Splitting LSD and HIT

Having race calendar changes, changed my program towards moving from Build1 back to Base3 (Longer intervals, more time in Z2/3 less Z2/1) for a month, and I have to say my old body behaves exactly the way research as per the linky below suggests.

Normally I can bump my FTP up by 5 to 8 watts every monthly FTP session from about halfway through base up to the racing season. The above change had me about 10watts down on FTP last night (Cycleops 420 Pro). So, back to what works, careful very high HIT (Z4/5) maximum twice a week with short durations and more LSD (Z1/Z2). Who knows perhaps last night was just a bad night?

Way back long time ago I had a Doctor Will Davis (Passed away since) who was an Electrophysiologist as well as a Hematologist, he was booked out about 3 months always, analysed detailed blood tests, did X-Rays of my heart and lungs, put me on a treadmill and used a compass to measure amplitudes on my EKG.

After that he use to say this as an example:

"I go first"
"You are training harder and have more work stress than the last visit"
" You get up between 5:00AM and 5:30AM most mornings and when you wake, you are out of bed immediately. The last time I saw you, you use to lie in bed about 30 minutes after waking."
"You go to bed most evenings around 9:00PM and when you get to bed you are pretty tired. You fall asleep fast and sleep well though."
"In your cycling, you are doing a lot of high intensity short sessions, but seem to run out of calcium much faster than last time. NOTHING works your heart and muscular adaption as well as taking heart rate way up on a short interval, resting until it comes down to about 60% and then repeating the cycle. So, you are doing well, but we seem to have a nutrition problem here, may have to look at some prescription grade neutraceuticals. Now over to you...."
" What did I miss and now it is your turn to talk?...."

Perhaps Dr. Will Davis back in the 80's knew back then what the link below suggests 20 years later, he use to be dead accurate with his analysis?


Not an easy read, but the summary correlates very well with personal experience.

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

 

Willem, Thanks for posting the link, a lot of interesting information in there. Training distribution is a hot topic in the endurance world. If you spend some time combing through research aimed at determining the “optimum” training distribution as well looking at other cycling forums you will see a variety of approaches that bring about positive adaptations. Perhaps the most useful paragraph of the link you posted was;

~~"It may be a hard pill to swallow for some exercise physiologists, but athletes and coaches do not need to know very much exercise physiology to train effectively. They do have to be sensitive to how training manipulations impact athlete health, daily training tolerance, and performance, and to make effective adjustments. Over time, a successful athlete will presumably organize their training in a way that maximizes adaptive benefit for a given perceived stress load. That is, we can assume that highly successful athletes integrate this feedback experience over time to maximize training benefit and minimize risk of negative outcomes such as illness, injury, stagnation, or overtraining."

Through experience and reading it has become evident that there are many paths to get to the same place and the “optimal” approach is dependent on a lot of variables and is likely to change with those variables. There is an argument to be made about the level of exercise based knowledge you need to optimize and structure a program. IMO you can never know enough and your level of knowledge helps streamlines the process of finding an efficient strategy for any given athlete at any point in time. However, I think the point the author is trying to make is that no amount of scientific data can supplement individual specificity based on practice and a willingness to listen to one’s body.

If I’m interpreting your statement correctly you are saying your FTP dropped roughly 10 watts by returning to a “base” level of training? You should not be losing fitness by lowering your intensity as long as you maintained the same work load. Your rate of progression may not be the same as before, but you should still see your numbers going up.

 

Great post!!

Agree, the most difficult part is learning how to listen to ones body, took a long time for me to learn that and change my short term training program to adapt to specific conditions

Perhaps the last FTP was just at the wrong time in my biorhythm.

 

I've been an athlete my entire life and still have a problem knowing when to say when!

Your 10 watt drop is definitely something to give attention to. Not sure if you were under similar conditions when performing your FTP effort (i.e. road or trainer, life stress, diet etc.) as compared to your other session, but these thing may explain an "off night". Still 10 watts is a pretty good drop. Even if you were undertraining for the last few week your fitness would not drop like that. If your body or legs are feeling a little washed out you might actually be doing to much. Decrements in performance caused by overreaching/overtraining are usually more pronounced at higher intensities.

 

I had to take down 5 big Pine trees in my yard during one day the previous week, do 4 trips to the dump, total loading 6,000lbs on my truck, and unloading again, alone.Thought I had good cycling legs and fitness, but after that everything that worked was hurting. My legs felt like they were smashed for about 4 days. Thought I was fully recovered for the FTP, but guess that is probably where the 10 watts went.

My sign of over-training is always like a caffeine overdose feeling; either not falling asleep fast when getting in bed at night, or waking a few times during the night. When that happens to an extreme, I normally take a prescription sleeping tab. Fortunately only 4 to 5 times a year maximum, I normally know when to back off before it gets to that stage.

Thanks for your posts.

 

WillemJM,

Thanks for that link to the sportsci page. It was interesting to see the training volume split and change in training for that cyclist in the study.

Should change my program to train at below 75% of maxHR and I won't have any problems recovering from 20-25 hrs riding per week.

 

I just read a couple books on training for bicycle racing, really should have done this a while ago. Recommended minimum training volume to reach national class level road cycling is 700 hrs a year and international level 1000 hrs (minimum) a year. I think my previous highest volume was about 180-200 hrs a year and mostly in summer/fall and then easing off in the winter. Obviously at 700-1000 hrs a week most of the training is going to be lower intensity and the percentage of that volume that is FTP or over FTP power is going to be pretty small.

 

Not necessarily. I regularly ride 60 hrs/month and I target total L4-L7 time at 50% or greater of total time. I don't think that is unique.

 

In reply to Rapdaddyo:

7.5 hrs a week of FTP and higher does seem excessive to me, that's over an hour a day. On the other hand, 90% of FTP is a whole different thing.

 

Hi RDO,

Can you post your Power Profile Chart, as I can't get within a whisker of the training intensity you are outlining above. I'd be curious to see how you Power Profile chart looks compared to mine below?

I put in about 10-12hrs PW with about 15-20% in zone 4-7....FTP is currently at 340watt @ 78kg (20min is 375w)

I find what you do and what you outlined in another thread very unique

Cheers
Paul

 

Not sure which part you think is unique, but here a couple of data points for you.

My training in 2013 was very inconsistent due to work commitments, so my last good max performance test was December 2012. When I do performance tests, I do four efforts closely spaced and use the Monod-Scherrer Critical Power Model. Here is my data from 12/2012:
3min 448W
8min 398W
30min 325W
60min 300W
Wt: 81.82kg
CP: 3.5
AWC: 544
R^2: .9988
I have no idea how my numbers compare with others because I just don't care. While I don't do a max 5sec effort when I do my performance set, my max 5sec power is ~1200W if I focus on it for a few weeks.

As to my ride time by level, here's the percentage distribution of my rides in 2012, by minutes and by TSS:
Level Minutes TSS
L1 4.8% 1.2%
L2 37.8% 30.4%
L3 12.8% 13.5%
L4 38.7% 44.8%
L5 3.0% 4.8%
L6 1.2% 2.7%
L7 1.7% 2.7%

So, my L4-L7 total was 44.6% by minutes and 54.9% by TSS. That's a little low for me. Normally, I hit 50% or better L4-L7, even by minutes and more by TSS. By the way, these are numbers based on a strict parsing of the ride files by level based on power and duration, not the chart you get in WKO+ which is not strictly parsed by level but rather is a frequency distribution of observations by level (very different).

 

Hi RDO,

I thought you would have a much higher FTP (300w) considering how much time you spend in zone 4 and also your weight. I'm not trying to have a dig at you, I'm just trying to make sense of the way you train and the outcomes from that.

Paul

 

My FTP has been as high as 326W, but it all depends on the consistency of my training. 2012 was a pretty sloppy year due to my schedule, and 2013 was a disaster. This year is pretty ragged until May, then hopefully good to the end of the year. I don't know what my potential is, I only know what I can achieve with the days and hours I can put in on the bike.

 

How do you do that?
Best,
Max

 

I have a custom program. It sounds simple, but it is actually pretty complex.

 

So if I understand you correctly, this program will tell you how much time you ACTUALLY spent at a given level over a specified time as opposed to an average?

 

Yes, it parses a ride file by level.

 

Anything that Strava would miss?

I have different bikes with different computers and consolidate everything to Strava simply because I have used it the longest. Use Strava, Cyclemeter (I phone with Bluetooth sensors), Garmin and Virtual training. With any of them I can slice and dice the data until I suffer from paralysis by analysis.

 

Not sure, because I have never tried to reverse-engineer the Strava algorithms.