I got onto the Zwift thing in early January, and the gamification has definitely gotten me to ride more. If you run a HRM and the obligatory power sensing trainer, they calculate FTP ride by ride and let you know when you’ve made progress. Not sure how accurate it really is, but it’s been encouraging. Now I’m getting to the point that I realize I’m going to need to have some idea of how often to cool it instead of just doing whatever feels right.
I’m personally not interested in interval training and more just want to get a fun level of fitness and keep it. I’m just not the kind of person who sets specific goals months in advance.
In the few texts I’ve read this approach is not recommended. But I don’t really care.
Speak, o tarck hive mind.
Many years ago I did the HR threshold test outside (no cadence, just tracking with a HRM and going off perceived effort) and had an actual LT test indoors not long after. The results were shockingly close.
The diy test is absolutely a great place to start.
Then have @ProCracknfailBro send you that power meter. And send me one too… for my cargo bike. For science.
Hot take: your FTP doesn’t matter. You don’t need help setting intensity. Don’t worry about your HR.
A power meter is good for tracking the accumulation of training stress. The power numbers themselves don’t matter. There’s no magic workout. There’s only the accumulation of training stress which leads to increased fitness.
Outside of peaking and event specific training, SST is probably the most amount of training stress one can accumulate in a given period of time. I couldn’t find Coggan’s original webinar on the topic, but it’s described by the fastcat guy here:
Put simply, this is basically just long bouts at slightly below threshold which will make the TSS number climb surprisingly quickly.
Coggan goes on ad nauseum about building a better base, which is probably what those of us not peaking for a race in the next three weeks ought to be focused on.
Anyway, your FTP doesn’t matter. Just guess a number that seems reasonable. If you’re not old and find yourself unable to recover or consistently unable to complete workouts, chances are its set too high. After 6-8 weeks of consistent training, your workouts may become too easy, at which point, whatever training software you’re using should be telling you what your new FTP should be. Set it, rinse and repeat for the next cycle.
If you don’t have a power meter, go find a hill that takes 20m or more to climb. Climb it as fast as you can, roll down and repeat. Do that 2 or 3 times a week. Ride a little easier on off days.
Training Impulse (TRIMP) does a reasonable approximation of TSS with heart rate. I’ve used that to measure stress from gravity-based riding, where a power meter is largely useless.
TRIMP is the predecessor of the PMC. It still suffers from the variability inherent to HR.
The biggest downside of TRIMP is that it is heart rate based, which means that in the context of quantifying training load in the impulse-response model of training adaptation, the input is itself a response and not a direct measure of the stimulus.
PE can be hilarious at times when riding with others. Keep it for solo efforts. The psychology of pain is pretty interesting. There is also a real honeymoon period when training with power too. I pretty much hate it now. I don’t really like being told how shit I am for my whole ride! I know a rider who used to put tape over her readout when racing.
Get aero, free speed. Aero position, with some bars. You just won’t be so comfortable. I’ve gotta say 30kmh isn’t bad for commuting. My commute is 22km and I am about an hour.
I already stay low in the drops for most of the ride, full kit, no backpack. Without riding a TT bike I don’t think I’m gonna find any free speed on the ride. I just need to get stronger, I think?
If I get lucky and someone faster passes I can usually hold on and wind up setting PRs for those segments, so I guess I’m capable?
Is there some trick to pacing that might help? Some day’s I really push it and others I just hold a steady effort and it doesn’t seem to make much difference.
Skitch. This is a joke.
Faster tires. This is not. If the goal is to get there faster (not fitter) this is absolutely the most important thing. With similar efforts my 8 mile commute is on average 5+ minutes faster on GP5k 32mm tubeless than on WTB 650b (or similar).
This is the training thread, not the equipment thread of course… so throw some intervals in there too right?
I want to get fitter. In this case I’m measuring that by how fast I get from work to home. I don’t have power or any other data, so that’s that.
Let’s assume the bike is the bike, too. It’s my Telekom with Red and GP4ks. I keep it pretty well maintained so there’s no gains left to make there without spending $$$.
The only thing left is to get fitter.
Can someone point me to some good reading or YouTube on how to do intervals and some stretches to make riding lower more comfortable? My core is pretty strong from climbing, but my neck hurts near the end.
This is exactly what I do for gravity rides, calculate TSS off HR, if I can remember to wear a strap. Otherwise I end to with rides with 14 TSS and 10,000ft of downhill.
Do you use strava? Even the free version has a neat little used button on segment called compare. If you made a segment (keep it private) of your commute and recorded it everytime, you could see where you gain and lose time and concentrate on those things.
If you’re thinking about this like a time trial, most people view TTs as steady state efforts at the same exertion the whole time, which is only accurate for a flat route. As soon as you add in hills or starts from stop lights, you have to factor in efforts above your “threshold” and be able to recover from them while still keeping a good pace.
@rabbi mentioned some intervals that focus on this type of response, the 30/30 over/under intervals. Doing those strictly on your commute might be hard, but you could certainly work in something similar where you have short bursts with only short periods of recovery. This kind of workout helps you adapt to short anaerobic efforts and recover quickly between efforts, thus increasing your anaerobic capacity. Basically, your legs will burn less and you can sprint up more small hills and such.
Abi Carver did a bunch of yoga videos for Pinkbike a while back. This one might be a good place to start: Motion is Lotion
The easiest intervals to get started with are probably hill repeats. One workout I’ve been getting a lot of benefit from is done on a hill that takes about 10 minutes to climb. Start the first two minutes hard and out of the saddle; you’ll start to feel the lactic acid building in your legs. After that two minutes, sit down, back off the pace a little bit, then continue for eight minutes. Recover with some normal pedaling (not soft pedal) for 10 minutes, then do this two more times. Do that once a week in addition to your regular riding.
Couple things may be happening. You may’ve set your FTP too high or you may not be well-recovered. Alternately, you may not have accumulated much fitness. The fitter you are, the harder you can go relative to your FTP.
As I said, though. You don’t need the power meter to tell you how hard to ride, unless you’re on a very serious, very regimented program. You also don’t need a “workout”. Just go as hard as you can go for some value north of 20m and accumulate as much training stress as you can.
Is your CTL near 80? Then maybe start thinking about doing intervals.
GC users call this LTS
Where’s your TSB?
These numbers all matter way, way more than any power number you’re able to hit on a ride. Get your CTL above 80 and your TSB heading into positive territory and you’ll feel like a fucking monster.