That term is in an old Coach Chad blog post from something like 8 years ago when TR changed the long weekend ride to shorter workouts and higher intensity.
I definitely feel the ‘brittleness’ at 5-7 hours/week, versus 7-9 hours/week. But my training age is low, I’m dealing with age related declines, and my off the couch aerobic fitness is a feeble 38 ml/min/kg. With endurance first training its around 46 now, and on a clear path to hit 50. Lots of endurance (7-9 hours/week) and I’m stronger and its in my power curve as well. YMMV and all that.
Random question for you ISM officianados, have any of you run your date through Xert. I see they do a calculated LTP (low power threshold) and I am wondering if anyone has compared.
No, i don’t know how it’s calculated, I also haven’t used Xert in my training. I think it looks like an interesting tool though.
I noodled around with that lower threshold power a few years ago. Totally unrelated. I don’t know how it’s calculated and honestly, that’s part of the problem.
As I understand it ,if your ride above your Xert Threshold Power you deplete your High Intensity Energy and your actual TP decreases. Your LTP is the lowest value that your TP decreases to when your HIE is completely depleted. It is a mathematical construct and generally approximates to broadly where your LT1 is. With me it seems to correlate when I’m on an extremely good day but is generally about 10W higher than my LT1.
It’s quite a good early season event to have a blast on if I feel like it. It’s not a qualifier event, and if I blow up it is no big deal. Felt strong till the end, riding in that in between zone I barely touch in training.
ISM never gives exact prescriptions so your guess is as good as anyone else. On the Peter Attia podcast the prescripton he does give is more for non-athletes wanting to be metabolically fit.
His lactate derived Z2 is probably more like tempo, so it would be quite fatiguing to just do ISM’s version of Z2 all the time. Thus you can break it up into intervals if you like. There are a million ways to slice and dice time at intensity for training.
Agreed, that’s why I am finding this hype of “Zone 2” rather unbearable. The way San Millan talks about it,
there’s something missing, intentionally or not. “Go ride in Zone 2 for a few hours three days a week” is
a rather vague prescription.
For future reference, a couple of dead giveaways that somebody at TP has played editor without my permission are:
if they attribute the article to Andy Coggan (I have only ever published under my full name), and/or
using both the appellation “Dr.” and listing my terminal degree, “PhD”, which is redundant. (Similarly, it is incorrect to list multiple degrees, e.g., “BS, MS, PhD*”, except when they are in different fields/represent different tracks, e.g., “MD, PhD”.)
ETA: With respect to this specific article, anybody who knows me knows that I would never endorse lab-based testing as the most accurate approach. After all, I have been pointing out that “the best predictor of performance is performance itself” for almost 40 y.
Basic ISM question. He prescribes his Z2 by lactate. I don’t have a meter. He also prescribes the talk test.
I’ve always interpreted the talk test as being able to recite the pledge of allegiance and came up with under 125bpm for myself. This is my Z2/Z3 border using WKO classic zones or iLevels.
Lately, we’ve been talking about how ISM Z2 is really tempo. So I was noticing that just after 125bpm (125-130bpm) my breathing noticeably ticks up a notch and I want to breath with my mouth open (VT1?). I can still talk though it is harder to do.
Also, when my breathing his this point, I’m just at about tempo power.
For some people yes, for others no. Its appears it is very individual when put alongside the traditional 5 zone model. As has been said before on here (I assume), he has his own zones based on substrate utilisation. For me I find out the point that my ventilation just starts to increase using the AlphaHRV app on my Garmin. I call this my AeT. ISMZ2 is then Aet to Aet+10 and on those steady rides I try to sit at the lower to middle end of it.
I am totally amused by this simplified recommendations that are given by “coaches”.
“Ride Z2, and do 15-20 min Z4 intervals.” WTF does that really mean?
Without knowing what Pogacar is really doing and what his physiology is (at what Fat/CHO intensity is he riding, what is his lactate curve, what is his Z2/Z3/Z4 with regards to lactate/metabolic curves),
it’s completely meaningless.
