Zwift Training Programs

Interesting thread. Mostly agreeing with my thoughts about Zwift plans 🤣 But I’ve also gone ‘beyond’ TR now too in my thinking.

Especially with the latest (or rather rehashed/better explained) Z2 ideas coming out around Inego San Milan lately.
Eg:

So if I was recommending someone how to best use Zwift to train- I would probably say do one Zwift race a week, ideally around an hour rather than a short one.
And the rest of the time do group rides and pace partner rides that keep you right at the ‘talk test’ intensity for as long as you can possibly stand being on the trainer.

As per here:

If that’s three sessions per week (one race and two ‘talk test’ endurance rides) I’d say use any extra sessions you can fit in as ‘easy’ endurance free rides by ticking off the routes as a challenge.

I don’t like that at all… but i do get it.

How long are we talking about ? 90 mins? 120 ? more ?

I’d guess for me it’s about 170w…. But i’ll give it a try. Maybe even later today as it’s still wet.

I’m doing a couple of 1 hours sessions at zone 2 following a pace partner on Zwift.

I’m a long time trainer road user – but stopped it for now as trying something different.

I spent last night pottering round watching youtube and zwift at the same time.
And spent a large amount of time in the drops / hoods been aero. It easy to practice when not pushing harder.

Might help some, me included, that we now have a load of new route badges to get after last night’s update. Could tick them off on recce rides of ~1 hour at z2.

How long are we talking about ? 90 mins? 120 ? more ?

I mean, I like Zwift, but to get to anything like a 90 minute session it’s got to hold my interest and pootling along at Z2 will not do that. Two hours of it can get in the sea…

Unless you have hours and hours spare each week to spend twiddling along in zone 2, most training plans substitute zone 2 with sweetspot for the same benefits but in a much more time efficient way.

Yeah, I’m sure there’s good science behind the long but easier rides, but I did a Zwift training plan one winter that had 2hr+ rides on a regular basis and it’s just boring. Plus unconformable as you don’t move around on the trainer in the same way you would in the real world.

I dumped it and picked a plan that had shorter but more intense rides and ended up fitter at the end of winter than I was at the beginning, so I could get out and enjoy ‘proper’ rides straight away rather than having to build back up, which is all I wanted. I’m doing the same again this year knowing I’m at the level where pedaling intensely twice a week is going to keep me/get me fitter. And the alternative is either riding outdoors (no hills plus rubbish weather) or doing a z2 type plan (boring and takes too long so I know I won’t stick with it).

Zone 2 Training for Cyclists: Where Endurance Training Fits in Your Training Plan

Decent read.

boring and takes too long so I know I won’t stick with it

A good summary for me as someone whos goal is really to become better at recreational mtbing.

My objection to the full training program things, is that they assume you do nothing else.
Maybe good for a canadian winter if you have no other exercise planned, but I’m still wanting to do 2 or maybe even 3 actual mtb rides a week, for fun and socialisation; and maybe the occasional run so my leg muscles remember how to do it – and the training plans dont account for that.
You must (unless it has changed since I last looked) follow their monday-monday week schedule, no going rogue and dragging a “week” out to 10 days for example.

The 100 day exercise challenge has been great for me this autumn. As zwift is there, in the spare room ready to go, and I can do a 40 minute workout in a total time of 50 minutes including set up, changing, clean up, shower it has been a great saviour, especially in the last few weeks.

You must (unless it has changed since I last looked) follow their monday-monday week schedule, no going rogue and dragging a “week” out to 10 days for example.

Thing is, if you can pick and choose when to do (or not to do) workouts, it stops being a structured training plan. This works for some, but for me, I need the workouts in the calendar and knowing I have to complete all 3 by Sunday – with TR you can change days if you need to (like today, I have a 1hr VO2 max workout but I’m going to go out for an hour’s ride this evening, so I’ll move today’s workout to tomorrow) but the overall plan structure is still there.

I don’t do well if I get to pick and choose what workouts to do, and when! 🤣

This works for some, but for me, I need the workouts in the calendar

Yeah, same here, and there is some looseness in the plans, the one I did was “do this session by Monday”, rather than “do it on Monday”, if that makes sense.

But, yeah, horses for courses

This is a nice and boring 90min Z2 workout:

https://whatsonzwift.com/workouts/zwift-fitness-ftp-challenge/endurance-odzwifters-z2-90-mix

The 15 second sprints every 10 minutes, combined with Netflix/Youtube, make it tolerable for me. ODZwifters have a bunch of good workouts that you can download from Whats On Zwift. All straightforward VO2 Max, Sweet Spot or Z2 intervals without the usual rainbows of many Zwift workouts.

@Weeksy- 45mins minimum but 30 mins 5 times a week would be better than 1x 2h30. Frequency first, then duration.

Z2 (as per the ISM method) is not easy or dawdling. If it is you are doing it wrong.
For most people it will end up as Z2 HR and Z3 watts.

It’s also not true that you do more work at sweetspot. Let’s say you have an hour. With the Z2 method you can jump on and start pedalling at target power and just stop when your done. No pressing need to warm up or cool down. The interval becomes 1×60 at say, 76-78% ftp.
With a 4×10 sweetspot workout with 5 min Z1 recoveries and a brief warm up and cool down (necessary to clear the extra lactate higher intensity produces), you will discover the *average* for the session will not be much over the same percentage of your ftp. Kj’s burned will be pretty close.

Also- if you listen to ISM, the intention with his style of Z2 is to maximally exercise your slow twitch fibres.
For a fast twitch carb monster like me- this makes proper Z2 actually really challenging. My body begs to go a little bit harder so the fast twitch dudes start helping out.
To bastardise his analogy, it’s like reviving the tits off your car in gear 2 and refusing to let the engine have gear 3 so it can relax a bit 🤣

Also, because you don’t stress the autonomic nervous system as much, there very little if any residual fatigue! What I’ve found over the past few weeks is that instead of getting more tired from ride to ride and then craving a rest week- I’m actually addicted to it and want to ride more and more!

Early October, really pushing that talk test limit for 2h30 had me at 225w. On Sunday, I did a Zwift group ride at the same HR/intensity and averaged 244w!!

Think about how useful that is for your general cycling if when you’re just riding about at your normal pace- you’re +20w faster.

Increase your FTP for vanity, your Aerobic threshold for sanity 🙂

With the Z2 method you can jump on and start pedalling at target power and just stop when your done. No pressing need to warm up or cool down.

Yeah, to be fair, I often think that 15-20 mins of my one hour ‘formal’ Zwift workouts seem to be me warming up at the start and ramping down at the end.

Slightly contrived to make it easy to create but illustrates the point that a session of Z2 isn’t just effective for people with hours to spare. (And that example is probably a bit low for ISM type Z2 but I wanted it to stay green for illustration purposes 😉 )

@ihn

I mean, I like Zwift, but to get to anything like a 90 minute session it’s got to hold my interest and pootling along at Z2 will not do that. Two hours of it can get in the sea

100% this mate… I did it for 55 mins and wanted to chew my arm off and beat my laptop with it.. Tues i did a 55 mins race and loved it… 55 mins at Z2 is actually harder for me as it’s more a mental game. In a race you’re concentrating, ebb, flow, packs, dynamics, it keeps your brain working…

Z2…. meh it’s hard.

I couldn’t imagine doing a steady state z2 ERG ride for an hour. I’d be more incline to look at a variable power ERG workout and adjust my FTP in Zwft to put the intervals in the z2 ballpark.

Probably not the best fit, but a very quick search brings up https://whatsonzwift.com/workouts/dirt-destroyer/week-6-4-the-egyptian

Right now ~190W is my 95% 20min FTP, so I’d drop my FTP to ~130W in Zwift to make the above workout vary through my z1/2.

Sorry, not a Zwifter, but most of the chat above is relevant to me.

I’ve found a useful 1hr Z2 workout indoors is to do the British Cycling warm-up drill (maybe minus the 6 second sprints at the end) before segueing into the GCN 2 x 15 minute sweetspot workout, but substituting sweetspot intensity for Z2 and instead of the 10 second sprint every 5 minutes I just stand up or something. The time passes fairly quickly, especially with headphones in, and it feels useful.

I couldn’t imagine doing it twice though!

Still torn as to wether I should at least be doing ‘easy’ sweetspot instead, not really sure how much benefit I get from a single hour of Z2 midweek. I’m trying to make 3-4hr Z2 rides at the weekend a more regular thing though.

I have done steady state erg sessions, usually round Greater London Flat on the TT bike to clock up lots of miles 🤣

But Saturday and Sunday last weekend I just joined 100k endurance group rides in C cat.
Saturday, I did a bit extra on top to get to 3h and Sunday, which was +50w, I was happy to get off after 2h odd. Both were about 2000kjs of work.
It wasn’t boring- it was pretty engaging trying to hold a good spot in the bunch and joining in the chat on messenger.

It’s great to see that progress translate into real life results too, I did a Dartmoor ride almost exactly 2 years ago, and then again a few weeks back, there was a particular climb on both trips – 2 years ago I was at the back of the group, pushing up the climb. 2 weeks ago, first to the top, zero pushing and wasn’t anywhere near pushing at any point.

Which Dartmoor climb?

The main point about ISM’s theory is that as soon as you exceed 2mmol lactate (and the talk test is a proxy for finding that- a good one as Si discovered), you have passed the maximal aerobic gainz spot.
So sweetpot isn’t time crunched endurance training- it’s in fact just sub-optimal endurance training full stop.

Which Dartmoor climb?

Think it’s called Hameldown, the next bridleway west from the one that starts at Jay’s Grave. You cross a small stream at the start.

Not a huge climb, but short and sharp enough to need a bit of grinding in the 50t to get up! 😁

For a fast twitch carb monster like me- this makes proper Z2 actually really challenging. My body begs to go a little bit harder so the fast twitch dudes start helping out.

This is where I struggle. I’ll go out for a ride intending to keep the intensity down but as soon as I get into the first climb I can’t help upping the effort. Maybe I should just start talking to myself on climbs to keep things in check?

This is interesting stuff. So, given my awesome FTP of 220W (I know, right, quake before me mortals), 77% = 170W. Can I set Zwift to hold me at that and just ride around?

This is interesting stuff. So, given my awesome FTP of 220W (I know, right, quake before me mortals), 77% = 170W. Can I set Zwift to hold me at that and just ride around?

If you unpair the ‘controllable’ part of your trainer, or set the trainer difficulty to 0, you’ll be able to choose a gear that allows you to set your cadence and power, and everything will be ‘flat’ so the trainer won’t increase or decrease resistance.

Erg mode isn’t available in free rides unfortunately.

Or you could create a workout at 170w and just load that up.

So sweetpot isn’t time crunched endurance training- it’s in fact just sub-optimal endurance training full stop.

Yeah… but is 1hr sweetspot better than 1hr endurance? The theory I was hearing is that endurance work doesn’t achieve much unless it’s over 2hrs.

This is why I get confused and gravitate towards harder workouts when it’s less than 1hr

Yeah that’s what I’ve read too, Z2 stuff needs to be 90-120 mins long minimum, preferably longer.

Yeah that’s what I’ve read too, Z2 stuff needs to be 90-120 mins long minimum, preferably longer.

Chappie in the video above suggests not, he’s suggesting if you have an hour-ish to train, to do most of it at Z2, with some higher intensity stuff at the end

Yes exactly @IHN. Inigo san Milan makes the point that if you have a short amount of time available to train- it’s likely because you have a stressful life.
Your body can’t distinguish between stressors.
So by trying to cheat fitness with intensity you are stifling your bodies ability to recover.
He says it’s perfectly possible to overtrain on single digit hours a week.

We all get that Trainerroad bump or zwift boost when we first get stuck in. The principal of this though is that Z2 (and the healthy mitochondria it creates) is an essential ingredient of life!

If you mix that in with other complimentary ideas like Seiler and his 80/20 intensity distribution between easy / hard (for simplicity we’ll just call that below and above the Z2 we’ve been talking about) then you get to something like a hard session every week or ten days or so.

As for where to ride- Simons idea is a good one, do like a Z2 ramp test session. Start easy and ramp up by 5 or 10 watts every 5 minutes (to allow yourself to settle at each level) until you find a spot where you can just maintain a full conversation.

That gives you a good baseline wattage to go on with but you’ll find after a few sessions you need to go a little bit harder. I think that’s where people fall short- they use a percentage method to guess their Z2 and aren’t actually maximally stressing their slow twitch fibres. You want to push that limit each time you ride. Sometimes it will be higher watts, sometimes lower but it will gradually trend upwards.

I break my 1hr and longer Z2 workouts in ERG mode into smaller chunks (but no recovery)…say 2 mins at 68%, 3 mins at 63% etc. then ride those short durations at various cadences or do standing drills, form or whatever.

Helps the time go by and also a useful side benefit while your trainer holds you at the right power leaving you to focus elsewhere.

Other times it’s just a self selected cadence and Z2 up the Alpe or Ventoux.

And some decent tunes 👍

if you have an hour-ish to train, to do most of it at Z2, with some higher intensity stuff at the end

Which vid was that? Must have missed him saying that.

Blowing a hoolie outside, off for 90 minutes Z2 on the rollers 🙄

I did discover that Z2 benefits from a different choice of music, turns out euphoric techno isn’t the solution to everything!

In the Peter Attia version.

Ug, he seems to be suggesting 90 mins Z2 followed by a 5 minute thrashing. 60 minutes Z2 was my limit on the rollers this morning 🙄

Also his last part is what puts me off Zone 2 the most, I like to treat my weekend rides as Zone 2 but in reality they’re probably anywhere between Zone 1 and Zone 3. Trying to ride Zone 2 ‘properly’ would just be unnatural and anti-social I think. Screw that.

It’s very easy to drift into higher zones on inclines or headwinds etc, appreciate he’s saying it needs to be exclusively Z2 but realistically I guess a few seconds here and there isn’t going to hurt…probably best to just avoid the longer durations and definitely no leg burning!

I sometimes throw in an effort late on, nothing like 5 mins but enough to light the legs up before cooling down.

I was going to have a rest day today but new trainer turned up this morning and I just had to try it out, right? I did a 20 minute At/Over that bloody killed me! ERG mode is ace though.

I use the tool to create workouts, very basic ones, 5×6 at 95%ftp, 2×15 @90 and 50 mins at 75% with cool down and warm up. I then up the % using the up down arrows every couple of weeks and redo the work outs after a re test. Do a group ride once a week or so maybe a race. One of the first two and the 50 mins every week though, throw in some running and it keeps me going.

I’m confused by zwift training programs, I did a ramp test last week and training session 1 of week 1 of Dirt Destroyer. I’d assumed that I had enrolled into Dirt Destroyer and I’d be presented with the next session when I logged into Zwift. Except, when I log into Zwift nothing comes up, I’m on Apple TV so instead toggle across to the workout section and then scroll the list to find Dirt Destroyer before selecting the next ride. Is this right? Should I enrol somewhere and the next ride be presented to me? or is just finding the next ride yourself the way others do it?

Did you enroll to the plan, or simply select the first workout from the “on demand” version that’s now available for many plans?

The recent Zwift update played havoc with plans, thread about it in Zwift forum.

Bad news zone 2 lovers, GCN have changed their minds, sort of… turns out that there’s more than one way to boil a chicken, or something…

EDIT: ignore me, I have just been out and looked again, as it cant be that tough to enrol, I can see now where and how I went wrong, its the god awful Apple TV remote…when I use the touch remote to scroll down to select Dirt Destroyer, I was trying to scroll right to select view plan this was incorrect, I should have touched to enter and then would have been able to enrol…

If I enrol now, can I skip the first few work outs I have already done? or do I need to do them again?