Sometimes I think this entire discussion is making something really basic and easy as complicated as possible.
In this video (most likely posted on here before) Pogacar describes his training, which is according to a plan set by his coach ISM.
It’s not really rocket science, is it?
3 day block:
Day 1 - Long Z2 ride
Day 2 - Long Z2 ride with 2x 15min Z4 efforts, 30min recovery between
Day 3 - Z2 ride with 2x 15min Z4, 15min recovery
Tadej also mentions he sometimes do 40/20 intervals on Z2 rides, and I assume he does a few things other than those he mentions in the video.
This does not translate perfectly to Seiler’s 80/20 polarized structure, as he talks about percentage training days; 4 easy, 1 hard. Tadej (and thus ISM) seems to implement hard intervals in 2 out of 3 workouts. But measured in time I’m guessing it would look something like 80/20, ore even 90/10.
Maybe what applies to the very best rider(s) in the world doesn’t necessarily work for all of us. Just a thought.
Clearly it sounds like you believe I’m doing it wrong. Is it still because you “don’t feel like what you are describing aligns with any definition of FTP?” Or because I’m doing hard group rides and TTs wrong? Or both?
What about my endurance riding and how I set that? If I’m doing that wrong, in your view, its worth saying because I’m always open to feedback. Completely serious. We may not agree but I’m open to feedback.
apparently I was only paid attention when the TR head coach spoke or wrote about FTP. Many of my thoughts on the subject were influenced by what he said/wrote, among others. Have they removed those pods and blog posts? I stopped listening to the pod when the head coach was cut off a couple times.
FWIW my use of the FTP concept, as I’ve described it (border between stable/unstable, heavy/severe domains), has resulted in my most productive interval workouts and gains. Both self-coached and with a coach. And since this is the zone2 training thread, I should say all built on top of a solid endurance training foundation
Nope, knowing how FTP feels is good enough. If you know FTP by RPE just find the power while you are doing FTP test and hold the feeling as long as you can. And if you take into consideration ~2÷ PM error you have your FTP. Its FUNCTIONAL power.
P.S.
While reading the topic I am amazed how simple concepts are presented as extremely complicated. Most of us are limited by time and nothing else. If you can ride more - you will get better. Add threshold and vo2 max, and thats good enough. The rest is cherry on the cake if you have vo2 max aroud 90 and 50 races in the season
Several sources ballpark 40k time trial heart rate at roughly 92% (90-94%) of HRmax. And not 100%. I’ve not been able to pace ~10-mile TTs such that I end up at 100% HRmax, however I do put in whatever extra I have left at the very end, at the might drive my final HR closer to max.
And the “steady-state effort” is often reduced in practice, on flat terrain, to pace with a negative split and feel out / learn how to pace based on feeling. Pacing takes practice. Even the 20 minute / 10 mile ones.
Anyways, I’m going to stop posting on this semi-diversion. From my point of view it was worth of some discussion. As mentioned above, for those in the power analytics camp, endurance power (at specific HR) as % FTP tracked over time might help show fitness increases in a similar fashion as a lactate curve shift to the right. I’ve seen mine climb from 60% to around 72% average. And lately by the end of 100 minutes steady endurance, I’m putting out 75% ftp at same HR as earlier in the interval when it was around 68-70% (negative decoupling).
It’s just riding to that FTP sensation until exhaustion. I mean in a way, you could say it’s paced, insofar as you can tell if you go harder you’ll blow up. Yes RPE gradually increases, but it still feels like you can continue to push the same watts.
Do you need to know how long you can ride at LT1 to do it?
I stopped posting and actually made popcorn and mixed up some bags of malto/fructose/sodium. It is still raining outside so I’m off to put the bike on the trainer for an hour spin, in ZONE 2, before my big long slow distance (LSD) ride with Timothy Leary and his band of merry pranksters
but in these here parts of the interwebs, we aren’t slaves to fitness trends and instead call today’s workout ENDURANCE and tomorrow’s group ride is ENDURANCE too.
I wasn’t going to keep posting but I have to say it’s not reasonable to expect to hit MHR. It feels bad and hitting it might make you throw up and can only be sustained for a few seconds which is why the ftp zones are under max hr.
Kudos!, While your improvements seem to be real, this time of the year is mostly an indicator of who has out put the work in the off-season. So there’s a bit of a confounding factor when comparing to others.
