Base training - Sweet Spot Intervals

[smaryka]

Quote: Originally Posted by needmoreair .

I agree with an old guy.

This is incorrect, at least the running aspect. In a marathon you aren't limited by speed, but by fuel. And in that regard making your body as efficient as possible trumps everything. To do that, specific training for the marathon focuses on getting your AnT (anaerobic/lactate threshold) as high as possible before bringing your AeT (aerobic threshold) as close to your AnT as possible. This is due to the fact that the more lactate your produce, the more calories you are consuming.

Renato Canova, a very famous Italian coach living and working in Iten, Kenya, has said on numerous occasions that if you are running a half marathon PR (sub 60 mins at that level) a few weeks before your goal marathon then your training has been all wrong because you have trained your body to run fast at your AnT rather than your AeT and you're going to hit the wall in the last 10k of a marathon. Same thing applies to the concept of training to run a fast10k instead of the marathon. Completely different beast entirely.


Isn't lactate threshold in running more or less FTP in running terms?

I didn't say that you didn't need any endurance training to complete a marathon (or the bike leg of an Ironman). All things being equal in an endurance sense, the higher your FTP is, the faster your threshold running pace is, the faster you can ride/run longer distances as a percentage of your threshold speed/power.

 

[bubsy]

Quote: Originally Posted by An old Guy .


"Let's continue with the link you provided. There are a number of online calulators that use formula based on similar papers. They are often recommended to people who want to predict their performance. Often with the recommendation comes the comment that predicting longer events based on (short event) results leads to errors."



Actually it's not that hard to do, and I could provide verified data to prove it to you, and link you to to the methods and tools used. I would expect payment for my time and services from you though, my rates are similar to those you quoted on this forum earlier.



--

"You have made so many claims that turned out to be false. You need to be more careful."



You have made up so many wild storys and claims that have not been proven true because you won't provide proof or data.
You need to be more careful.

We may begin to think bad things about you, like you have an axe to grind, or are an obsessive compulsive liar, or a fraud or maybe even just a regular troll.
But not me I can tell you are legit and are here for the same reasons as the rest of us, the love of cycling, sharing real world experiences and data, helping others less informed understand and reach their goals.

 

[needmoreair]

Quote: Originally Posted by acoggan .

Sorry, but smaryka's statement is correct (which make you and AOG wrong). In fact, the correlation between performance over shorter (but still vastly aerobic) durations and longer durations is strong enough that you can predict the latter from the former with considerable accuracy (e.g., see http://www.sportexperts.org/publication/42.pdf).


Sorry, but I still disagree.

I'll leave the cycling aspect to the cycling experts, but the running experts have spoken on this on numerous occasions.

Predicting a performance isn't the same as maximizing event specific performance, of course. And maximizing performances in running over such varied distances requires specific training for those specific events. You simply can't maximize performance in a 10k or half and then expect to maximize performance in a marathon all within a narrow time period. I submit the curious conundrum of Zersenay Tadesse as an extreme example of this (58:23 half world record, multiple marathon attempts and never even cracked 2:10 in the full!).

This may be wholly unrelated to regular people, but at the elite level this can be witnessed again and again.

 

[needmoreair]

Quote: Originally Posted by smaryka .

Isn't lactate threshold in running more or less FTP in running terms?

I didn't say that you didn't need any endurance training to complete a marathon (or the bike leg of an Ironman). All things being equal in an endurance sense, the higher your FTP is, the faster your threshold running pace is, the faster you can ride/run longer distances as a percentage of your threshold speed/power.


You can use your threshold pace in a similar way.

The point is, to run a fast 10k requires completely different training than it takes to run a marathon. The marathon is all about economy. That's the point I'm trying to address. And to maximize marathon performance requires ultimately getting the aerobic threshold as high as possible to get you as far as possible in the event before glycogen stores are depleted and you hit the wall.

Simply raising your lactate threshold does not help you run your fastest marathon. As I mentioned elite marathon coaches have said before that if you jack your lactate threshold as high as possible and go out and kill a half marathon running 59 mins or so (essentially lactate threshold) and then try a marathon a month later you're almost guaranteed to not run the marathon as quickly as you could by concentrating on specific marathon (aerobic threshold) workouts due to the fuel issue.

How that applies to cycling (or if it does at all) is beyond me, but the running analogy doesn't work in regards to the marathon.

 

[smaryka]

Nobody said that the fastest 10k runner specialising in that distance would also be the fastest marathoner in the world. You're making this too complicated.

All I said was, get your threshold pace/power as fast/high as it can be (obviously within limits -- if you're doing an Ironman which is where this all came from, then you're not going to be focussing on having the fastest 10k possible, that's not an efficient use of training time) and then start adding distance relative to your event at an appropriate time from your event.

In the past, many people have thought that the best way to train for Ironman and long distance events is to do long slow boring distance 6 months out from their event, and then start adding intensity when closer to the event (while still trying to hold on to the endurance gains and CTL gained from that volume). My point is that it's easier, better, more efficient and frankly more enjoyable for the amateur athlete with limited time to train to add intensity and build FTP first, THEN go out and add volume and endurance closer to the event date. It's a pretty simple concept -- go fast, then far.

All I can say as an N=1 and someone who's done several Ironmans is that I rode and ran faster over the long distances when my FTP/threshold was higher than I did when it was lower, simply because my threshold pace/power was higher and therefore the percentage of that pace/power I could hold over a longer distance was also higher in absolute numbers. There's no way I could have held 170w for 6 hours and then run a decent marathon when my FTP was only 210w. When it was 240w, no problem.

 

[Felt_Rider]

Quote: Originally Posted by Toolish .
Either way I want to improve my FTP and my ability to hold a high % of that FTP for a long period.


Trying to get this back on topic and specifically to the OP that you will find the majority of people training seriously to improve FTP will spend a dedicated effort in the upper L3/SST/L4 levels and there are some that like to pull it up by dedicated L5 intervals as well. What you will see less of in these discussion are those that claim to be working toward improving FTP training primarily down in the L2 level. Some like myself may do some L2 training, as mentioned earlier about doing a long Saturday ride, but I count my weekday intervals at a higher sustained intensity to be my key training for FTP improvement.

Even the person debating marathon running on this thread is on a different thread seeking to improve his FTP (or return to his former racing condition) and getting similar advice that smaryka is suggesting here. Not only will you see a large population of those with higher FTP on this website, Slowtwitch (home of many triathletes and Ironman competitors), many top cycling coaches and others will typically suggest what smaryka is suggesting.

 

[needmoreair]

Originally Posted by Felt_Rider
Even the person debating marathon running on this thread is on a different thread seeking to improve his FTP (or return to his former racing condition) and getting similar advice that smaryka is suggesting here. Not only will you see a large population of those with higher FTP on this website, Slowtwitch (home of many triathletes and Ironman competitors), many top cycling coaches and others will typically suggest what smaryka is suggesting.

Yes, the latter. I'm not that worried about FTP, honestly, as road racing is a bit more complex than that.

To clarify, I don't disagree with the advice smaryka is giving. I think the Maffetone/low hr training is a complete waste of time and boring as hell and personally would suggest 10k pace running and lt work in running and cycling on a year round basis in varying percentages.

Marathon training has had a paradigm shift in the last few years, though, and I got hung up on that admittedly irrelevant tangent. Apologies for the hijack! ;D

 

[needmoreair]

Originally Posted by smaryka

In the past, many people have thought that the best way to train for Ironman and long distance events is to do long slow boring distance 6 months out from their event, and then start adding intensity when closer to the event (while still trying to hold on to the endurance gains and CTL gained from that volume). My point is that it's easier, better, more efficient and frankly more enjoyable for the amateur athlete with limited time to train to add intensity and build FTP first, THEN go out and add volume and endurance closer to the event date. It's a pretty simple concept -- go fast, then far.

I completely agree with you in this regard.

Apologies for the tangent/hijack.

 

[An old Guy]

Originally Posted by smaryka

Isn't lactate threshold in running more or less FTP in running terms?

I didn't say that you didn't need any endurance training to complete a marathon (or the bike leg of an Ironman). All things being equal in an endurance sense, the higher your FTP is, the faster your threshold running pace is, the faster you can ride/run longer distances as a percentage of your threshold speed/power.

Your bold text is very important. All things are never equal. That causes a lot of problems. If we looked at the data the graph acoggan posted is based on, people with identical 1 hour power will have different 3 hour powers. So people equal at 1 hour may be different at 3 hours.

But more important there are different training schedules for people who compete for short periods of time as compared to people who compete for long periods of time. Sprinters don't care so much about 1 hour power, they care about 60 second or less power. Likewise people with 3 hour events don't worry about 1 hour power. In each case, the training schedule affects the 1 hour power. Overall sprinters sacrific endurance; endurance athletes sacrifice their sprint and both do something with their 1 hour power. What happens to their 1 hour power is depends on how focused they are on their particular goal.

The reason endurance athletes need high intensity training is not to increase their 1 hour power (but it might be increased), but to get their heart in condition so they can maintain a higher heart rate during longer events. The higher heasrt rate for longer events allows higher power output for longer events.

 

[London knight]

I thought that heart rate drops with increased fitness. When I incorporate intensity in my workouts I see a gradual increase in FTP at a specific HR

 

[bubsy]

Originally Posted by London knight
I thought that heart rate drops with increased fitness. When I incorporate intensity in my workouts I see a gradual increase in FTP at a specific HR

Are you saying you saying you see a rise in FTP or a rise in HR for the same FTP?

 

[London knight]

I see a rise in FTP and my ave HR drops slightly.

 

[531Aussie]

Originally Posted by bradg
Just a reminder that life on this forum is much better when you block this guy.

Which one?

 

[531Aussie]

There are dudes on here who know 50-tonnes more about about training than me, but....

I asked around the Maffetone thing a few years ago, and most people told me that it's more suited to running than cycling....and possibly long-distance TTing (ironman).

However, this anecdote made an impression on me.

Maybe this guy fried himself with too much intensity for too long, so it was only the freshening up that increased his power by 14%.

http://www.sportsci.org/2009/ss.htm

From the article:

Case study #1
From Soccer Pro to Elite Cyclist

"Knut Anders Fostervold was a professional soccer player in the Norwegian elite league from 1994 to 2002. A knee injury ended his soccer career at age 30 and he decided to switch to cycling. Knut had very high natural endurance capacity and had run 5 km in 17:24 at age 12.

After 15 y of soccer training at the elite level, he adopted a highly intensive training regime for cycling that was focused on training just under or at his lactate threshold and near VO2max; for example, 2-3 weekly training sessions of 4-5 × 4 min at 95 %VO2max. Weekly training volume did not exceed 10 h.

After 2.5 years of this high-intensity, low-volume training, Fostervold initiated cooperation with the Norwegian Olympic Center and his training program was radically reorganized. Weekly training volume was doubled from 8-10 h to 18-20. Training volume in Zone 2 was reduced dramatically and replaced with a larger volume of training in Zone 1. Training in Zone 5 was replaced with Zones 3 and 4, such that total training volume at intensities at or above lactate threshold was roughly doubled without overstressing the athlete.

The typical effective duration of interval sessions increased from ~20 min to ~ 60 min (for example 8 × 8 min at 85-90 %HRmax with 2-min recoveries). The intensity zones were initially based on heart rate but later adjusted relative to lactate and power output measurements made in the field. Table 7 shows the training intensity distribution and volume loading for the athlete during the season before and after the change in training to a high-volume program. Table 8 shows the outcome.

Table 7. Comparison of weekly training intensity distribution and total volume in 2004 season and 2005 season – Case 1.
Intensity zone

.Zone..........................2004............... .2005
(%HRmax)............hours:min............hours:min
5 (95-100 %)...........45m (8.5 %).........0:05m (0.5 % of week)
4 (90-95 )................0...........................0:40m (4.0 %)
3 (85-90 %)............0:30m (5.5 %).......1h:00m (5.5 %)
2 (75-85 %)............3h:05m (36 %).......1h:00 (5.5 %)
1 (55-75 %)............4h:20m (50 %)......15h:20m (85 %)
Weekly totals..........8hr40m................18hr:05m
Annual totals...........420hrs.................850hrs


Table 8. Physiological testing before and after training reorganization – Case 1.
................Pre....8wk.post...18 wk......Change 0-18 wk
VO2max......81.........90.........88..........11 %
VO2max.....6.8..........7.3........7.3..........7 %
LT power....375w......420w....440w.......14 %
W/kg-1:.......4.5.........5.2.......5.2............15 %

The athlete responded well to the training load amplification and reorganization. During the 2005 season, after 2.5 y performing a low-volume, high-intensity program, a season training with higher volume and lower average intensity resulted in marked physiological and performance improvement. Although the athlete’s training de-emphasized both training near his lactate threshold intensity and training at near VO2max, both of these physiological anchors improved markedly.

Fostervold won a bronze medal in the Norwegian national time-trial championships, seconds behind former world under-23 time trial champions and Tour de France stage winners Thor Hushovd and Kurt Asle Arvesen. His failure to perform even better, given his exceptionally high VO2max, was attributed to poorer cycling efficiency and aerodynamics and a lower fractional utilization at lactate threshold compared to the best professionals with many years of specific training. In 2006 and 2007 he represented Norway in the world championship time trial. His absolute VO2max in 2005 was equal to the highest ever measured in a Norwegian athlete.

 

[danfoz]

Originally Posted by 531Aussie

Fostervold won a bronze medal in the Norwegian national time-trial championships, seconds behind former world under-23 time trial champions and Tour de France stage winners Thor Hushovd and Kurt Asle Arvesen. His failure to perform even better, given his exceptionally high VO2max, was attributed to poorer cycling efficiency and aerodynamics and a lower fractional utilization at lactate threshold compared to the best professionals with many years of specific training. In 2006 and 2007 he represented Norway in the world championship time trial. His absolute VO2max in 2005 was equal to the highest ever measured in a Norwegian athlete.

This part is interesting and offers the suggestion to those thinking about weight training for additional speed on the bike (which I believe has little value) that a more efficient use of that time would be better spent on a stretching and flexibility routine in order to get lower on the bars.

 

[fluro2au]

Originally Posted by danfoz

This part is interesting and offers the suggestion to those thinking about weight training for additional speed on the bike (which I believe has little value) that a more efficient use of that time would be better spent on a stretching and flexibility routine in order to get lower on the bars.

I agree it's a good article, not convinced you need to be that flexible in order to be more aero. I have a 21cm drop (187cm tall) and haven't stretched in 20 years. It's about rotating yourself over the BB and spending time in the position, as you will adapt to that position , in my N=1 opinion.

It takes TIME, to adapt to a good aero setup, I've been tweaking it for years, it never really ends, which is part of the learning curve, it's a fun process.

Paul

 

[ambal]

Originally Posted by 531Aussie
Knut Anders Fostervold

That is one cool name

 

[Temika5102]

I agree with you.

 

[danfoz]

Originally Posted by fluro2au
I agree it's a good article, not convinced you need to be that flexible in order to be more aero. I have a 21cm drop (187cm tall) and haven't stretched in 20 years. It's about rotating yourself over the BB and spending time in the position, as you will adapt to that position , in my N=1 opinion.

It takes TIME, to adapt to a good aero setup, I've been tweaking it for years, it never really ends, which is part of the learning curve, it's a fun process.

Paul

Fair enough. 21cm drop is pretty serious business but we're talking TT right? On the road I manage a humble 6cm drop but maybe that's because I get my big power primarily from my glutes, or at least believe I do, and position well behind the BB. I do consciously rotate my pelvis but that's usually only during the final 1k or so, or if I am really banging some intensity to bridge a gap. Maybe that's just the way I've trained. More of a road racer I've only really done two TT's worth remembering( '82, '11) and have zero experience with work on a true saddle forward TT setup.

I know more aero positions can be worked into but ime stretching helps facilitate the process. Years of karate and mma taught me that. Big power comes from within the limits of flexibility, not on the edges of it. I also know if I don't keep my hams and piriformis nice and loosey goosey after hard efforts in the drops my lower back doesn't agree well.

 

[swampy1970]

Originally Posted by bradg

Assume that the average TdF rider does at least 20,000 miles per year, possibly more (I think there's a study by Stephen Seiler in which he notes that it may be 25-30K or more?). Many of those miles are likely pretty easy.

Define easy.