endurance rides around the z2/z3 border, and then whenever possible adding some ‘junk miles’ (lol) to the end of rides to increase volume. Moving up the intensity spectrum… Tempo work. For myself its often low tempo to add a little extra load without ANY perceived recovery cost. Every once in awhile I’ll go out and do upper tempo (SS) 1x30 or 2x30, or if I’m feeling good just pop out a 1x60 upper tempo, or hit a climb and do 1x90. But with upper tempo there is a higher recovery cost, I might need to swap some workouts around and do endurance on Monday instead of intervals. I know the recovery cost appears to go down if I do extensive work here, but I’m not targeting events that need much of this and I can get plenty of muscular endurance at lower recovery cost. Regardless, personally I don’t seem to benefit much from investing time doing a lot of tempo. My limiter is anaerobic repeatability and my compressed top-end (relatively low vo2max, high fractional utilization), and we work on that by doing as much volume as I can manage, with some HIIT work.
Unpopular Opinion:
Since most everyone’s FTP is a vanity number inflated by poor testing methods and ramp tests, what you think is sweet spot is really threshold anyways.
so for me, sweet spot is about being able to ride hard but steady for a long time. I’d say I can do 2hrs at 90%, although the most I’ve done this year is 90mins. And I don’t think this is otherworldly by any means, in fact I think, with a properly assessed ftp this should be quite doable during a build up block. I think people have disagreed with me on this, but if someone can’t do 3x20 sweet spot, they may want to revisit their FTP setting.
Totally agree. I was doing this my first year of cycling but didn’t have a fancy name for it. I can still go out and pop out 90 minutes of “sweet spot” without any special training or special recovery.
Sweetspot is just a label for the concept. Not technically needed, but I’m sure it helped communicate the concept because it gave it a special name that could be referenced.
If the term wasn’t coined, someone else would have come up with another term later for this intrazone, such as ‘uptempo’ or something.
There are actually 7 levels. Yes, level 7 isn’t referenced to FTP, but saying 6 levels suggests that you’re talking about a different system entirely.
As for sweetspot, to repeat what I have said before, it is primarily a concept. When pressed, though, I say that it extends from about the level 2/3 border up to FTP. So, it’s not really between levels, but spanning over them (i.e., all of level 3 and most of 4).
Others may define sweetspot differently, but since they didn’t come up with the concept, I don’t listen to them, and maybe you shouldn’t either.
We can mince word choice, but I don’t see a substantive difference here….spanning or between, the idea that it doesn’t for into your defined levels seems to be correct.
As for the number of levels, I got 6 from TP…see attached screenshot. Maybe you can discuss it with them. Pretty sure you know a couple of people there.
I don’t think that it is “mincing words” to differentiate between “between” (narrower) and “spanning” (broader).
As for TP, that’s far from the 1st thing that they have f*cked up. I would suggest not fully trusting anything on their website, even if they have attributed it to me.
That’s funny. I’m sure that phrase was buried deep in my memory since I also ran a lot in senior school in the 90s. It either sounds familiar or my memory is putting words into my old coaches mouth.
One of those times you think you’ve thought of something then realize you heard it somewhere else before.
Sweet Spot is the hardest easy pace, or the easiest hard pace. Just a smidge more than “Uptempo” (I always wanted some Nike Uptempo!)
Is it still Sweet Spot if the HR, sensations, and Power are all at the right place but you can do it for two to three hours? I think so .
There’s a whole raft of what is FTP also, but that could be copy and pasted from any thread, except this one has the man who created it being told why he’s wrong.
I think uptempo may also be in some translations of ancient scriptures/stories. Some use sweet spot.
“Pheidippides was hitherto sent from the battlefield of Marathon to Athens to proclaim that the Persians had been defeated in the Battle of Marathon. He was instructed to run at a light-footed pace between a hunters trot and a devils dance; the sweet spot between pleasure and pain. Therefore his message would be delivered as swiftly as a dog shats its dinner.”
It is odd how you will fight to the end over a word choice on an Internet forum, but when a well-known resource apparently misrepresents your actual work…a company with whom you have relationships and could correct it….you just shrug your shoulders and basically say “well, what are you gonna do?”
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