TSS or time in "Sweet Spot" which is more important?

Ok, I've been getting back into weekday trainer workouts and I am noticing that I am getting a lot of time in the "sweet spot" compared to my outdoor rides with much less time and TSS.

I compared this past week when I had a grand total of just over 4 hours of riding (all inside) to my longest week of 2008 which was nearly 10.5 hours and had a lot of sustained climbing in it. What I found was that the 4 hours of focused indoor riding gave me nearly 2 hours at a wattage from 230-275 (85-100% of current FTP) while the 10.5 hours of outdoor rides gave me just under 2 hours in the same range. My TSS for this week was 350 or so and 640 for the long week.

I'm wondering just how much I will be hurt, if at all, by doing these lower TSS weeks as compared to the 500-600 TSS weeks I get in the Summer? Given that my goal for the Winter is to build FTP am I really losing anything or is the low TSS and corresponding CTL "just a number" that can be fixed with a few weeks of outdoor rides come Spring?

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good questions .. but why limit yourself to 4hrs indoor? For several seasons now I've been doing 6d/wk, roughly 9-10hrs/wk and around 700 TSS/wk for a 'winter' CTL of 100 or so. And I don't think I'm doing anything special at all ..

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rmur

Good observations. I agree with rmur's thoughts about extending trainer time to build training load. But I agree trainer rides are a lot more focused and tend to have a lot more time "in level". That's about the only good thing about them, I sure don't tend to ride many junk miles on the trainer.

It also sounds like you either ride a lot of group rides outdoors or don't leave home with a focused plan. That or it takes you a while to get to good training venue and you take it pretty easy to and from your favorite stretches of road. Trainer rides are a lot more focused since we don't spend much time idling or slowing for traffic but focused outdoor rides should yield more quality time than you've described if you're engaged in structured training.

Anyway, those weren't your questions. These days I prioritize indoor training goals in the following order:

- Continuous time in appropriate level comes first, IOW - targeting specific systems is the biggest goal whether or not it builds the most TSS. For instance if I'm targeting FTP gains I'll be doing more L4 work that might not build as much TSS as longer Tempo rides might. Or I might be engaged in an L5 focused block as preseason approaches, no way I get as much TSS out of a 5x5 VO2 Max session as SST or even L4 work.

- If you are doing a block of SST work then continuous time in level is a bit more important than TSS accumulated but they tend to be closely related. IOW, if I have my choice between a workout that drifts in and out of my targeted high Tempo/low L4 SST range that gets me more total time and TSS or one that keeps me solidly in my target range but doesn't last quite as long I'll take the latter.

- Considering the first two goals above I'll try to get as much TSS as I can short of hindering future workouts. That typically isn't a problem while training indoors as I tend to quit from boredom or discomfort long before I totally exhaust myself or bonk. But I'll avoid a two and a half hour indoor SST session (yeah I've done a couple in that range or longer) if it means frying myself mentally to the point where I can't make myself get on the trainer the next day. Another way of saying this is that I'll go for as much TSS as I can without introducing junk or filler miles on the trainer. I don't like junk miles outdoors, but the idea of spinning away time without much fitness benefit on the indoor torture machine is just too much to ask.

That's my take on it - YMMV,
-Dave

Put in the time at the appropriate levels, and the TSS will come.

Congrats on discovering how inefficient your outdoor riding was, but that doesn't mean you should cut back your trainer work to match it.

I'd like to remind all of Dr. Coggan's pithy saying: "the more you train, the more you can train". IOW, I don't think you can truly maximize your FTP gains without having built a good CTL base. Ideally (IMO), you want to do both simulteneously, eg. build CTL while training FTP. Sweet Spot Training... tahdaaaaaah!!!

2 x 20 min @ 95% FTP - good
3 x 20 min @ 95% FTP - better
1 x 60 min @ 95% FTP - betterer
1 x 90+ min @ 90% FTP - betterest ?
??? - best


I guess that's my vote for time in SS, since it will take care of TSS. Let TSS be whatever it is. No need for filler miles just to meet your weekly quota.

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The 'hurt' will depend on what your objectives are, and therefore what damage you're potentially doing to your achieving those objectives. If you're riding shortish time-trials, then a very intense dose of threshold work will be perfect. If you're going to be riding 150km road races, then restricting yourself to 4hrs/week especially at quite a steady-state effort will hurt your chances a lot.

You're also dealing in very tight definitions. There is lots more to efficient training than just banging out hours of sweet-spot. What was making up your 10.5hrs/week? From your description, if you had 2hrs at 85%FTP then by my calc's you've got 8.5hrs at 75%FTP. That's not junk miles in my book at all. That could be 2 sessions of 4hrs at a pretty tough rate. Even if it's 4 sessions of 2hrs each, that would be a pretty good week I reckon!

TOTALLY agree! But how would you define a "good" CTL base?

that's where having several years of data pays dividends. For me, I need to get up to roughly 75 just to feel normal. Last fall, CTL dipped to around 60 for three weeks and I felt like I had the endurance of a newborn kitten. No - I wasn't as cute though .

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rmur

Very subjective indeed. My CTL "threshold" is 80-85, meaning that at that point I feel like I can really train hard and get away with it. I'm currently inching up ever so slowly at 77 and still hurting a bit after 120+ TSS rides. And yeah, what Rick said, some data and experience is helpful. I'm hoping that by growing CTL very slowly this year (1-2/week) I'll be able to reach 100 for the first time.

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Interesting to see the different perspectives. I start feeling 'good' at around 50-60 CTL, 'killer' in the 80's, and the highest I've ever seen is ~85. I wonder if there's another feeling above that I've never even seen.

I think Dave Harris over on the Wattage list regularly hits 150+ ! endurance m/b is his thing.

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rmur

With data in hand dating back to Aug '06 for me when I am < 80 I feel out of shape, so I try to keep myself in the high 70s to low 80s when I cut back on training.

On the other hand I've found to make gains across the power specturm I need to be in the 105-112 range. North of 120 I start to get crispy.

That's pretty much where I am, below 70 and I feel out of shape, 110 is my highpoint and I held 100+ for quite a while last spring. I feel best when I've been over 100 but have traded a bit of CTL for freshness. I did a lot of my racing in the last two seasons in th 80-100 range.

Right now I'm hovering near 50 after my downseason and a lot of life's interruptions. It's awful, even the few outdoor rides I've managed when the weather has been warmer have felt terrible and I can hardly make an hour indoors right now.

-Dave

I was as high as 105 last year and that was restrained because I was worried about doing too much. I raced most of this year and last in the 80-100 area. I have come to realize that I don't need to be at 100 to race well - in fact, much, much less. I was down to the low 50's a few weeks ago. I have started consistent training again and I'm now in the low 60's (I've lost 3 kg too. )

Despite what I said above, I will acknowledge that something "happens" when I pass through about 90 - things really click, I feel different and I'm riding very well. On the other hand, I had my best ever 30-90 minute NP figures in September when I was in the low 80's. I had trained a lot of L5/L6 and I tapered well for that period so I suppose it's not surprising.

The example I posted was just that, an example to illustrate my observation. Believe me, I don't plan on only training 4 hours a week. My normal Winter week is 6-7 hours and in the Summer it's around 8-9 hours. I don't have a ton of time to train so I try to make the most of it. That's why I like the trainer workouts, boring as they are.

As far as CTL, my highest this year was 78 and I averaged about 70 in the Summer and 60-65 in the Winter. I wish I could get up to some of the levels of you guys but I can't ride that much. I tend to ride by myself 3 days a week and with a fast group 1 day and a more social group the other. I don't do organized races. My goals are focused on doing 60-100 mile rides as fast as I can, of which I do 6 or so a year. I may do a few 20-40k time trials in 2009 as well. Based on those goals I am trying to focus on building FTP, and CTL as much as possible. Any help to that end given my available time would be great.

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