SST training zone when FT drops in off season

I generally try to maintain the highest average power that I can for the duration (90+ minutes) during SST sessions. The average wattage tends to fall on the L3/L4 border. I'm not necessarilly trying to set a personal best everytime but time sure starts to drag in the last thirty minutes or so. It's self-correcting if you go out too hard.

I don't think you're going to see a lot of improvement over the winter if you don't push either the intensity or duration of these sessions.

Old Junker said:

Should I try to find a new SST zone in the off -season or do you continue at the same SST zone all through the year.

cclarke said:

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I don't think you're going to see a lot of improvement over the winter if you don't push either the intensity or duration of these sessions.

i was going to take the increasing time vs intensity approach, meaning 60 minutes in oct 75 in Nov and 90 dec/jan, question i have is would my intensity be 205 or 225 watts, and what happens if i get to an anerobic Heart rate in the last few minutes or should i even care about my heart rate anymore.

sorry to ask what does SST really means (the search function didn't help me out)

stevevinck said:

sorry to ask what does SST really means (the search function didn't help me out)

Sweet Spot Training

Old Junker said:

i was going to take the increasing time vs intensity approach, meaning 60 minutes in oct 75 in Nov and 90 dec/jan, question i have is would my intensity be 205 or 225 watts, and what happens if i get to an anerobic Heart rate in the last few minutes or should i even care about my heart rate anymore.

I rode for 3 hours last friday at my 'sweet spot', and that's the idea with SST, you can ride at this L3 wattage for hours. I was no-where near anaerobic the whole time.
Try riding 1.5-2 hrs at low L3, and ~1 hour at higher L3. Someone mentioned 82% FTP on another SST thread as being the sweet spot, and that certainly works for me.

85% here, 2 hours. 1 hour is a piece of cake. You couldn't believe an hour has passed already. At 1 hour and 30 minutes, fatigue begins to set up. The last 8 minues or so is tough. My goal is to try to maintain as close to my May FT during my 2 hours tempo ride. If I could maintain close to 90% of my May FT for 2 hours, my actual FT is higher. At this point, there is no need for me to test my FT. I would have a chance to take glance of my acutal FT when I do hill repeats, 6 to 10 times (total time is about 1 hour +), at 260w to 270w. My May FT is 250w.

Old Junker said:

Should I try to find a new SST zone in the off -season or do you continue at the same SST zone all through the year. This would make SST or the PE on SST feel harder.
ie if you FT in season is 275 watts and now in the off season you test your Ft now to be 250 watts, a loss of less then 10%.

In season your SST would be around 225 watts vs about 205 watts now the same %(lets say82% for now) of FT would apply would it not?

If I decided to maintain 225 watts when my FT is only 250 would that be a mistake? and overtrain or would it just make it easier to get back to 275 in season.

BlueJersey said:

85% here, 2 hours. 1 hour is a piece of cake. You couldn't believe an hour has passed already. At 1 hour and 30 minutes, fatigue begins to set up. The last 8 minues or so is tough. My goal is to try to maintain as close to my May FT during my 2 hours tempo ride. If I could maintain close to 90% of my May FT for 2 hours, my actual FT is higher. At this point, there is no need for me to test my FT. I would have a chance to take glance of my acutal FT when I do hill repeats, 6 to 10 times (total time is about 1 hour +), at 260w to 270w. My May FT is 250w.

Wow thats awesome thats a tss of 1.70 for 2 hours and a tss of 2.46 for Androob for 3 hours .

I felt better at 1 hour then i did after 20 minutes today but stopped after another 15 minutes, so i will start with the 1.5 hours at tss 1.23 this week and keep upping it until 2007

Here's the concept:

pezcyclingnews.compezcyclingnews.comOpen ↗

stevevinck said:

sorry to ask what does SST really means (the search function didn't help me out)

I think your intensity should be as hard as you can handle for the duration. In other words, don't restrict your effort because you are going "beyond the zone." If you can do 225, that's good but as you get more fit you may be able to go harder. If you can only manage 205 now, then fine too, but work to raise it. With your time limitations, you need to go hard to maximize the training effect. The ride time that you are contemplating is somewhat shorter than typical for SST so you don't have a whole lot of choice if your plan is to rack up higher TSS scores.

I wouldn't pay much attention to heart rate. If you are going too hard, you won't be able to complete the workout as planned but you just have to back off a bit to reach a sustainable level.

[quote="Old Junker"]i was going to take the increasing time vs intensity approach, meaning 60 minutes in oct 75 in Nov and 90 dec/jan, question i have is would my intensity be 205 or 225 watts, and what happens if i get to an anerobic Heart rate in the last few minutes or should i even care about my heart rate anymore.[/QUOTE