IMO, stop playing around with your plan - pick something, stick with it, and wait a month or two to reassess how things went. You’re doing yourself a disservice by changing everything. Then of course when it doesn’t work, you get frustrated, take time off, go backwards, which just reinforces the notion that something needs to change.
If sweet spot base has been daunting (and it ABSOLUTELY can be…it’s tough), try doing traditional base, even if just low volume. You can have significant gains with it, and it is much more gentle. It follows a very gradual increase in intensity over 12 weeks, that eases you into a bit of sweet spot work.
And don’t ramp test every week. You’re hampering, needlessly, your ability to complete workouts. If you get too strong for the workouts, and everything seems comically easy, manually bump up intensity a couple percent. But no more…wait for the next schedule ramp test, and bask in the glory of having a 50 watt bump if it happens.
You’ve got some solid advice previously. I just want to add yet another aspect; if you’re doing all your training fasted SSB maybe isn’t your best option. It takes a lot of carbohydrates to fuel those workouts. Maybe a traditional plan would be more suitable.
Good call. I usually do them fasted so I can do them first thing in the morning to help keep my blood sugars down but just because it is usually a lot cooler. I can do some threshold workouts without fasted first thing & I’m fine. However, threshold always seems easier than sweet spot but I never worked out why. I wonder if it is because the threshold workouts usually have shorter intervals.
I’ve been on TrainerRoad for a year & a half. I did try the SSB plans but I found the workouts incredibly hard to complete. I have no idea why, threshold feels easier on my legs that SS.
The vast majority of my training on TrainerRoad has been putting together my own short term plans using loads of zone 2 workouts with a little threshold & anaerobic workouts.
Cheers Brennus. So, looking at the chart, it’s normal or expected then to see the improvements followed by temporary drop offs & then a new cycle going up?
Thanks mate. I typically do my own plans of primarily zone 2 & try to stick to it. It’s when I get to perhaps 4-6 weeks in that I see big declines with the gains being wiped out. I think I just need to get a better balance of being type 1 & doing the Training.
I did the ramp tests weekly so that as I improved I adjusted my wattage so my zones stayed accurate. I also though that doing them more regularly would help me get used to the toughness of the efforts. I see what everyone is saying though.
I would separate your blood sugar control from your training.
For blood sugar control you could keep your bike on your trainer all day and then jump on it for 15 minute bouts of Z2 to control blood sugar after meals. Or swing a kettle bell and do some squats 5 or 10 times a day.
For cycling training, I would agree to stick with a plan and follow it. It’s possible that fasted morning rides are not helping you get stronger. Fasted rides are usually used for weight loss and fat metabolism training. The usual recommendation for that is once or twice per week.
I have a friend who is Type 1 diabetic and we’re both cyclists of a distinguished age.
He like you finds that the exercise helps manage his condition.
About a year ago a cyclist from Novo Nordisk came to give a talk in a local city. I’d been following Team Novo Nordisk for a while so I was keen to hear what he said as the team ONLY employ diabetics (I presume T1 only). He gave loads f really good tips for both diabetics and non-diabetics.
He left with an open offer to help. My mate has asked a few questions via Facebook; I’m sure the offer stands as the entire point of the team is to support diabetics getting into cycling (and parallel endurance sports).
Hope they come up trumps as the guy was really friendly and open.
Just a separate interpretation. I don’t think the way you use the ramp test shows an accurate estimate of increases in terms of FTP( looking at the figure above, within every week).
What you’re actually doing is you train to test better. Of course, by gathering more experience and the feeling for holding high power during the test, you then test better next time.
But your physiology underlying FTP, unfortunately, hasn’t changed much. These adaptations take significantly longer.
You crash (“loose all FTP gains”) once you’ve build so much fatigue that you don’t do well anymore in the ramp test.
True physiological adaptations that translate to FTP gains don’t dissolve in a week.
As noted above, rest week doesn’t mean you need to be off the bike/doing no sports so that’s got your T1D covered.
I’m hearing 2 goals: 1) manage blood sugar and 2) raise ftp. I suspect you believe doing 2 will help you manage 1 faster/better, but I’m not so sure. Intense workouts will increase gluconeogenisis (glucose production in he liver; pretty sure t1’s are no exception in this regard). That is backwards progress re: goal 1.
@CJKeig as you accumulate more hours/week in the saddle you need more taper days to super compensate. You seem to be able to make ample progress on ~6 hours/week. At that work load you really don’t need more than a few days taper to supercompensate…then fitness starts to decay. Two weeks is probably too much recovery/taper for you at this point in your training.
So from that perspective, I’m not surprised to see a little drop off in performance after two low-volume weeks.
BUT GOOD NEWS! Now you are fresh and ready to attack your training calendar again.
Thanks for the help mate. I do feel like I can usually improve a lot on relatively low hours, 6-8 typically. This morning I actually do feel super fresh so looking forward to getting back on to it.
I’ve never looked at them separately but I see where you’re coming from.
I’d say the bulk of my rides are fasted, usually, typically 5 rides a week fasted. My logic was: 1) better sugar control as mentioned 2) if I eat then ride I risk going hypo & not finishing the workout 3) if I leave the workout for later on in the day, this time of year, I can typically only do zone 2 rides rather than anything harder due to the heat generation.
Does the amount of fasted rides I’m doing, even if only short zone 2 rides, have a detrimental effect long term on fitness if done too often?
Cheers Jules. I’ll go over their site for what blogs & videos they might have.
I’m glad your T1 friend is going good with cycling. I’ve gotten my blood sugars levels to non-diabetic levels through heavy zone 2 & some threshold training previously. My doctor said if I went into the hospital & they didn’t know my background & ran my bloods they wouldn’t spot it. I only got into cycling because of vegan YouTuber called DurianRider, I never knew it would be such a good sport for diabetics. TrainerRoad took it to the next level for me & improved them even more, very thankful for the team for doing what they do.
Probably 3 goals really 1) better blood sugar control 2) increased FTP specifically to increase the wattage I’m doing in zone 2 & 3) improved time to exhaustion on the bike i.e. pushing my time on the bike to the right as much as possible.
For me, intense workouts can be super beneficial for my sugars rather than detrimental. When I do Sugarloaf +5 as an example, my blood sugars can be relatively flat for days after. I think training stimulus is so high that it helps clear out any intramyolipids, fat in the muscle cells that inhibit insulin & the recovery needs cause increase metabolism so my body needs the sugar basically.
Some years ago, I did about a 7 hour outdoor ride with loads of crazy elevation over about 80 miles, for a week after I hardly needed any insulin. I also managed to get off one of my insulins entirely for a month.
Fair enough, you know your physiology better than any of us. A threshold workout like Sugarloaf you’re only going to be able to do like twice per week long term. A major concern with trying to manage a health condition with exercise is that it needs to be sustainable long term. You don’t want it to lead to injury, burnout etc. Things like recovery weeks in the TR plans may let your sugar levels rebound, which could be demoralizing.
There was another diabetic (t1 I think, don’t recall for sure) just a week ago who was doing low intensity workouts daily and getting results but questioned whether they even needed to TR to do that. You’ve found a a level of intensity where you can make significant headway on reducing medication load, but there may be other approaches than punishing yourself on the bike. I suspect that long-term a more boring routine will be superior.
Anyhow, best of luck. I think a future update in how it’s going would be a valuable contribution to the forum, just to document the process and results. Many others in your same situation would love to have your experience to build on.
EVERYBODY on this board wants to increase their watts - racers and non-racers alike. This is what TR is designed to try to do for people.
I’ll offer some anecdotal evidence here: I was stuck at like 230w for like 1.5 years on TR, but really never fully committed to doing the workouts or sticking to the plan. This year I decided to shut off my brain, and just stick to whatever plan showed up on my calendar (COVID helped out with this). I jumped to 260w end of March - and here’s my TSS chart over the months. Consistency is king here.
Shut your brain off, stop cherry-picking workouts. and just do the workouts. Trust that Nate and team have your backs on how to get faster here. That’s what you’re paying them for too.
