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Training Plan Deconstruction (AKA Everything I Need to Know About Training I...

Old 02-27-19, 01:27 PM
  #101  
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Originally Posted by redlude97
Not sure if I agree. I can "hold" LTHR for 45+mins in January just like I can "hold" LTHR for 45+ in Sept when race season starts even though my CTL is half in January. The power at LTHR is about 50W difference though. Even when you look at a power based PMC, it doesn't inform you of your fitness, it informs you on how much sustainable training you can endure. Regular testing at different intervals are still necessary to determine your readiness, and to assess whether you can sustain the power necessary to stay with a group or make time over a climb etc. My CTL generally decays over the months during the race season even though I generally get faster through periodization of training for specificity. I still use the PMC, but I don't think a HR or power based PMC informs you much about your actual performance capability which rubiksoval is alluding to
Well you're just better than I! I sure can't do HR work in January that I can do in June. My HR based weekly TSS score gradually goes up. I'm still recovering from an illness last summer, so on our last Sunday group ride I was able to hold LTHR for 35 minutes total, though only ~10 minutes at a time. My legs were totally trashed with a hrTSS of only 155.

We're different people training for different objectives. Monitoring our progress toward those objectives will be different. A few years ago, I could manage a 1 hour over-under paceline with 10,000' in my legs. Can't do that anymore, but the objective is still dropping everyone I can in the last 30 miles..My testing consists of staying with the group and making time over difficult climbs.

All that said, I would define fitness by what you discard: ability to take on a large volume of sustainable training. I went to a talk by a highly regarded long distance racer many years ago. She said, "Distance equals strength." IME she was correct. One of the strongest riders I've ever ridden with did 30,000 miles/year for a couple years. He can still beat most folks up big climbs with his 5-year old daughter asleep in the stoker seat.
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Old 02-27-19, 01:50 PM
  #102  
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Originally Posted by redlude97
you continue to ignore the bigger issues with training in general.
Bigger issues like what?
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Old 02-27-19, 01:52 PM
  #103  
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@redlude87. I do not think he has any results, relevant credentials or success palmeres. If he did, he would post them just to shut people up. I think it is as simple as what he has stated. His hobby is analyzing training protocols. His anecdotal evidence based upon what software apps and platforms he has tried is that they are not worth the money. Free training stuff is better. As you point out, his training protocol is super simple.

He posts up an idea / protocol and through half baked crowd sourcing, he gets feebback and revises his oringinal post. So this is not a discussion about training per se but a tool for him to refine his idea.
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Old 02-27-19, 02:21 PM
  #104  
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Originally Posted by Carbonfiberboy
Well you're just better than I! I sure can't do HR work in January that I can do in June. My HR based weekly TSS score gradually goes up. I'm still recovering from an illness last summer, so on our last Sunday group ride I was able to hold LTHR for 35 minutes total, though only ~10 minutes at a time. My legs were totally trashed with a hrTSS of only 155.

We're different people training for different objectives. Monitoring our progress toward those objectives will be different. A few years ago, I could manage a 1 hour over-under paceline with 10,000' in my legs. Can't do that anymore, but the objective is still dropping everyone I can in the last 30 miles..My testing consists of staying with the group and making time over difficult climbs.

All that said, I would define fitness by what you discard: ability to take on a large volume of sustainable training. I went to a talk by a highly regarded long distance racer many years ago. She said, "Distance equals strength." IME she was correct. One of the strongest riders I've ever ridden with did 30,000 miles/year for a couple years. He can still beat most folks up big climbs with his 5-year old daughter asleep in the stoker seat.
What stops you from being able to hold LTHR? By definition its a proxy for physiological response so it should be achievable year round. I dont' think this is something special I can do, most people that do FTP tests year round don't note any significant changes in LTHR throughout the season even if FTP varies greatly. Even when I pace incorrectly for an FTP test and end up blowing up towards the end the HR still sits near my LTHR
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Old 02-27-19, 03:00 PM
  #105  
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Originally Posted by Hermes
If he did, he would post them just to shut people up.
That would be pretty naive.
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Old 02-27-19, 04:34 PM
  #106  
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Originally Posted by fstrnu
The training plan is the input.
Like I said. None.
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Old 02-27-19, 04:40 PM
  #107  
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Originally Posted by fstrnu
And you guys think my approach is confusing
You don't have an approach, bro. That's what the same 6 people keep telling you. For some reason you keep playing the "I suck at communication" card, though. Yes. We know. And at understanding training and performance. All of it.

Yet you continue on...
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Old 02-27-19, 05:23 PM
  #108  
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Originally Posted by redlude97
What stops you from being able to hold LTHR? By definition its a proxy for physiological response so it should be achievable year round. I dont' think this is something special I can do, most people that do FTP tests year round don't note any significant changes in LTHR throughout the season even if FTP varies greatly. Even when I pace incorrectly for an FTP test and end up blowing up towards the end the HR still sits near my LTHR
Exactly. My legs, etc. just give out when I'm not in shape yet. I don't see significant changes in LTHR either.
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Old 02-27-19, 07:18 PM
  #109  
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Originally Posted by redlude97
What stops you from being able to hold LTHR? By definition its a proxy for physiological response so it should be achievable year round. I dont' think this is something special I can do, most people that do FTP tests year round don't note any significant changes in LTHR throughout the season even if FTP varies greatly. Even when I pace incorrectly for an FTP test and end up blowing up towards the end the HR still sits near my LTHR
Exactly.

No matter where my FTP is sitting my LTHR is the same. My understanding is that you can train to produce better power at LT but that a given persons heart rate at LT is pretty much fixed (although it declines with aging).

Definitely if I’m really fit, my HR will be lower at a given power output, but that’s just because my FTP is up.

There are caveats to interpreting the HR data and the biggest one for me is ambient temp. My HR will be lower for shorter intervals if I’m doing the work in the cold, and higher if I’m doing the work in the heat. Altitude is also a factor, HR is depressed at high altitude. Caffeine raises HR, as does adrenaline/ stress and dehydration.

But for non-hot temps and long efforts, my LTHR does not vary, year round.

I use HR a lot in my post race analysis. I know what my HR should be for a well-executed TT. If my power is great but my HR was below LTHR, I conclude I could’ve tried harder. Interpreting that of course in light of the variables I know will affect my HR.
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Old 02-27-19, 08:18 PM
  #110  
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@redlude97 @Heathpack @Carbonfiberboy Here is material provided by Lactate.com. They sell lactate measuring meters so they would like us to believe that lactate threshold is the holy grail or endurance sports - and maybe it is. Lactate threshold - What is it? It's importance. How to test for the LT, how to train the LT It's history We all need lactate meters....right.

They have some good citations to articles that you may be interested in.
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Old 02-27-19, 09:53 PM
  #111  
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Originally Posted by fstrnu
Yeah I suck at communication which is why I need the interactivity of a forum. Your summary is spot on and also your comments about the OP. I see know how that was indeed confusing. I see your post as constructive. Thank you for that. The way my thinking was going in the OP was in two parts. The "what I learned in the kitchen" or whatever part was sincere because I'm binge-ing a cooking podcast and the parallels with training are strong. Anyway the intention of the OP is to outline this first and then to apply these concepts to a generic training plan. It would probably make a lot more sense if I just titled it something like "one way to add load monitoring to your training plan" or something like that and then just explain the how's and why's as I describe what a typical training plan does.

Oh yeah and your "from there it's a question of" is spot on. So, you can take a bottom-up approach where you figure out the nuts and bolts and then expand into the overall phasing, etc. or, and what I say in this thread is, you can lean on your training plan to do the overall outline part but then fiddle a bit with the details to better understand, monitor and adjust the workouts, microcycle and progression as needed for your unique abilities.
Ok, if you suck at communication, I can share some of my insights with the few brain cells I have left after 40 years of a technical career. Engineers don't just create simulations, write code, and use computer aided design and engineering (CAD/CAE), we write to deliver and explain our work. FWIW, I don't think you suck, but you have to be conceptually tighter. Go to a resale store and get a 50 cent copy of "The Elements of Style" by Strunk and White (this pdf

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=...VTU4oofxXEA1-5

might help, too). Your work has to be crystal clear to everyone with a reason to have interest (so not the fifth-graders among us!) in planning and applying their own training plan.

Don't explain the same thing several times. Do it once, correctly. Repetition can cause confusion. When you do choose a point to clarify, don't just repeat what you said before.

How about trying a simple title and topic, such as: "Simplify your understanding of training plans to make one you'd like to follow." Or, "Better Training Plans through Simplicity." If

Your introduction and closing were kinda nice but too long - short and sweet if it's not core content. You want people sitting back and saying "he's a danged genius!" not ""nice closing, I feel like my hand has been shaked, but ... what did he teach me?"

Don't use words that have precise meanings outside their standard meanings unless their connotative or slang-based meanings are also crystal-clear. I'm here commenting on the thing about the word "random." Likewise "generic" in your phrase "Generic structured training plan."

Finally, when you use abbreviations in an article, the first time you want to use it, spell it out first, like this: "We use too many TLA's in our writing." This is wrong, because you have no clue how the reader understands "TLA." Should be, "We use too many three-letter acronyms (TLA) in our work." After that, use TLA without spelling it out.

If an analogy takes more than one line of text, there's too much of it. Closings rarely need to be longer than two lines, 20 or so words.

In all my technical writing (a lot of it in 40 years as an engineer), I've found examples have to be perfect. If one of my examples has loose ends, I look like I don't give a rats ass about whether my reader gets it. Some people will jump to the examples and only read them. If those are not good, my whole paper takes that reputation. My bad luck, those people are usually the seniors of the company.

So don't take any of this the wrong way. You clearly want to be understood, if you wrote it to more of a layperson's level without reducing the sophistication of your message, I might understand your point as well as Carbonfiberboy does. And we might be able to talk to each other intelligently about what I hope to do, and I could benefit from all that research and daydreaming you seem to have done on your topic. I'm not on this Forum to bust chops, I'm here to learn about training so I can get to my 60 mile with climbing event in September. If you can make use of any of my notes in this posting, I think I'll be helping us both.
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Old 02-27-19, 09:54 PM
  #112  
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Originally Posted by Hermes
@redlude97 @Heathpack @Carbonfiberboy Here is material provided by Lactate.com. They sell lactate measuring meters so they would like us to believe that lactate threshold is the holy grail or endurance sports - and maybe it is. Lactate threshold - What is it? It's importance. How to test for the LT, how to train the LT It's history We all need lactate meters....right.

They have some good citations to articles that you may be interested in.
Thanks for the good compendium. That's how I train, except no lactate meter. I try to fake it by looking at results after and markers during. We've known for a long time that we can both push up MLSS from the bottom and pull it up from the top. We had a user on here, sorry don't remember their screen name, who did base with a meter, training to produce as close to zero lactate as possible at a pretty decent power. That's the reason we base train or it's supposed to be. That's from the bottom, like in the article. VO2max intervals are the usual way to pull it up from the top, but not too much, eh? I have learned to not do much VO2max work. Capacity rides where one does as much as possible close to MLSS and recovers by slowing as little as as possible to do so are excellent.

An interesting thing noted in the article is that the HR difference between MLSS and well above MLSS is only a few beats. I try to be accurate within 1 or 2 beats to get best results.

So that's what you do - reduce lactate production and improve lactate processing. It's a fuel so treat it like one. It's a dangerous fuel, so limit its quantity.

On the economy of movement part of it. that too is a big part of my training. I've been devoting all my indoor riding time to that for the past few weeks.
most coaches pay more attention to aspects of economy of movement than anything else
I post about that here once in a while but no one pays any attention, poor me.
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Old 02-28-19, 06:06 AM
  #113  
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Originally Posted by Carbonfiberboy
That's from the bottom, like in the article. VO2max intervals are the usual way to pull it up from the top, but not too much, eh? I have learned to not do much VO2max work. Capacity rides where one does as much as possible close to MLSS and recovers by slowing as little as as possible to do so are excellent.
A few years back I increased FTP by about 10 watts over previous bests by doing a lot of "push-up" sweetspot ~85-90% FTP. But that had its limits. I got up to 3 hours continuous sweetspot at ~89% FTP or thereabouts. Didn't increase FTP any more than the initial gains i'd had from just working up to 75-90 minutes.

I got another 10 or watts on top of that by doing repeated bouts of work at ~8-10 minute power (118-120ish % FTP). Then that topped out as well. I haven't actually seen any gains in FTP by focusing on VO2 max intervals (~130% ftp for me). Surprisingly enough, I've also seen no gains in my 5 min power, which is what I most expected. Not that the work doesn't have its merit through specificity and sharpening, it just didn't do anything else for improving vo2 max or ftp once I was in shape.

I believe I've hit most of my limits up to ~45 minutes or so. I just don't think I have any more watts to gain and now each year seems about trying to get back to those levels to be successful. Improvements can certainly be made about producing those efforts at the end of longer and longer rides/races, but I don't road race much so that doesn't matter to me.

It's been interesting trying the different methodologies over the years. I feel like now I can work very simply and get back to race-shape pretty efficiently through a little pushing up and a little pulling up. Neuromuscular work has been the must useful and effective performance improvement I've been able to identify and change in the last four years using wko4. It's been the difference between not finishing pro crits and getting in the money.
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Old 02-28-19, 06:32 AM
  #114  
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@Road Fan

Thanks for taking the time to write that up, my friend! I’m going to take all of that to heart and have a go! I’ve been attempting to write podcast scripts about all this but I’m such a divergent thinker it’s hard to settle on a topic flow. I’ll keep at it though and keep you posted. Thanks again!
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Old 02-28-19, 10:26 AM
  #115  
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I am done being a lab rat for OP's crowd sourcing. But one last post here.

With respect to economy. In the lactate article, they discuss all aerobic sports including cycling. Swimming and running require more focus on economy than cycling per se. Swimming technique is very important and since water creates a lot of drag, body position in the water is crucial to generate more speed.

Cycling, we are locked into the pedals and posture is fixed. Having said that, poor cycling economy zap speed. I train my hardest efforts in the most efficient position to generate the most speed and I work on position and posture on the bike along with strength and adaptation on the bike.

The track is a proving ground for cycling economy. Speeds are higher and poor economy shows up immediately predominantly because we cannot change gears to offset leg speed issues. If a slight gap opens, I need max force instantly to close it especially if I am in a big gear. All we do at the track is pace line work. So we get really good at riding in a pace line at high speed and optimize our position, cadence and equipment. Otherwise, we quickly run out of aerobic capacity and strength to generate the speed to be competitive.
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Old 02-28-19, 01:10 PM
  #116  
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Originally Posted by fstrnu
@Road Fan

Thanks for taking the time to write that up, my friend! I’m going to take all of that to heart and have a go! I’ve been attempting to write podcast scripts about all this but I’m such a divergent thinker it’s hard to settle on a topic flow. I’ll keep at it though and keep you posted. Thanks again!
No. Stop it now
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Old 02-28-19, 05:31 PM
  #117  
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Originally Posted by Hermes
@redlude97 @Heathpack @Carbonfiberboy Here is material provided by Lactate.com. They sell lactate measuring meters so they would like us to believe that lactate threshold is the holy grail or endurance sports - and maybe it is. Lactate threshold - What is it? It's importance. How to test for the LT, how to train the LT It's history We all need lactate meters....right.

They have some good citations to articles that you may be interested in.
I've been aware of this site for awhile now but this is the first I've taken the time to read it thoroughly. I have to say that their model makes inherent sense to me..

Several things are implied by the discussion on this site:
1. It has been my impression since shortly after I started TTing that having a killer sprint is likely a disadvantage in TTs. I started to formulate this impression based on the sense that people I know who are good at crits tend to avoid TTs. Descriptions of the sensations they experience during a TT include a lot more descriptors of "misery" than I feel like I experience. Based on this website, the scientific articulation that I'd give to this impression is that crit racers with a good sprint likely have an anaerobic capacity that it too high for TTing. They generate way more lactate than a slow twitch-type does.
2. I have the sense that the comments I frequently read on BF that more training volume is essentially always better is not correct either. I'm not just thinking of big training volumes being unnecessary for very short events but also that it depends on the athlete. If you have an athlete who is almost all slow twitch, for example, might their Achilles heel not be anaerobic capacity? That athlete might be able to absorb big training volumes without over-training, but never really improve speed or performance because they are too fatigued to do workouts which improve anaerobic capacity which might be more relatively important for those athletes than a fast twitch or "mixed" twitch athlete.
3. This websites discusses the central role that a specific goal on a specific date plays in informing the training program. Its the concept that has been brought up infinite times in OP's various threads and something that most people posting here seem to inherently understand: the nature and timing of the goal essentially dictate the optimal training plan for a given athlete, and without an articulated goal, a training plan is at best "uninformed".

Thanks for the post, very interesting stuff. I almost want to buy the CD and a lactate meter and see if Ex wants to play around with it.

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Old 02-28-19, 05:42 PM
  #118  
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Originally Posted by Heathpack
I've been aware of this site for awhile now but this is the first I've taken the time to read it thoroughly. I have to say that their model makes inherent sense to me..

Several things are implied by the discussion on this site:
1. It has been my impression since shortly after I started TTing that having a killer sprint is likely a disadvantage in TTs. I started to formulate this impression based on the sense that people I know who are good at crits tend to avoid TTs. Descriptions of the sensations they experience during a TT include a lot more descriptors of "misery" than I feel like I experience. Based on this website, the scientific articulation that I'd give to this impression is that crit racers with a good sprint likely have an anaerobic capacity that it too high for TTing. They generate way more lactate than a slow twitch-type does.
2. I have the sense that the comments I frequently read on BF that more training volume is essentially always better is not correct either. I'm not just thinking of big training volumes being unnecessary for very short events but also that it depends on the athlete. If you have an athlete who is almost all slow twitch, for example, might their Achilles heel not be anaerobic capacity? That athlete might be able to absorb big training volumes without over-training, but never really improve speed or performance because they are too fatigued to do workouts which improve anaerobic capacity which might be more relatively important for those athletes than a fast twitch or "mixed" twitch athlete.
3. This websites discusses the central role that a specific goal on a specific date plays in informing the training program. Its the concept that has been brought up infinite times in OP's various threads and something that most people posting here seem to inherently understand: the nature and timing of the goal essentially dictate the optimal training plan for a given athlete, and without an articulated goal, a training plan is at nest "uninformed".

Thanks for the post, very interesting stuff. I almost want to buy the CD and a lactate meter and see if Ex wants to play around with it.
On the topic of lactate production and aerobic vs anaerobic metabolism, a new concept termed VLamax might be of interest to you and others like Hermes and addresses exactly what your impression is of the types of riders
https://www.velonews.com/2019/02/tra...n-weber_483349
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Old 02-28-19, 08:29 PM
  #119  
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Originally Posted by rubiksoval
A few years back I increased FTP by about 10 watts over previous bests by doing a lot of "push-up" sweetspot ~85-90% FTP. But that had its limits. I got up to 3 hours continuous sweetspot at ~89% FTP or thereabouts. Didn't increase FTP any more than the initial gains i'd had from just working up to 75-90 minutes.

I got another 10 or watts on top of that by doing repeated bouts of work at ~8-10 minute power (118-120ish % FTP). Then that topped out as well. I haven't actually seen any gains in FTP by focusing on VO2 max intervals (~130% ftp for me). Surprisingly enough, I've also seen no gains in my 5 min power, which is what I most expected. Not that the work doesn't have its merit through specificity and sharpening, it just didn't do anything else for improving vo2 max or ftp once I was in shape.

I believe I've hit most of my limits up to ~45 minutes or so. I just don't think I have any more watts to gain and now each year seems about trying to get back to those levels to be successful. Improvements can certainly be made about producing those efforts at the end of longer and longer rides/races, but I don't road race much so that doesn't matter to me.

It's been interesting trying the different methodologies over the years. I feel like now I can work very simply and get back to race-shape pretty efficiently through a little pushing up and a little pulling up. Neuromuscular work has been the must useful and effective performance improvement I've been able to identify and change in the last four years using wko4. It's been the difference between not finishing pro crits and getting in the money.
By "neuromuscular work" are you referring to short maximal efforts?
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Old 02-28-19, 08:44 PM
  #120  
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Originally Posted by Hermes
I am done being a lab rat for OP's crowd sourcing. But one last post here.

With respect to economy. In the lactate article, they discuss all aerobic sports including cycling. Swimming and running require more focus on economy than cycling per se. Swimming technique is very important and since water creates a lot of drag, body position in the water is crucial to generate more speed.

Cycling, we are locked into the pedals and posture is fixed. Having said that, poor cycling economy zap speed. I train my hardest efforts in the most efficient position to generate the most speed and I work on position and posture on the bike along with strength and adaptation on the bike.

The track is a proving ground for cycling economy. Speeds are higher and poor economy shows up immediately predominantly because we cannot change gears to offset leg speed issues. If a slight gap opens, I need max force instantly to close it especially if I am in a big gear. All we do at the track is pace line work. So we get really good at riding in a pace line at high speed and optimize our position, cadence and equipment. Otherwise, we quickly run out of aerobic capacity and strength to generate the speed to be competitive.
Sounds like plenty of economy work, perfect. I think that's what the fixed training advocates are getting at - doing just what you do, very high cadence for long periods, hard accelerations at high cadence, etc. Don't need to be fixed to do that, though. I think economy is important for cyclists and train it throughout the season. Thanks for the post.

We are all crowd sourcing here, trying to learn from others. That's the whole point.
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Old 02-28-19, 09:36 PM
  #121  
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Originally Posted by Carbonfiberboy
By "neuromuscular work" are you referring to short maximal efforts?
Not really maximal. More shorter, submaximal efforts, but tons and tons of them. So there's an aerobic component at times, but once I'm at a certain aerobic level it becomes more of an issue that after 75-90 minutes there's a "can-barely-get-out-of-the-saddle" fatigue. In WKO terms, it's a bunch of FRC stuff.. Most of the bigger crits have something like 100+ surges of 600+ watts. And within those surges specifically I'll typically need to do 13-15 minutes of accumulated time in between 350-550 watts, and then another 13-15 minutes of 550-750 watts. And then drop a few 1000 watt sprints in the last couple of minutes on top of all of that.

So targeting that with a ton of seated 30 secs on /60 secs off at 500 watts +, and seated accelerations pushing 800-900 watts for 10-15 secs, etc,; anything to get my legs used to those efforts, especially seated, as it has so much less accumulated strain. These are higher cadence (100-115 rpm), higher power efforts that really mimic coming out of corners and getting up to speed as quickly and efficiently as possible. .
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Old 03-01-19, 03:40 PM
  #122  
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Originally Posted by rubiksoval
Not really maximal. More shorter, submaximal efforts, but tons and tons of them. So there's an aerobic component at times, but once I'm at a certain aerobic level it becomes more of an issue that after 75-90 minutes there's a "can-barely-get-out-of-the-saddle" fatigue. In WKO terms, it's a bunch of FRC stuff.. Most of the bigger crits have something like 100+ surges of 600+ watts. And within those surges specifically I'll typically need to do 13-15 minutes of accumulated time in between 350-550 watts, and then another 13-15 minutes of 550-750 watts. And then drop a few 1000 watt sprints in the last couple of minutes on top of all of that.

So targeting that with a ton of seated 30 secs on /60 secs off at 500 watts +, and seated accelerations pushing 800-900 watts for 10-15 secs, etc,; anything to get my legs used to those efforts, especially seated, as it has so much less accumulated strain. These are higher cadence (100-115 rpm), higher power efforts that really mimic coming out of corners and getting up to speed as quickly and efficiently as possible. .
Thanks. I don't think I have to do those. Ouch. Or maybe I should. I definitely reach that level of fatigue on long tandem rides, just not from really hard accelerations.
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Old 03-04-19, 07:36 AM
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Originally Posted by fstrnu
@Road Fan

Thanks for taking the time to write that up, my friend! I’m going to take all of that to heart and have a go! I’ve been attempting to write podcast scripts about all this but I’m such a divergent thinker it’s hard to settle on a topic flow. I’ll keep at it though and keep you posted. Thanks again!
Buy that book and read it. I'm only giving you fragments that I learned a long time ago in a class.

There's a lot to be said for being able to work through a complex, well-structured argument or presentation of a large idea. Attention span is not optional in life. Often the results of your work (or play) will be critical to you or to others. You will need to make sure that you are correct and your results are correct.

A lot of podcasts are not clear or well-sequenced - it's really frustrating and tiring to sit through them.
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Old 03-06-19, 01:57 PM
  #124  
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Indeed. Communicating is a constant skill to hone.
I'm consideted not bad at creating presentations but still run them by a select group for proofing and am often surprised by the stuff caught in feedback.
The biggest problem being adding too much matetial or complicated wording.

It's extra hard when we want the material to appear intelligent or ground breaking because we tend to sprinkle it too much with techno talk.

The better presentations capture attention or imagination but don't really relay technical data as such. That's what footnotes are for. They contain data but don't clutter the flow of conversation.

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