TrainerRoad – STW approved sessions

This is my big issue, when is too much too much?

Been tracking the parameters for CTL, ATL, and TSB in TrainingPeaks to try and figure this out a bit more scientifically as have struggled with this a bit in the past. Though that doesn’t take into account stuff like work stress, lack of sleep, etc.

Less scientifically I try and compare similar sessions, looking at HR trends for same power intervals for indications of fatigue.

I don’t think constantly aching legs is a problem.

But might mean a diet’s in order

Aren’t you about 60kg already?!

Yeah I am, that was kind of in jest, more meant I think I’m nice and lean but might be in for a shock! No idea what a good body fat percentage is for an amateur.

Are you just using the free training peaks software?

No, paying for TrainingPeaks (not too bad with the BC deal.) Just really starting to get to grips with all the values and how it all works. Seems like a good way of keeping track of it all. Also had some coaching with the plan for the past year and it’s been very interesting to see how the workload has been managed.

Though TBH the thing that usually destroys my plan and recovery is poor sleep and picking up bugs (both due to our small kids). And usually keeping an eye on HR for power and taking things like RPE, ambient temp, how fatigued I should be feeling based on plan, and comparing it to recent similar sessions, gives me a pretty good indication of whether i all is ok.

Is it a good/bad idea to mix up a program program and general riding?

about to start my Fred Whitton training so looking at the Sustained Power Build – Low Volume. I’ll do that on the Kickr but I’d like to get out and get some real miles in the leg, I assume it would really be an issue as long as I dont go mental?

How hard should 85-95% of FTP for 20min (x’s 3) feel? Done 3 weeks of Sweet Spot base mid volume and did the above and found it easy, easy enough that I think I’ve got my FTP wrong.

Did the 8 minute FTP test (first ever) at the start of the 3 weeks and it came out at 250, did a couple of sessions and decided they were too easy so I’ve bumped it up to 260. During the 85-95% FTP for 20mins my heart rate was only going up to about 115, my max is 188ish.

Planning on just doing another FTP test tomorrow.

@Mrchrispy – I’ve been listening to the podcasts and they have mentioned lots of time that the weekend rides, especially Sundays, are really there to get more time in on the bike. You’d be fine doing the 2 weekday interval based sessions and then proper outside rides in over the weekend.

You’ve got to train outside for the Whitton as you need to get used to riding for 8 hours in the rain!

This is how I apporach it, weekday on turbo, weekend on real bike.

When it gets warmer and lighter I aim on roughly following the plans but outside on my commute, not sure how well that will go and it might be that wed and fri I commute and tuees nad thurs i do intervals on the turbo.

@mrblobby, realised that without a power meter on real bike training peaks is less useful. Think keeping an eye on HR is te best idea.

More is better… until it’s too much

Each body is different, I’ve religously tapered for my ‘A’ events then got my best ever result going into Brighton Big Dog at the end of a 2 week training camp where week 1 was 750TSS and Week 2 was over 1,000TSS. While I won’t be taking it to that extreme I will be doing more in my tapers from now on.

How hard should 85-95% of FTP for 20min (x’s 3) feel

Like death would be preferable.

3 X 20 at that effort should feel hard but doable in the legs to start, with the third one bordering on the “I don’t want to do this but I must” level, and I’d say feeling pretty much spent at then end.

I do the weekend on he bike thing – but I favour club rides whereby people are stronger than me and I get dragged into hard intervals and can’t be lazy.

Anyone else find the middle sweetspot intervals more difficult or am I just weird? I generally seem to be in a world of pain from 20ish to 40ish minster and then seem to start to feel much better for the rest. Wondering if a couple of mine warmup and straight into intervals isn’t helping.

I too have permanently achy legs…

Ftp test for me tomorrow night then, did do 7 mins at about 320 at the end of a session during the second week so think my first test was not the best

Using virtual power? Sounds like you might have knocked the resistance knob on the turbo!

Its a cyclops fluid 2, there is no resistance knob, just the knob to tighten the drum into the tyre. I always have that at 1.5 turns from the initial contact as in the instructions

Mount Alyeska tonight, surprisingly hard given that I stuck at that power level for 20 solid minutes during the FTP test.

ZOMG got myself a fan ZOMG what a difference.
95% ftp intervals today were a (cooling) breeze!

Haha I got a fan the other day too, can’t believe how much difference it makes!

Huffaker for me this evening – found it ok, could hold the three minutes and keep it s bit, but you know the instructions at the beginning where it says you might feel angry? I thought they were joking, till my wife came in, said something innocuous and I totally irrationally lost the plot 😳 😆

Re-did the 8 minute test and got 260 which is what I was at before. Guess the sweet spot base is just not too hard. To be fair I’m comparing it to the time crunched plans, which use heart rate and is not trying to build a base

Maybe you have quite a flat power curve where anything above threshold gets hard quickly? You might be better off trying a 20 min test, might give a more workable value. 3 X 20 sweetspot should leave you feeling like you’ve had quite a hard session.

Or could be that the power curve just isn’t very accurate for your turbo and falls off too steeply at around that sweetspot wheel speed. Can you get a real PM to check it?

ZOMG got myself a fan ZOMG what a difference.
95% ftp intervals today were a (cooling) breeze!

You really need to retest now 🙂

@mrblobby yes I’m almost looking forward to it!

This might be useful – the Coggan test for this is in Trainerroad as a workout, I’ve done it:

http://home.trainingpeaks.com/blog/article/power-profiling

This is me:

(/) Distinctly upsloping plot (again, esp. between 1 min and 5 min, but also somewhat between 5 min and functional threshold power): the classical time-trialist pattern, i.e., weak in neuromuscular power and anaerobic capacity, but with a relatively high aerobic power and especially a high lactate threshold. While such athletes may improve their performance by working on their weaknesses, this may not necessarily be true if it results in a decline in their strength, which is sustainable power.

The bold bit an issue; I’m very bad at powering up hills.

And, I include this as I have a minor drop between 5 & 20 mins on the profile although not as distinct as this shape, more an upside down tick yet I seem to be able to muster a last gasp finishing sprint:

(^) Sharply inverted-V pattern: an athlete characterized by both relatively high anaerobic capacity and aerobic ability, and thus well-suited for events such as the pursuit. Alternatively, a potential “all-rounder” who simply hasn’t focused on raising their lactate threshold to its highest possible level.

And someone asked what sweetspot should feel like – see the table here

Sweet spot base pt 1 isn’t all that “tough”. The second part is a bit harder. One thing that I’ve noticed though is that my cadences this year a higher than last year for the same power which I’m hoping is indicative of great things to come….

Anyone with a direct drive turbo use something to hold the front wheel straight? Noticed a strong tendency for turning the bars to the left since going direct drive and doing away with the riser block.

Stop shoulder checking the competition 😀

Does the turbo have adjustable feet? maybe they aren’t level or do you have a wonky floor?

No trouble on my kickr and I’ve put some fairly hard efforts in.

I did think that so got the spirit level out, all looks to be level. Have got a fair old imbalance in L/R power and leg length, with the left being the weaker side, so probably down to that. Mildly concerned that riding in a wonky position is going to cause me bother at some point.

Stop shoulder checking the competition

If I did Zwift I’d be blaming that!

I don’t like the front wheel fixed in place so have put a bit of smooth ply under the wheel, allows a degree of movement with less friction than just straight on to concrete. Whilst won’t stop the bars turning might mean that the bars return central more naturally.
I also try and make sure I am not pulling on the bars during intervals, I loosened off the stem bolts for a while so if I put any pressure on them they creaked badly. The game was to keep them silent, sad but kept me amused.

Anyone with a direct drive turbo use something to hold the front wheel straight?

no, but its a pain in the arse pumping up a latex tube just to do a turbo session, forgot the other day and it was bobbing like a nodding dog throughout

Quite pleased, checked my taining calendar from this year and last on Strava and using a turbo and trainerroad this year I’ve doubled my hours on the bike in January 😀 admittedly its only 28hrs from 14 but still pleased.

Nice work ferrals!

I’m about 10% up this month in terms of TSS compared to last year, but then I had a good Jan last year. September to December though about 50% up on TSS.

A light week coming up though. Picked up the intensity a bit at the beginning of Jan and I’m now knackered, I guess that’s job done 😉

latex tube just to do a turbo session

Latex tube on the turbo, bit extravagant that!

Hard-ish week for me this week, hard next and then a recovery week to end s.s. base two, at which point its a month before the start of the season. Two buildy weeks, a mixed build/speciality week and a taper. Then pretty intense racing through april. Cant wait for the season to start!

Cant wait for the season to start!

Know what you mean, though still got quite a while to go till the season starts here, aiming to hit some form around May. Though there is a local crit next weekend that I’m tempted to go have a play at. Might be good timing having put together a nice set of breakaway style efforts using the workout builder last night 🙂

Pettit (1hr our zone 2/3) for me today as in a taper week (end of SSbase pt1). How people are doing longer lower intensity sessions is beyond me. Hats off to anyone that manages 2 hours of that as after an hour I was bored and wondering if I had the right saddle…

I know what you mean – Pettit is about as much as I can stand of such steady state stuff on the turbo. I find Black is a better low intensity session, feels almost like a road ride in that the power level changes every couple of minutes.

I did Fang Mountain last night, 75 mins but it felt more like 45 as there weren’t long blocks at one intensity.

Advice, please, for a TR noob!

I popped my TR cherry last night and, as recommended, started with an FTP test. Now, I’ve done FTP tests previously on Zwift and I hit ~275W so set this as the initial default for my first TR test.

All was going well during the warm-up period but at the start of the first ‘all-out’ 5 minute interval TR switched from ERG mode to ‘slope’ (the on-screen instructions mentioned this).

At this point, all resistance dropped and I had to spin like a hamster on speed to generate worthwhile wattage. In top gear (50×11), my cadence needed to be ~115 to hit 280W. My normal cadence is typically around 75 so this was very unnatural for me. I continued the session but my final FTP was 258 and I was absolutely knackered. Yes, I know that’s supposed to happen 😳

I raised a support ticket with TR and they suggested I needed to up the resistance (not ‘slope’) when doing the ‘all-out’ segments and then reduce the resistance during the ‘rest’ periods. I’ve tried doing this when I’m riding and, frankly, it’s a gonna be PITA trying to use a mouse and/or type on-screen with sweat dripping everywhere.

Does anyone have a better solution? Does TR always drop out of ERG mode during all out efforts or is this just something it does during FTP tests?

For the record, I’m using a Tacx Vector Smart trainer (so full ANT+ FEC interaction with TR is possible) plus a Wahoo Blue SC speed/cadence sensor.
Also for the record, Zwift stays in ERG mode throughout an FTP test so I just get on flogging myself without worrying about technicalities…

I though tr said to use gears to increase resistance? I don’t use an erg trainer but just going on what I’ve seen in past instructions?

Katadhin for me last night, really enjoyed it but right at the end my right knee started killing. A bit worried with lovecrossed on Sunday and 6 weeks till xc season. Nurofen and ice pack time!

^ Much stretching and foam roller on IT band

Can’t say I had a problem with ‘slope’ mode when doing a FTP test on the kickr, just use gears, I’m in the middle of the block on the big ring at around 300w 90cadence. Sounds like it might be a setting on your turbo?

I quite like longer sessions on the turbo, I just watch Amazon prime…

I have yet another cold so another week written off 🙁

I have a Vector Smart too.

It has to switch out of Erg mode for the 8 minutes, otherwise the trainer would simply do the ‘target’ wattage for the 8 minutes, which means that your FTP estimate at the end would be exactly what it was at the start.

Unless you have a weird set-up (e.g. weird bike, weird tyre pressure, weird clamping force (calibrate with the Tacx app to check)), you should be fine. When in slope mode or whatever it’s called, there is a manual resistance adjustment on the screen. Just crank that up until you get a sensible level of resistance. You don’t need to put it back afterwards – the trainer will sort it out once it goes back into Erg mode. You shouldn’t adjust it during the 8 minutes either – use the gears, you should certainly not need to be in 50×11 at 280W. On my last test I was pushing over 300W just fine and would have been on the big ring at the front, but high-middle at the back I think.

If that doesn’t work then I suspect your unit is faulty. You can just have a play with the resistance in slope mode until you find a level that’s sensible, and then probably never touch it again.

Also, if Zwift stays in Erg mode during an FTP test then it doesn’t mean the same as when TR is in Erg mode. When TR is in Erg mode, it will vary the resistance as your cadence changes so that your wattage stays on target. If you pedal faster then the load gets lighter and the wattage stays the same.

I imagine Zwift sets the resistance (analogous to setting the gradient) like it would during normal riding, but doesn’t change it during the test. If Zwift routinely used Erg mode the way that TR did, then you wouldn’t really be able to race people as you’d all be putting out the same wattage whatever you did…!