Yes really low, at times it was .20. HR and watts were in the endurance zone so was expecting it to close to .75.
Not possible for me to ride sweetspot for 3 hours
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Yes really low, at times it was .20. HR and watts were in the endurance zone so was expecting it to close to .75.
Not possible for me to ride sweetspot for 3 hours
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To get proper context you really need to look at it in conjunction with power, heart rate and, vey importantly, artifcats, Greater than 2% artefacts tend to render those portions of the data pretty meaningless. The 0.75 value of LT1 would also appear to be an average of the population tested and like everything else it seems is very individual.
Everybody wanted to talk about Lance’s high cadence training…the only reason he could spin so fast was because he was juiced with EPO and other performance enhancers.
When he dropped Jan Ulrich, Lance climbed AdZ at around 100rpm. That’s not uncommon. He would freely spin at 105-110rpm in his last competitive years. I’ve done a 5-hr century averaging 103rpm, and often do threshold work around 100rpm. Juicing isn’t why he had good leg speed. He just had good leg speed. Juicing is why he put out so much power AND had great leg speed that he was able to sustain.
Yeah that is my point, I have rivals that are sucking down all this z2 training after hearing from both older riders and from pogacar’s coach that it is amazing.
Really funny seeing guys in their early 20s being afraid of too much TSS… kids could be doing 1500 a week easy
I played around with DFAa1. Once you find your DFAa1 heart rate you don’t really have to use the app anymore. I found that it was around 125bpm for me. 130bpm if I were super fresh, and 120bpm if dog tired and had no business training.
Ok, here my Z2 December month update:
Recap first week was 12h30, second week 14h30. Less time so 3rd week was 10h but I started the Rapha Festive from that weekend and manage to ride 17h for the Festive500 so my fourth week was 15h. All indoor. Mostly Z2 and Z2+ and one zwift race (Dirt Series) which I won ;-).
Here my stats (zones are my personal zones with Z3 = my Z2+ zone and Z4 is tempo).

In WKO5 I monitor my EF for the endurace rides so hopefully I can track this further for the month to come. For January goal will be to continue doing the Z2 work but try to do more Z2+ rides. Maybe once a week a zwift race or higher intensity session and one low cadence tempo block session.
What are you target events/ goals/ needs/ wants (if any?) - this will help decide what you need to do next and importantly why.
I personally like block periodisation, so between now and May for a generally well rounded approach, I generically would be looking to do circa 4/5 blocks (3wk on 1wk off) which would go something like SST>Vo2>Over/Unders>Threshold…
Each block I would focus on progression. Eg. increasing TiZ week on week and at a macro level would intend to pull your PDC up and push your TTE out accordingly. I would do circa 2 hard workouts a week with as much z2/ volume around it as I could. Probably works well in the region of 12-16hrs p/w in my experience.
As always it depends and is specific to you though…how much time do you have p/w, what are your currently strengths and limiters, how rolling is rolling, etc.
Just a friendly reminder… it helps to align your power zones with your physiological zones. Z2 is supposed to be at and around lt1… z2 and lt1 should mean the same thing. Riding below lt1 where your lactate is at baseline shoukd be thought of as z1 in a 5 zone model since it is something that has very low metabolic strain (relative to training at lt1).
Makes the discussions make more sense since you’re talking about the same thing. You should customize your power zones to your power profile.
Says who? Why?
LT1 for most trained people would be between Z2 and Z3 zones in 5 zone model. For highly out of shape people LT1 would practically not exist as their lactate would rise immediately after doing even lightest exercise. For highly trained people LT1 could be well into Z3 of 5 zones model and for some highly trained thriathletes or ultra endurance cyclists it could almost be in the same place as LT2 (which generally would be between Z3 and Z4 in 5 zones model).
What ISM calls Z2, especially in the context of training sessions that he utilizes/promotes is at/around LT1, so depending on athlete it might be in quite different places of 5 zones model. As in this forum we mostly have either moderately or highly trained individuals LT1 would be between Z2 ans Z3 rather than Z1 and Z2 in 5 zones model.
“Z2” should be below LT1, IMO. Most people’s endurance riding should be done below LT1 and probably substantially so. There are cases where you might even ride quite a bit in zone 1, increasing volume, for example (ask me how I know!). Progress the duration/volume and let the power come up a bit.
But to tell everyone that Z2 should be equivalent to LT1, no, I can’t agree with that. It implies that the majority of your riding should be at or near LT1 and I just don’t think that is true for the vast, vast majority of cyclists.
Agree with most of this.
For more time crunched riders and those new to structure, I’ll progress them from SST to a threshold progression before hitting VO2max. Thought being try to nab gains under their ceiling, push TTE out, then raise the ceiling.
I typically do threshold after VO2max, sometimes mixing in over-unders if I’m trying to pull FTP out of them. Then I do higher power over/unders and FRC sets into racing with SST maintenance. Always pushing Z2, but when the work gets harder I try to keep things around .6IF, sometimes lower for some people.
The point is keep the easy days really easy so you can go hard/long on the hard days. If you’re doing 12-16hrs with 10hrs bumping right up at LT1, you’re leaving things on the table on your hard days IME. And maybe you want that if you’re training for long slow events.
As you said, it depends on the goals and the athlete.
Can you expand on this? What is being left on the table … how would you adjust?
You’re probably going too hard on the easy days, so you might not be able to go as hard as you like on your hard days.
Obviously depends on the athlete. Some riders who are used to that volume will have no issue with it. Others new to that volume should dial their endurance power way back. .5 or .55IF can be on the table.
If you’re going from 10 hours to 15 hours and you’re ending your endurance rides feeling your legs, you’re going too hard. At 10hrs, doing a single 4 hour or so ride every week, yeah, riding at LT1 might not be an issue. Trying to do that 4 times a week along with intervals… probably not a good idea for most.
The ones who devised the 5 zone model. Z1, below lt1, z2 at lt1, z3 … middle zone. Z4, threshold, z5 suprathreshold
From a physiological sense, those are the intent of the zones.
Even in this thread… everyone throws around z2, but then uses the save term to mean a very different physiological state.
Ism’s z2 = lt1
That’s the whole point of this thread, taking about training at lt1 meaning zone2… riding below lt1 should be thought of as z1
It should be thought of that if you ascribe to ISM’s model/philosophy. That’s a big if, and again, if someone believes they should ride endurance in zone 2 and spend most of their time there, and we describe that as at LT1, that’s a mistake.
So call it whatever you like: for most people, the majority of your ride time should be spent below LT1, not at or near it. You can call that Zone 1, Zone 2 or Zone Giggity. I don’t really care. ![]()
The one thing I can get down with in that five zone model is eliminating a hard boundary between endurance and recovery. I’d argue an hour at .5IF is recovery, but 4 hours at .5IF is endurance. ![]()