2 x 20 at L4



MikeMuk

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Mar 12, 2005
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Had my powermeter for a little while now and tonight decided to have a go at these (despite hearing the old school mantra in my head of "no L4 'til Jan"). Boy do they hurt. I read the thread about the differences between indoor and outdoor power with interest, and although I managed to hold my FTP (and ventrue slightly above towards the end of the second effort) they felt much, MUCH harder than when riding at FTP on the road.

How often (in a week) and for how long (as in within the training year) do you guys do these type of efforts? Was thinking, during the winter (until couple of months before racing season) of doing at least one session 2 x 20 during the week, but still placing emphasis on longer L2/3 work, then as the season approaches, moving towards L4/5 work (first target is 16km TT at end of April). This sound tenable, or am I not placing enough emphasis on the L4 work?

Also, I've noticed that my PT is dropping readings. It's an SL and I have it mounted so the receiver is on the chainstay. What is happening is I'll be riding and the readings will slowly zero (based on the averaging I have the display set at). SO I end up with both power and speed reading zero. The computer still shows the hub icon, and as I said, I've only had the unit for a month so I doubt (read hope) it's not the batteries. Anyone got any ideas what it might be?

Mike
 
MikeMuk said:
Had my powermeter for a little while now and tonight decided to have a go at these (despite hearing the old school mantra in my head of "no L4 'til Jan"). Boy do they hurt. I read the thread about the differences between indoor and outdoor power with interest, and although I managed to hold my FTP (and ventrue slightly above towards the end of the second effort) they felt much, MUCH harder than when riding at FTP on the road.

How often (in a week) and for how long (as in within the training year) do you guys do these type of efforts? Was thinking, during the winter (until couple of months before racing season) of doing at least one session 2 x 20 during the week, but still placing emphasis on longer L2/3 work, then as the season approaches, moving towards L4/5 work (first target is 16km TT at end of April). This sound tenable, or am I not placing enough emphasis on the L4 work?


Mike

How did you test FT?


BTW, I'm of the opinion that l2/3 can be just as affective as raising threshold as l4, you just need much more volume...assuming you have typical time constraints during the winter (e.g., little daylight during the week) I would stick to plenty of l4 w/ longer weekend rides at l2-3.
 
whoawhoa said:
How did you test FT?


BTW, I'm of the opinion that l2/3 can be just as affective as raising threshold as l4, you just need much more volume...assuming you have typical time constraints during the winter (e.g., little daylight during the week) I would stick to plenty of l4 w/ longer weekend rides at l2-3.
That's cool, time constraints aren't too bad - I basically get three days a week where I can head out for a long ride. As for testing FTP, it was done by doing a 16km TT and taking the best 20 mins (out of a 24 minute ride) which bourhgt me to an FTP value of 330W. I believe this is about right, but may be a little low (did the test after a few days of 180 TSS) - the final two minutes of the second 20 min interval I did at 400+W
 
MikeMuk said:
How often (in a week) and for how long (as in within the training year) do you guys do these type of efforts?
I do L4 efforts a minimum of 4 days/week, 12 months a year. The total volume and average intensity varies widely during the year (from a minimum of ~150mins/wk to a maximum of ~300mins/wk) and would take much more than a paragraph to answer.
 
Now that you use a powermeter Mike, you're able to use wko+

Is L4 once a week enough(?) well that depends on the goals. And as Whoawhoa pointed out already that also depends on the overall CTL picture. Without even knowing about your goals I am sure you'll be able to appreciate the progress made in CyclingPeaks and make appropriate adjustments.

If your goal is to develop L4 as much as you can then I don't see why you would limit yourself to only one workout. And if 1/week isn't enough to allow you to even maintain what you currently have, you'll probably figure it out after a while.
 
MikeMuk said:
That's cool, time constraints aren't too bad - I basically get three days a week where I can head out for a long ride. As for testing FTP, it was done by doing a 16km TT and taking the best 20 mins (out of a 24 minute ride) which bourhgt me to an FTP value of 330W. I believe this is about right, but may be a little low (did the test after a few days of 180 TSS) - the final two minutes of the second 20 min interval I did at 400+W
Did you use some sort of correction factor? If you didn't, that 20 minute value is likely much higher than you could truly sustain for an hour-perhaps 3-7% or even more. If you did use the typical .95 correction factor it *may* be write-but could be off by a few % depending on AWC. Which did you use?
 
whoawhoa said:
Did you use some sort of correction factor? If you didn't, that 20 minute value is likely much higher than you could truly sustain for an hour-perhaps 3-7% or even more. If you did use the typical .95 correction factor it *may* be write-but could be off by a few % depending on AWC. Which did you use?
He may be off in his estimate of FTP, but he'll quickly figure it out when he attempts to do 2 or 3 20s with 5min recovery at 100%FTP. If he can complete them, then even if he is riding at 100+%FTP, he's still getting in solid L4 work.
 
Tough to say about what you should do. For me, I am coming off the season in good form. Rather than spending the bulk of my time and energy riding at l2 or l3, I do lower l4 or 85% of my FT in a 2 hour interval. Just think of it as a very, very long TT. I do them about twice a week. During my commute, although the duration isn't long, without much effort, I find myself riding at 80% to 85% of my FT. By the end of the day, in a single commuting day, I can rack up 100+ TSS. Off season is still of season and so I won't even touch any upper l4 work until some time in Nov. That's when I will hit the mountain and doing some repeats on it. I am expecting to hold my effort at FT for 25 minutes for each session. Expecting to do 2 or 3 of those.


MikeMuk said:
Had my powermeter for a little while now and tonight decided to have a go at these (despite hearing the old school mantra in my head of "no L4 'til Jan"). Boy do they hurt. I read the thread about the differences between indoor and outdoor power with interest, and although I managed to hold my FTP (and ventrue slightly above towards the end of the second effort) they felt much, MUCH harder than when riding at FTP on the road.

How often (in a week) and for how long (as in within the training year) do you guys do these type of efforts? Was thinking, during the winter (until couple of months before racing season) of doing at least one session 2 x 20 during the week, but still placing emphasis on longer L2/3 work, then as the season approaches, moving towards L4/5 work (first target is 16km TT at end of April). This sound tenable, or am I not placing enough emphasis on the L4 work?

Also, I've noticed that my PT is dropping readings. It's an SL and I have it mounted so the receiver is on the chainstay. What is happening is I'll be riding and the readings will slowly zero (based on the averaging I have the display set at). SO I end up with both power and speed reading zero. The computer still shows the hub icon, and as I said, I've only had the unit for a month so I doubt (read hope) it's not the batteries. Anyone got any ideas what it might be?

Mike
 
RDO that's some volume at L4, don't think I'm prepared to bite off anything like that amount.

I estimated my FTP doing a 20minute time trial and then multiplied by 0.95. Currently I have ATL hovering between 100 and 120 and CTL is around 75. First real aim of next year is going to be in late April, my only concern with doing L4 work is I have a bit of a habit as a winter racer - I usually am at my absolute best in April/May and done by June, then never know where to go from there!

Another question I was going to ask is what the best way to improve 1 minute power? My numbers at the lover durations are awful: -

5s: 16.47W/kg
1 min: 7.48W/kg
5 mins: 4.84W/kg
FTP: 4.3W/kg

Cheers guys!