After going through a couple of programs of sustained power build and not seeing any great change and with the weather good and restrictions on riding outdoors eased.
I want to ride outdoors with pals at the weekend,(Usually not an easy ride)
I lack power for sure (dropped on short sharp bursts of power)
So during the week should I follow a Sweet spot plan or maybe do some Vo2 sessions?
Thoughts please
How much base (i.e., Sweet Spot) have you done. You mention a couple of Build, but what happened after/before?
Not seeing any change in any part of you power profile (i.e., 10sec, 5min, 20min etc)?
Thank you for your reply
Before that was a lot of riding no focus 16 - 18k a year, for about 4 years.
I thought I had good base fitness so didn’t do any traineerroad base phase, had done weekly indoor sessions, but not really structured.
Really only measured the 8 & 20 minute power.
Have you gone through the short power progression? You may need to raise your ceiling before you can improve FTP at this point. Sounds like a plateau buster might be the ticket.
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When you say not seeing much change what do you mean? Did your FTP increase, and do you find the steady state stuff slightly easier after these plans? if you do and the group has remained at same speed you should find you’re fresher for the sudden changes. ie. its a lower % of FTP or are you now pushing at the front more etc so just adding to stress?
Sweet spot Base 2 is a good mix in the low/mid plans. They are a pre build rounded plan which from personal experience and other posts on improvements give good results. Sustained build should have helped though, both with the V02 workouts and slightly greater than FTP/ or over under workouts. If not how closely did you follow the plan and have you got a Power meter and recently tested? Did you struggle with the workouts? most people find Build tough if FTP is set right
A V02 block is a good alternative if its relatively short durations you want to improve, to push up the ability to hold high numbers and might change up your intensity and give the body something new to stop plateaus. if all you are doing is long rides no focus then you need to put in a wider range of intervals and give 2 structured and higher intensity rides per week a go and stick with for 4-8 weeks.
PS Wheeler?
Thank you
Sounds about right for me.
Where in the training plans do I find short power progression, I haven’t seen that one 
I think that may be a reference to this:
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Thank you and yes I am a wheeler 
are you?
FTP a slight decrease but I feel that was a bad day 
I felt the steady state had got worse which was the thing I was probably best at.
Sweet spot Base 2 was one that I was looking at.
I didn’t really struggle with the plan but was on the limit a good few times, and maybe even found the easier days pretty tough though.
Yes I do have a power meter and stuck to the plan pretty well really maybe not so much on the rest week 
No problem. If you use plan builder you need to pick an A event that requires short power (like a criterium). You will still go through the base period, then instead of sustained power you will get the short power build followed by the relevant specialty phase. Otherwise you can just go into the plans and add short power build manually, but PB makes optimization super easy and fast. You can also set the “start date” in the past to manipulate what PB spits out.
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I just did a 2 wk (6 round) VO2 block and saw major improvement (17 watts; 240-257). In the 5th day of my recovery week and legs are just getting back to normal so prepare to feel absolutely thrashed for multiple days of you go with that option!
Agreed it is a great alternative.
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Yes
If the competitive punchy stuff is the no 1 priority then you could consider doing a 2 wk V02 would be a good experiment and might have more an immediate impact. Its lower risk in time commitment and generally works. Then you can consider the longer term planning through a plan builder.
Depends when you completed Build/s if its wise to just do another one straight away or if you had a gap, then maybe you could do a build that is more aligned to your requirements ie Short power build (SPB) and start that. If it was recent perhaps best to do Sweet post base 2 first then SPB or something along those lines with rest in between but you dont necessarily need to do the full 6 wk SSB2 i.e. 3+1rest. Doing base-build now is quite a long cycle and with the summer coming up you sound like working on this area now is probably key
Therefore, If you’ve just finished Build then a specialist plan might be better. i.e RR as this would be very focused on higher power development. Sounds like you have a good base and w/4 years and those miles. The essence of the Specialist plan is to target areas that fit your event/goal which in this case is like a RR or use workouts for inspiration
"The demands of rolling road races are often more wide-ranging than races including long, sustained climbs. Riders face recurrent flurries of attacks & counterattacks in any road race, but when the course undulates with more frequent & shorter climbs, even breakaway riders find themselves exerting widely varied efforts over the course of their races.
So the aim here is to increase Sprint & Anaerobic power in addition to improving power & time at VO2 Max while also maintaining your base, aerobic Endurance fitness."
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Second this. Although I would be cautious about jumping straight from a sustained power build to a short power specialty due to the different requirements. Perhaps reset with 2-3 weeks of non-plan base work then hit short power build into RR.
Thank you so much.
The 2 wk V02 experiment sounds like fun.
I was going to say i have not long finished build so will have a couple of weeks of easy non focused riding and then enjoy the challenge.
I’m not a racer but would be nice not get dropped on the club runs
Thanks again and hopefully I will survive and let you know how it goes
Here’s a link to a forum thread since you’re interested:
Enjoy! it’s a blast . . .
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