On long rides after 15 mins warm up, I tend to go from virtually no decoupling at 3 hours (<1%) to 4-6% at hour 4. This has happened the last 2 weekends (4.5 and 4.75 hour rides). What’s the recipe to improve - just keep pushing past 4 hours? I suspect I could fuel more than 60g p/h given I’m ending up with around ~3800KJ burnt.
It feels somewhat backwards to make decoupling a metric to decide on training to drive endurance adaptations.
Just curious whether it suggests there’s something actionable other than continuing to push to and beyond that duration. Probably overthinking as always!
Two things I’d recommend: 1) Ride longer, within reason. If you’re seeing 20% decoupling in that last hour, then 4 hours might be a limit at that current power/RPE. If you’re seeing like 6%, yeah go ride longer. 2) Progressive Z2. Start lower, end higher. I do most of my long rides this way, even riding by feel… they just end up that way provided your pace is truly easy enough at the start. I usually start around 60% and end up closer to 70% on my longest rides. This has helped manage fatigue and improve my endurance overall.
As mentioned, I’m not tied to it. It’s an indicator of where an athlete is in terms of endurance. Doesn’t mean I can’t tell an athlete that’s riding 4hrs and decoupling 20% (I had one earlier this year) to go ride for 5 hours, but it could mean that when I do that, he’s gonna be cooked. And FWIW, Jim Vance recommended coaching endurance rides in a similar fashion in his book with Joe Friel. Specifically I track EF and Pw:HR for long, steady endurance rides and I expect to see Pw:HR decrease with increasing EF over a period of several weeks to months, depending on frequency.
Those metrics are often useful in knowing when it’s time to progress to the next phase of training, whether that’s longer endurance riding or threshold work or… whatever’s next. I’m hardly alone in using decoupling and EF for that.
But for that athlete with the nearly 20% decoupling, when I was pushing him to 4 hours, I knew he hadn’t done many of those rides in his past, so when I saw the 20%, I wasn’t surprised, and we banged on low-zone 2 4-hr rides for about six weeks. Guess what happened? Guess what he can do now? Guess what he said about 4 hour rides then and what he says about them now?
2 Likes
Maybe I am just taking a simplestic view…if your 20% decoupling in the last hour…you know it without even looking at the metric. You just are not strong enough yet to ride that long at that intensity. Isnt that really just the take away.
Of course it is, but as a coach I am looking at it for other people and if they’re not commenting or telling me, decoupling is showing me that their endurance is lacking and 4hrs (or whatever) is enough to push adaptations for them.
1 Like
It can actually mean several things. Because decoupling happens for many reasons.
1 Like
I’m really curious why this feels backwards to you?
Decoupling without context is not a terribly useful measure. Decoupling WITH context is very useful. When I track decoupling, I look at things like ride temperature, pacing, etc. For example, is it a certainty that an athlete decoupling 20% in a 4-hr ride is unfit at that duration? What if he starts the ride at 7am and it’s 60 degrees but by 11am it’s 80? What if they did the ride fasted? That’s why when I log these things, I make notes of ride conditions. Then I can look at trends and how they develop. If I see a series of 4-hr rides with very high decoupling, then I’ve got a pretty good idea of what’s going on, and if its trending downward, I’m usually confident we’re on the right track provided other things are falling in line as well. If I see decoupling of 20% then -1% then 6% then 15%, then something else is probably going on.
Coupled with EF trends, Pw:HR trends are a very effective way of watching for improvements in endurance. EF trends up, Pw:HR trends down, athlete is probably getting fitter with improving endurance. You can also look at raw average power and TTE at 70% or 65% of FTP if you want to, among other things.
Point is, you’re watching for trends here, not necessarily raw numbers.
Athlete A rides zone 2 for 5 hours with decoupling of 4% and EF of 1.50.
Athlete B rides zone 2 for 5 hours with decoupling of 7% and EF of 1.20.
Which athlete is fitter?
Now what if I tell you Athlete A weighs 100kg and has a max HR of 169 and Athlete B weighs 65kg with a max HR of 195. Now what do you think?
Most metrics are meaningless without context. Pw:HR is one of those and so is EF. By no means am I advocating for planning your entire base block around “Once EF is increasing and Pw:HR is <6% for certain durations, it’s time to move on to the build phase.” But that is a paraphrased statement from a highly respected triathlon coach’s book, and lots and lots of coaches out there use Pw:HR coupled with EF trends to evaluate their athlete’s endurance progress. Raw numbers matter a lot less than trends.
2 Likes
My kids came home yesterday, its busy around here and at work. I’ll answer you when I get a chance. The short answer is to start with the end in mind - endurance adaptations are largely driven by the number muscle contractions and not intensity. I’ll paraphrase Friel as well, from a series of blog posts from 2010. Base 1 is about endurance rides (generally 1-2 hours each), skills, and resistance training. Coming an actual time-off off-season he expects rapid fitness gains and because of that (and impracticality of testing for FTP), he likes to use HR zones. He likes to have a weekly steady endurance ride to monitor decoupling trends. Base 2 adds tempo work (muscular endurance), cuts back on resistance training, and extends duration of endurance rides to 2-4 hours each. The decoupling comment you are referring to - less than 5% comments on these longer 2-4 hour steady endurance - is to evaluate when to move on to Base 3. Blog posts like this Base 1 Training, Part 4 - Joe Friel and this Training in Base 2 and 3 - Joe Friel And at this point you might notice a lot of similarity between Base 1/2/3 and TR Traditional Base 1/2/3. HTH.
3 Likes
No worries on the response time. I know you read a lot, so was curious where the “backwards” thought came from. Admittedly I’m still not clear on it because what Friel said and what I do aren’t out of step. His periodization model is not one I strictly follow.
The comment I’m referring to is based on Friel’s thinking, but it didn’t come from Friel. It’s from Jim Vance, coach to Ben Kanute, and his book Triathlon 2.0. The thinking is the same, but Vance doesn’t use a Base 1, 2, 3 periodization. Rather it’s basically just Base into Build, more like what Tim Kusick talks about where you have an early base and a late base period. Then you’re using Pw:HR and EF trends to evaluate when you’ve established enough base to move on to a Build of some sort depending on the length of the event. In triathlon, with three or four distinct distances that athletes are training for, it’s pretty simple to target a certain length of endurance ride and evaluate decoupling and EF for that specific length. (e.g. 70.3 it might be a 3-hour ride, 140.6 it might be a 5 or 6 hour ride).
When establishing an aerobic base for a cyclist who might do a bunch of 45 min crits and a few 3-hour road races, it’s a little more challenging. I usually aim to push them out to: 1) as long as they reasonably have time for in their lives; 2) as long as they can reasonably handle. That second one is where decoupling comes into play. If I know I have an athlete that’s never done more than 3 hours, I’m not going to send him out for 5 until I think he can reasonably handle that without imploding. That means they know how to pace an endurance ride (not something you can take for granted with newer cyclists!) and they’ve got enough fitness where the extended duration isn’t going to put them away. When I see high decoupling, I know we’re challenging their endurance (all else being equal). When it starts to come down and EF going up, they’re progressing, and I can evaluate adding duration or moving to another phase of training. Essentially just the principle of progression applied to duration and using those markers as aids to know when to progress that duration.
I do similar with SST and other TTE progressions, where I’m looking for EF trends late in the ride and potentially decoupling if the intervals are long enough as markers of how aggressively I can progress. Some people can handle big jumps in duration for SST progression. Others might need something that’s more in line with what you or I could handle for a threshold progression (like less than 10% each week).
I’m starting to learn more about using EF even with VO2max sets. A lot of us probably kind of do this anyway, but working with my coach and looking at EF late in a VO2max rep and how it trends over the course of workouts and reps within workouts can give some insights into fatigue and when it might be time to pull the plug on a workout or a block.
Goes back to what you and I were talking about someplace on this forum a while ago: EF is a pretty cool metric that is probably underutilized!
1 Like
Opinion based on experiences self-coached and coached. I’d rather work thru progressing the one long endurance ride on Saturday, say from 3 to 5 hours, independent of aerobic decoupling. Go for the adaptations and use RPE like you hear Kolie advocate, if you want another coaches opinion. Endurance is a pretty wide range. The HighNorth Cycling Physiology & Training Science booklet I purchased has an opinion, and for endurance progression its to focus on subjective measures (how fatigued later in a ride, post-ride muscle soreness, fueling needs for example two months ago I needed 90g/hr to complete 2 hours but now I don’t need to fuel 2 hours).
What I thought I read above, was a question on how to use aerobic decoupling to decide how long to ride. Which is putting the cart in front of the horse, hence why I said backwards. Progress duration based on a plan. If you decide 4 hours is the right number of hours to apply the decoupling metric, and its possible to “control” conditions of such a ride, then use it to periodically determine if you’ve reached the point of diminishing returns. But don’t use it to limit duration of long ride.
Let me give a numerical example: riding 2 hours at 70% FTP and then 2 hours at 58% FTP, with the entire time at a constant HR (HRc).
Decoupling = [(FTP*.7/HRc)-(FTP*.58/HRc)] / (FTP*.7/HRc)]
simplifying the math… an exercise for the reader as we said in college LOL
Decoupling = (.7-.58) / .7
Decoupling = 17%
Now lets say it was 70% FTP for two hours at 138bpm, and then 56% FTP at 138bpm. Decoupling = (.7-.56)/.7 = 20%
I’ve had rides like that (oversimplification but not far off). Lets say it was week2 of a 3 week microcycle. All endurance power. Didn’t bonk. Didn’t impact future workouts. So why would having 20% decoupling be bad and stop me from doing 4.5 hour or 5 hours next week?
I think it just depends on the athlete and the goal event. Good enough is good enough. It’s not like you go into a build and stop doing steady endurance rides or even progressing duration of those rides necessarily. You can still build endurance in a TTE block.
Of my 10 coaches athletes at the moment, maybe one of them is going to be calendar limited in that way. Most of them I’m building long term aerobic fitness, so while there will be blocks where it’s not the focus, pushing aerobic adaptations will be priority for probably 42 out of a notional 50 week training year, for example. That is just the nature of the level of athlete I’m working with, for the most part. In one case, it’s the nature of working with someone whose focus is marathon MTB.
It shouldn’t in that context. But again, I’m coaching mostly remote athletes, so when I see 20% decoupling, I’m pulling the string for subjective feedback, fueling, environmental factors and then making decisions based on that data in context.
When you’re self coached, you have all that subjective information right at hand so if you’re able to be objective with your own training, you can make good decisions.
1 Like
Essentially this just boils down to subjective vs. objective. I’m coached by Empirical now myself, so I’m pretty well aware of how they program their endurance riding. The answer here is a little of both, and I think you seem to be pigeon holing me into saying “I only progress duration when decoupling is less than 5%”, and I’ve made pains to say that is not the case. It is a metric I look at for the duration of those rides to see if we’re challenging the rider or not, taking a whole lot of other information in for context.
As mentioned, more often than not, the limitation we run into is “life” or just sheer will to get out on the bike for certain durations. Not fitness. Not decoupling. I doubt that there are many coaches out there, probably including Empirical’s, that would take some of my athletes and tell them “Go ride for 6 hours” when the longest ride they can regularly do is 3 hours whether limited by time or limited by their endurance. That’s just bad coaching.
So all that to say, decoupling is one metric I look at to determine if what we’re doing is effective, and it is one metric I look at to determine if we are challenging an athlete’s endurance or if we need to push longer (or maybe harder).
If I wasn’t clear on that before, hopefully I am clear on that now.
Yes, and not pigeonholing, just responding to your original question on my backwards comment and not all the words between the backwards comment and here. 
I’m coached as you know, and I can’t speak for my coach but where I sit it decoupling is largely uninteresting in my own data - decoupling nearly always low up to about 2.5 hours, even on 1x90-min tempo and 1x30+ min threshold efforts.
However above 3 hours it hard to control conditions plus all the other possible variables at play, and therefore over 3 hours there is large variance on decoupling on my rides.
1 Like
Sorry for the multiples here, but this is less a response to any one person. Here’s a sample of a simple report and a graph I made in WKO5 for tracking long ride performance. This is a master’s athlete, and I kept his long rides reined in a little bit early in his base phase during a SST TTE progression, and then as his endurance came up, gave him a range of times he could ride, and he always opted for the longer duration (which is great!).
As I look at this, I see that his endurance improved significantly riding in that 4-5 hour range, and since he’s good at pacing and keeping things in control, I felt pretty confident letting him go ride as long as he wanted to (the prescription was 4-6 hours). He threw some 6+ hour rides in there, and that really stressed him as the reduced EF at those durations shows even with relatively low decoupling, but then EF started to come up before we moved on (now to his VO2max block).
(That decoupling outlier day was one of the hottest days I’ve ever been on a bike in October. He rode long that day as well).
2 Likes
It might be in this thread that I read about it but can’t find it now, there was some discussion of Z2 efficiency. ie riding in Z2 with a lower heart rate… Wouldn’t that be a sign that your FTP has simply increased, meaning that power is a lower IF for you now? Just trying to wrap my head around what is happening with Z2 efficiency.
It could, but not necessarily.
This thinking conflates the concepts of endurance and threshold. Yes, if FTP goes up you will be able to ride at a higher absolute power when you’re at (for example) 65% FTP. This is a very common occurrence off the couch/injury or new to the sport (many TR users). Someone riding endurance with a 400W FTP is naturally not working as hard at 210W as I am. It’s analogous to an 11th grader being better at math than a 4th grader. How does a 4th grader get better at math? Easy, he just gets himself to the 11th grade. How do you make endurance easier? Simple: just get a 400W FTP.
But after some time as a cyclist your FTP more or less levels off. Then what? To ask another way: how do amateurs with 410W FTP get beat by world tour pros with 375W threshold? (same weight). Because the WT pro has significantly better endurance.
Moreover, you can experience significant improvements in endurance while threshold remains the same or even goes down (one of the main themes of this thread as well as any “ride slow to ride fast” discussion). Often you can see this with increase in TTE, better trends w/r/t EF and Pw:Hr, and simply how you feel after extending long rides.
Endurance + threshold. Loosely coupled, but not the same.
7 Likes
It is all about where VT1 is as % of FTP.
You can raise Z2 power by increasing FTP or by increasing the %. The latter is called endurance training and is one of the major benefits of these long Z2 rides.
1 Like
This is true. FTP is not the best measuring stick for a 4-5 hour ride or race. Here is an article that highlights what you were saying:
From the article:
“It gives information about the current performance level for constant intervals and efforts, but it only gives me a number, and nothing more. It doesn’t tell me what happens if the athlete continues for more time at that effort.”
Many world-class male TT specialists have FTPs well in excess of 400 watts; Bradley Wiggins’s Hour Record power was estimated as 440 watts. However, in long-distance road races, it’s not what you can do after 20 minutes, but what you can do after five hours that counts.
“FTP doesn’t capture athletes’ durability or ability to repeat high-intensity bouts during races,” says Seiler. “It tells us something over a short period of time, but over a long period of time, the FTP power deteriorates. What is going on in their body after three or five hours? I want to know how durable your body is at low power, and its ability to repeat high-intensity efforts over time.”
2 Likes