TrainerRoad – STW approved sessions

Just had a look around on Trainerroad and found the answer: I shouldn’t be shifting 😳

My turbo is now out and the fans are plugged in. 4 months of no trainer road. Of course I have been paying for it all that time as I never bothered to cancel my membership. Pain of a different sort . I’m rambling …. sigh, it’s trainer time.

I’ve fallen right into the groove. Shaky legs, pain, dizziness, slight wanna-puke feeling at the end of intervals, battling through to the end… and doing it again.

But strangely I’m loving it, especially as this year I’m completing vo2max intervals a first for me.

Think I can squeeze in one more week of weekday outside work and then it’s turbo time.

I’m back on mine. 1st test shows a decent hike in FTP this summer. I’m in wk 2 of sweet spot base again, supplemented by outdoor rides. I may leave a bit of intensity in though as that is my weak spot.

As I said earlier in the thread, I first got TR last year when recovering from a big surgery – my first FTP test was 160W! I’m back up to 295W now (virtual power on a road machine so who knows what it is really, I’m just chuffed to have nearly double my power in 12 months). I’m getting back to where I was four or so years ago before I got ill.

What worries me is that given that my volume & intensity is going down (no more chaingang this year!) my FTP seems more likely to drop than increase over the winter! My weakness has always been 1-5 min power so I’m not sure if I should leave in a VO2 max session each week as long as my recovery feels ok. Anybody got any thoughts on that?

I’ve just worked out that in order to complete base build and specialism in time for my first enduro towards the end of May , I have to start next week. I’ve included one week off for Christmas and 2 for being sick (colds etc not vomiting as a result of trainer road).

Will be my second winter on trainerroad, but the thing I noticed last year was I trained almost exclusively sitting down. Which I don’t do when I mountain bike. Something I should address?

But strangely I’m loving it

I take that back. I am mentally tired – 12-15hrs days and I’m shitting bricks over a meeting with the Global boss I’ve been summon to tomorrow but…

Lamark today – 4 x 10 at FTP, 2 minute breaks. The first one I thought, “I can do this”, the second one “this is going to be more difficult than I thought”, the third about halfway through my shorts started to cut my gonads in half so I had to pause for adjustment then finish BUT the 4th, jeez. My legs were in pain after 90 secs, and I struggled to about 5 mins in then had to do 3 mins at 200w to rest them. I finished the last 2 mins at FTP, ignored the end of the interval to push out 30 seconds by 30 seconds more and got to an extra 2 mins before cool-down.

But after, my legs hurt and felt rather wobbly, it wasn’t fun at all.

Not TrainerRoad, but since I missed out on the Etape this year I’ve signed up for this:

http://www.kinomap.com/race/letapedutour-indoor2016

Tips on a long workout? I was planning a Surrey ride tomorrow but it looks like Surrey will be underwater, so the alternative is 90 mins of aerobic – im on week 6 of SS2 low volume.

How to get through 90 mins of hum drum beyond the usual ipod, laptop…? Stick a movie on?

Movie or a series on Netflix.

Kennedy Peak is quite a good one for big block of z2/z3. Just cut it short when you get to your time/TSS target and whack the percent up or down depending on how much z3 you want. Or if you want a bit more variety just double up on something like Birch.

Thanks. The plan suggests Andrews… it looks dull. Although the opportunity is there to treat it as a low intensity TT.

Does look very dull.

I knocked up this custom one pretty quickly…
https://www.trainerroad.com/cycling/workouts/97916-pal-z2-z3-2-00

Think it helps to vary the power a fair bit within the zone, means you don’t just sit at a steady power and cadence for too long.

I think it’ll be Sufferfest TGTTOS as a ride replacement tomorrow. Was really looking forward riding my bike :-/

Restarted again this week with some gentle sessions to try to get back into the early morning habit. Not looking forward to the first FTP test.

Subs are now just under a tenner with the pound dropping, zwift has a couple of free months on stave premium. How does the training feature compare?

Think it might be a couple of hours z3 for me tomorrow too

Frustrating week, not helped by racing on telly.

Although I’ve stuck diligently to the plan, I find these rest weeks hard, I just want to go and have a bash at something.

I shall look forward to Tuesdays 8 min test.

Interesting that so many people find rest weeks hard. I usually find i’m really pretty tired by the end of a 3 week block and more than happy to have 5-7 days taking it easy.

I’m with fifeandy, at the end of a winter block I can often barely manage an easy z2 ride!

Frustrating time here too, was all going well but pretty much lost two whole weeks with back trouble. Easing back into it on the turbo before heading back out onto road. A couple of hours z2/z3 tonight, maybe a cut short Kennedy Peak.

Over various threads, i have a history of “not resting”. Im trying to follow TR plans and advice as much as possible this year and not defer to so much riding, but at 100k a week average recently it does feel as though im not doing enlugh, even though this weeks 130k on a Turbo (not all at once!) sounds a lot.

My race 2016 profile / positions started well for March April then tailed off toward July August, i think that means i got tired over the season where everyone else was more consitent. So his time im determined to work through base and build over winter, hit specialality then rest before Race 1 in March (Peak 1), maintain through mid season then do a shortened 4 week speciality to Peak 2 in July as advised by TR. I must admit im not trusting all the rest/ maintain bits but theres only one way to find out if it works for me.

Kryton, I thought you were getting a bit of coaching for this year. They not got a view on it?

Gibbs for me this evening. Gave up with 15 minutes to go, first turbo in ages and going straight into a boring 2hr session was too much for my will to take, developed psychosomatic knee pain and gave up.

8 min FTP test on tues morning, then a short Tabata type workout in the evening if my legs can handle it

I’m not much of a fan of ‘maintaining’, although can see in some ways its essential when trying to race a season long series.

The problem with trying to cling on to form after peak1 is it just leaves you knackered mentally and physically from intense intervals and with a totally erroded base.

Had my best season this year by taking a week off after peak1 then going back to a month of z2 base rides and rebuilding to a peak2 around 12 weeks later.

Currently trying to ‘cling on’ to a little form from peak2 for relentless (only a minor objective this year) and then looking forward to most of November slacking off.

The problem with trying to cling on to form after peak1 is it just leaves you knackered mentally and physically from intense intervals and with a totally erroded base.

I think this is what happend to me this year. Two week after my last race i went on a 140 club ride, but it ended on a 32.5kmh average. Not only had i not ridden that distance for 6 month, the pace destroyed me although i stayed on for 100k.

Mr Blobby, could you drop me an email re TT bike please?

black coffee, a banana and then the first ftp test for a long time (since around Feb) for me before breakfast this morning.
Not a sizeable increase (from 320-330ish), but I’ve moved up a level on the resistance settings so that will make a difference.
I could have gone a bit harder, but not as hard as the next gear up, amazing how noticable 9sp gaps are wen on a turbo. Also not well rested but as changing resistnace and knowing I’ve only got turbo time for a few days I figured had to re-do.

Legs are caning now but not crazily so, planning on a another session this eve.

20 min FTP test for me last Monday night at the start of the 8 week Full Distance Triathlon Base. Very chuffed with an FTP of 306 up from 236 at the start of the year.

Then comes the but. Trying to do last weeks’ workouts with 306 FTP (Haku and Antelope) nearly killed me. I had to knock it down by 15% halfway through Antelope.

Week 2 started this morning with Shasta, and I kept the reduced FTP (260) and it felt much better. A challenge, but achievable.

So the question the audience, how come I was able to test and produce 306 for my FTP, when in hindsight,I’d have no chance of sustaining 306 for an hour. This was my test:

https://www.trainerroad.com/cycling/rides/4261878-20-minute-test

Haku: https://www.trainerroad.com/cycling/rides/4278324-haku

Antelope: https://www.trainerroad.com/cycling/rides/4285104-antelope

Similar but the other way here. Last test 6 weeks ago – end of season so perhaps tired – was down 15% on the pre season test.

I’ve just done 6 weeks of sweet sport riding at that reduced FTP completing all of the intervals hard but well… …only to drop 3% on my FTP this lunchtime.

🙁

So the question the audience, how come I was able to test and produce 306 for my FTP, when in hindsight,I’d have no chance of sustaining 306 for an hour. This was my test:

A) Looks like your test was all over the place – 40w increase 5mins in.
B) Something is indeed badly wrong if you found Haku and Antelope particularly hard. Maybe something wrong with the calibration of your PM during test?
C) Your comment on Antelope suggests you were tired and no power right from the outset – that’s a prime candidate for knocking session on head – all the fatigue for none of the benefit.

Take a read of the following blogs from TrainerRoad. Getting a good ftp test takes practice. One thing you’re not supposed to do is surge at the end for example.

http://blog.trainerroad.com/ftp-assessment-tips/%5B/url%5D

http://blog.trainerroad.com/how-to-get-your-best-ftp-results/%5B/url%5D

I noticed my HR was unusually high for this test, topping out at just under my max HR. No wonder I struggled, I wonder why.

Anyway, I made a graph of my FTP over 3 years – numbers fictitious trend realistic 🙂

Capture

Despite periodic ups and downs the trend is 7% FTP increase PA. I’m assuming thats Ok.

A) Looks like your test was all over the place – 40w increase 5mins in.

Deliberate increase, as I was comfortable at the lower wattage so dropped a gear.

B) Something is indeed badly wrong if you found Haku and Antelope particularly hard. Maybe something wrong with the calibration of your PM during test?

I did change trainers between the test and Hakue/Antelope. But the Tacx Vortex I did the test on was calibrated, and the new Tacx Neo is calibration free.

C) Your comment on Antelope suggests you were tired and no power right from the outset – that’s a prime candidate for knocking session on head – all the fatigue for none of the benefit.

Probably fair assessment.

Shasta this morning felt much better at the lower FTP of 260 https://www.trainerroad.com/cycling/rides/4298064-shasta

Take a read of the following blogs from TrainerRoad. Getting a good ftp test takes practice. One thing you’re not supposed to do is surge at the end for example.

Yes, I’m aware of that, however the guidance text on the 20 minute effort does encourage you to increase effort fast each 5 minute block if you feel comfortable. Hence my increases at 5 minutes and 15 minutes in. I don’t do a sprint in the last 30 seconds type thing.

I’ll re-test in 7 weeks when this block is done and keep it consistent.

New to turbo training (with a Tacx vortex from Halfords) and dived straight in with TR. Just finished the first week of Sweet Spot Base LV1. FTP of 279 in the 2×8 min test and hoping to build on that for March/April time.

Yes, I’m aware of that, however the guidance text on the 20 minute effort does encourage you to increase effort fast each 5 minute block if you feel comfortable.

It’s been a while since I’ve done one 😳 but I seem to recall they’re more talking about slight ups / downs as opposed to big changes. If at about 10 minutes in I’m not really sure I’m going to make it but at 15 I think I’ll just be able to cling on then I’ve got the pacing about right.

In 7 weeks you’ll have a much better feel of what power is sustainable and for how long so you should be able to start a bit harder and cling on until the bitter end 😀

Some of those FTP numbers above seem to be quite strong…I suppose we don’t have the w/kg to put in context. Significantly over 300 is impressive…

Its 2 for bensales, 3.6 for me.

300W alone isn’t particularly impressive, it can only be impressive in the context of W/kg.
A 60kg rider with a 300W ftp is very impressive, a 100kg rider is quite unimpressive.

I did change trainers between the test and Hakue/Antelope. But the Tacx Vortex I did the test on was calibrated, and the new Tacx Neo is calibration free.

There’s the reason.

Tacx Vortex (I have one) is only going to be ‘roughly’ calibrated. Even two examples of the same direct force power meter are likely to read differently by a percent or two. The Vortex effectively uses virtual power (calculated internally). It is also rather susceptible to when you do the calibration. If you do a spindown when cold then it will be quite a way off once warmed up. I have done some tests on mine, and regardless of calibration protocol, it actually drifts during an interval as it warms up further. This will be quite pronounced during a 20 minute FTP test. For a given actual power output, the displayed wattage will drift upwards as you spend longer at that power.

Also, even if you do the spindown once it’s warmed up *at* a given power output, it is likely to be a good few percent out relative to an accurate measure. Your Neo is likely to be much more accurate.

The Vortex still isn’t bad by any stretch, but don’t expect the power data to be directly comparable to other units.

You should definitely stick to one method of measuring power for test and train if possible. And if you’re going to be using the Vortex then pay close attention to temperature (ambient and resistance unit) for both calibration and operation.

fifeandy – Member
300W alone isn’t particularly impressive, it can only be impressive in the context of W/kg.
A 60kg rider with a 300W ftp is very impressive, a 100kg rider is quite unimpressive.

Gee thanks 🙂

Yeah, I’m about 1.5 stone heavier than I should be.

bensales – Member
I did change trainers between the test and Hakue/Antelope. But the Tacx Vortex I did the test on was calibrated, and the new Tacx Neo is calibration free.

gray – Member
There’s the reason.

Tacx Vortex (I have one) is only going to be ‘roughly’ calibrated. Even two examples of the same direct force power meter are likely to read differently by a percent or two. The Vortex effectively uses virtual power (calculated internally). It is also rather susceptible to when you do the calibration. If you do a spindown when cold then it will be quite a way off once warmed up.

Yes, it’s only dawned on me now I’ve thought it through properly. Another test on the Neo in 6 weeks will give me a much better picture. For the moment, I’ll adjust the ftp manually and check the workout descriptions to ensure I’m at the right RPE.

The Vortex effectively uses virtual power (calculated internally). It is also rather susceptible to when you do the calibration. If you do a spindown when cold then it will be quite a way off once warmed up.

This. Some turbos, especially mag ones, are very susceptible to this warm up effect. When I had my old mag turbo I could be in one or two gears higher for a given (direct force PM measured) power at the end of the workout to what I was in at the start. If I was deriving power from wheel speed when it’d have drifted considerably. The first 20 mins or so are perticularly bad, but it does continue to drift for hours.

Neo should be much better than the Vortex. It also eliminates all the variability around the tyre and drum interface.