I am time crunched and often have exactly 1 hour to spend on the trainer. Before I switched over to TR I would do 1 hour zone 2 rides by selecting 65% of my FTP and just riding that power for the whole hour. No warm up, cool down, or fluctuation in the ride. I actually love these 1 hour sessions with no variability.
Because I trust and admire TR’s science based approach I’m curious why so many of the endurance workouts have the following structure….
What is the thinking or science behind having these “intervals” during a zone 2 ride? To me it would seem better to choose a part of the zone (low, medium, or high zone 2) for a particular ride and just stick to that power steady the whole time. I’m curious what the thinking is and what I’m missing.
TR does this to break up the monotony that people claim that they feel on endurance rides, but I’m not sure how switching from 70% to 60% and back is cause for much excitement.
The types of workouts you are looking for can easily be built in the workout creator. I’ve built nearly an entire library of constant power endurance workouts ranging from 60% to 75% for up to 3.5 hours at 15min increments. TR will score the WL of these rides if you track that.
Like you, I don’t need as much of a warm up as they provide and I definitely don’t need any sort of cool down, so I feel like I can be a bit more efficient with the ones I’ve built.
Below is an example with a quick ramp from 50% to the target power and then only the slightest ramp down at the end (if you don’t include this TR won’t recognize it as a final recovery and let you extend the workout). Also there is a bug causing the WL to display as zero, but TR calculates it.
I’m not really looking for a way to do the steady power sessions (I can set a steady power by syncing my bike computer), more just wondered why they have so many set up this way. I wondered if it was to create some variation to break up monotony, but that seems counter to the platform in many ways. If steady power is better at “making you a faster cyclist” then I assume thats what they would provide. I kind of assumed there would be another reason.
I’m not a fan of these either. I’d much prefer a completely consistent target so I can easily monitor HR drift. When doing long 3-5 hr workouts, sometimes I manually adjust the intensity during the lower power sections so keep the target power as consistent as possible throughout. I should get around to creating my own workouts one of these days, I guess.
I think you are being generous here. I have never seen any science for these types of intervals. It is good marketing that TR has built a reputation with many that all of their choices are “science-backed.”
This is all about variation to break up monotony. For some, it helps the time pass. For others, it is annoying.
What really helps make faster cyclists is doing the work vs. not doing it! Hence, a lot of workouts are structured with moderate steps up and down in power solely to help lessen boredom/monotony for some people, since a workout completed is usually better than one not completed.
Absolutely this. Consistency is the key. FWIW I’ve completely stopped doing “structured” TR endurance and easy workouts. I put them all as Solo Rides on the plan, then if doing them indoors I simply pick an appropriately length Free Ride, make sure erg mode is off and just watch TV. Gives me the freedom to vary cadence and power within zone according to how I feel without having to dial down a structured workout or feel like I’m “failing” it.
I’ve been doing my shorter prescribed zone 2 “interval” endurance rides that are prescribed by TR during the week and using the “free rides” for my longer sessions on the weekend. Like you said @cartsman - the free ride lets you adjust power/cadence as you see fit. If HR is drifting too much for whatever reason, I can dial it back a bit and not feel like I’m failing.
The only issue with free rides is that you can’t extend if you want to. This is why I chose choose whatever z2 workout has the IF I want and approximately the duration, then I ride in resistance mode and ignore the intervals. Then if I have the time or in the mood for more z2 I can keep extending the cooldown indefinitely.
There are scenarios where 5-10 watts do make more of a difference.
At (or above) your FTP makes a big difference - I can notice being 5W too high and definitely 10. But the other area for longer endurance is that high endurance / low tempo where you’re below/at/over your LT1 / Aerobic Threshold. 70% is in the ballpark for some people and potentially over.
But, if you’re just talking about 1 hour Z2, I agree, it’s to break up the monotony.
That may be true for 5 or 10 watts, but my ride this morning was an hour long with 3 x 10 min at 67.5% ftp broken up with 2 x 10 minute valleys at 55% ftp which was a difference of 40 watts. Definitely noticeable and seemingly intentional.
Genuinely had no idea that Free Rides couldn’t be extended! I’ve clearly never felt the need to ride any longer than planned on indoor endurance rides.
I absolutely pick whatever workout has the most “intervals”. I probably spend 2-3% of my entire year on the trainer, if I am generous, and seeing a flat, boring line would drive me insane.
Woah - agreed, that is noticeable and not steady-state. I’ve experienced Trainerroad’s zone 2 workouts with smaller adjustments, which is more what I was thinking about.
This bugs me, and I wish you could either extend the workouts or just select Free Ride without any default times and it would keep going until you stopped. I also like using Free Rides for endurance rides a lot of the time for reasons others have mentioned.
Agreed, generally. But what I meant was if those watts are within the specified zone of the interval it may not matter. This can be experienced when you try sticking to a wattage number without ERG mode, for example, or outside.
