SST & Riding Tempo & Training in "No Man's Land"

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devinci
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by devinci

I don't think I have read someone saying training at endurance pace aka Z2 is bad, at all....

KWalker
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by KWalker

Hunter Allen has claimed in several places that if your Z2 ride is 2hrs or less you should ride tempo.
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KWalker
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by KWalker

Tinea Pedis wrote:
KWalker wrote:but then again if your FTP was set too high and you were belting out these SST intervals at 90% and find them straining, then maybe that is indicative of my point because, since your real FTP is lower, you're really training above 95%.

Flip side being, does that not mean it's close to the power you should be holding for SST work?

And Alex Simmons has multiple mentions that FTP is not 95% of 20 min, regardless of the athlete's ability.


Yup, but many people still follow that paradigm for whatever reason.
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devinci
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by devinci

KWalker wrote:Hunter Allen has claimed in several places that if your Z2 ride is 2hrs or less you should ride tempo.



Oh I was refering more to the content of this forum thread here.

This is why I usually don't care about what Hunter Allen says.

KWalker
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by KWalker

kos wrote:Appeals to success. Fact is, the bulk of people who do this for a living and win stuff train overwhelmingly in z2. They may get the REASONS why z2 training works wrong, but it's a simple fact that the most successful endurance athletes don't spend their time doing HIT. These are people with access to the best coaches and labs and physiological testing, and they're doing what works best for them. And then they win stuff.

It's that simple.

But the assumption you've made that most requires scientific backup is the notion that HIT trumps z2 endurance training in achieving gains. There are myriad anecdotes, including my own experience, that suggest that z2 is a more effective way to achieve progress. These are people going from HIT to z2 and busting through performance plateus (the study I cited way above has a bunch of them), in addition to Mark Allen, Freddie Rodriguez, and several people in this thread. You called such assertions "pure tripe". It is THAT claim that needs to be supported.


You're citing 2 riders that ride races of 5 hours (RRs and IM bike legs). There are other disciplines where athletes do train with less volume (especially in running and swimming), especially towards goal events. There are a few pro's programs that I have seen that have less volume than Freddie's, but a hell of a lot more intensity. The information you provided from him sounds a lot like how pros used to train in the 90's, but I've yet to see an example or hear an anecdote from any high level cyclist that completely writes out intensity as he does. He got lucky at Nats, but he hasn't been very successful for years and was never that great on the pro level. I'd hardly take his theory as doctrine, even if it works for him. Not saying they use a very how volume HIT program (although some track runners do with great success), but there has to be an appropriate mix.
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KWalker
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by KWalker

Yup, unfortunately most people buy a PM, buy his book, join the wattage list or do a few Google searches, and then think they completely understand physiology or training methodology. If I hadn't been through this folly myself I would never have been motivated enough to seek out more info.
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FredBloggs
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by FredBloggs

KWalker wrote:
"I've never seen any other "training zone" document that drags zone 4 down so far into sub-threshold territory as the Coggan chart.


So, just out of interest what % level of FTP would you suggest that Zone 4 should be?

Based on the Coggan Zones, my training zones are below. A few other questions/observations, if I may. There is much talk of riding at prescribed zones, yet each zone in itself covers a broad parameter. It's one thing to ride at LT at say 91% of FTP, another to carry out that same interval effort at the other end of the zone, 105%.

Coggan Zones based on FTP of 299
L.1 FTP: 35- 55 (105-164) Active Recovery - All Day riding
L.2 FTP: 56-75 (167-226) Endurance - All Day riding
L.3 FTP: 76-90 (227-271) Tempo - 30mins-8hrs
L.4 FTP: 91-105 (272-316) LT - Blocks of 10-60 mins
L.5 FTP: 106-120 (317-358) AC (Vo2 Max) - 3-8mins
L.6 FTP: 121-150 (362+) Anaerobic Capacity - 30s-2min
L.7 FTP: N/A Neuro Muscular Power - 5-15secs

Sweet Spot
FTP: 88-93 (263-278)

What I'm not reading in this thread (and this goes for anybody that has contributed) is that it's pointless stating that a particular zone should form the bulk of your training schedule as it's all very much dependent on what form of racing you do. The demands of a MTB Race for instance are VERY different to that which is required for a Road race. I'm not going to delve into what I do in a typical week, as others have said, it's very much dependent on where you are at in the season and what type of racing you compete in.

What I do believe is this, your training schedule should reflect the type of racing which you will be competing in. Give me somebody whose training schedule consists of 85% of L2 and drop them into a MTB Race, I can guarantee you this, they won't know which way the riders at the front went. By the same token, if you was to drop them same MTB riders into a 150-200km Road race they would have been tailed off long before the finish line.

I was recently out in Tenerife and managed to tag along on a few rides with Lampre. Their rides were very different to the type of riding which I do, the majority of the rides being Z2 with some Vo2 (top end) efforts thrown in. If I'm being honest I was a bit bored as I was chomping at the bit when we came to the climbs but just sat on the back twiddling. When they did light the blue touch paper though there was no hanging about :-)

I believe that Team Sky use a reverse periodization approach to training which flies in the face of typical training convention methods. Tim Kerrison, an Australian Sports scientist who previously worked with Swimmers was brought in to re-think the team’s training methodology and introduced this revolutionary training method. The rest, as they say is history.

I'm surprised that nobody has brought up the reverse periodization concept yet as it ties very well into this thread.

KWalker
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by KWalker

Sky does not use RP for all events or riders. Big misconception. What they did was use shorter, but still threshold efforts in the winter and stretched them out longer and longer because the Tour had a very long TT that year (every race Wiggins did actually did), its very race specific to the climbing done in the Tour, and yes part of it was slightly reverse, however, from what I've read they were not out there flogging themselves with z6/HIT work in the winter whatsoever.

As for training zones there is probably nothing wrong with the Coggan zones on face value. As you yourself said the end of a zone that you are in can influence the duration and number of intervals done in that zone. The problem I find is that most people simply can't properly set their FTP for one reason or another, which skews the work they did. I rarely (don't think I ever have) have seen someone definitely set too low, but I've seen cases where a normal 20min test with a hard 5min effort before yielded a much higher FTP estimate than the rider was capable of.

Personally I am going to use a blood lactate curve as well as a few of the new power-duration models that have recently been released and see where they lie, however, I have a pretty regular test course/method that has yielded consistent and predictable results for the past 3 years.
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Tinea Pedis
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by Tinea Pedis

devinci wrote:I think they are effectively older sources.

My opinion is you get adaptations in every zone you train in. The adaptations are just different and specific to each training intensity.

Page one...
viewtopic.php?p=599483#p599483

If I'm being honest I was a bit bored as I was chomping at the bit when we came to the climbs but just sat on the back twiddling. When they did light the blue touch paper though there was no hanging about

Because they understand, 'you do your hard stuff hard and your easy stuff easy'.

I'm surprised that nobody has brought up the reverse periodization concept yet as it ties very well into this thread.

There's a whole thread...

viewtopic.php?f=8&t=109619

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Rick
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by Rick

For me, training in "no man's land" works very effectively simply because "no man's land" is also "no refrigerator land".

Every hour on the bike is another hour not eating (no eating a lot anyway.)
:smartass:

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Tapeworm
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by Tapeworm

This is an interesting lecture on the polarised method of training, worth a watch:-

http://www.canal-insep.fr/fr/training-p ... seiler-mov
"Physiology is all just propaganda and lies... all waiting to be disproven by the next study."
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