TheKillerPenguin

Was gonna go for 4x15 @103% but it's 45 and raining and I'm just not mentally prepared for this ****. Taking an extra rest day and will go for it tomorrow when it's in the 60s!

gsteinb

Cleaning out for 'them' to cram a GoPro up my rear. Good times. Strength and an hour of Z3. Empty stomach before. Empty stomach after. Going to be a hella long night.

Fifty plus, *****es. It ain't all glory.

Ygduf

*sucks air through teeth*

gsteinb

LOL. THAT is my exact image of what will happen.

Wylde06

Just did a 20 minute test.

My workouts got harder before I even start into doing workouts :O

revchuck 

No good deed goes unpunished!

caloso

2x30' first at 94%, second at 93%. I think it may be time to retest again. Ugh. I mean Yay.

Enthalpic

They give you drugs that make it so you don't remember much for a reason.

Ttoc6

First colonscopy/endoscopy at 14 years old. Then another a few years later I had some issues as a kid that never properly got resolved. I kinda just live with them now. Have fun sitting (or is it s*itting) on a toilet for a day. Make sure to weigh yourself so you can use that number for you w/kg calculations.


4x15 over 90 minutes today. Bumped my ftp by 3% and the workouts were still bearable. Definitely more like sweetspot than the one I did yesterday. Glad I recognized it was time to change rather than wasting my time below sweetspot for the next 2.5 weeks until it's time to test again.

scheibo

yesterday: 5 hill repeats where my fastest one was my 30th best effort on that climb. i was just trying to set a baseline, but that's kind of demoralizing.

today: needed a confidence boost so i did a workout im good at (short laps of a circuit with a power climb). when i finished 20 mins i figured i was slightly ahead of my best for the workout, only to realize when i got home that i had just completed 13 laps instead of the 14 i did in August.

im pretty impatient - i know i was sidelined for a bit unable to ride outdoors for a month because of a wrist injury and i lost fitness and gained weight, but ive been eating clean and training for 2.5 weeks now and i hoped to see results. usually i have a breakthrough workout by around this time coming back from some time off and that keeps me motivated. im not unmotivated yet, but i feel a week from now cookies and pizza are going to start becoming hard to avoid if i don't show some improvement. going to do a test effort on saturday and hopefully i can do better than 2 weeks ago, but that might not be that hard because i set the bar pretty low last time.

tetonrider

Respectfully, if you think a few sub-threshold workouts over a couple weeks that are performed at 3% lower would make a material difference, then it may be time to think about what physiological adaptations you are expecting from a specific workout, and what you think is not happening as a result of that "lost" 3%.

Seriously.

There's nothing magic about "sweet-spot", nor is it a specific number. Neither is FTP, though many want to pin a # to it.

mattm

Hit up the gym tonight.

rubiksoval

To add to this, I don't see any reason at all to continually hold yourself back in workouts like these. If you can push another 10 watts, then do so.

I don't ever test threshold, but I'll continually adjust sweetspot/thr workouts as I go along throughout the year as I gain or lose fitness and fatigue.

Your training is your testing.

topflightpro

I went last night. I'm going every Sunday and Wednesday. Sunday is big weights day. Wednesday is single leg stuff. I'm getting close to a 2x body weight squat and deadlift.

I've been able to mostly control my DOMS with protein shakes and BCAAs.

hubcyclist

back doing the sweet spot routine, went back and started sweet spot base 1 on trainerroad again. I have my training ftp set at 263, which I doubt I could actually do but for training purposes it works for the sweet spot intervals. this week did 3x12, 3x12, and 5x10 sessions (2 of which were at 93%) and felt the right mix of intensity and not wanting to die.

caloso

I really need to but I keep finding reasons not to go.

gsteinb

totally

I do test, and I have interval workouts based on test numbers. But I'm tracking those intervals and always trying to improve the historical best in those. Sometimes I'm improving a single watt. Sometimes it's just about getting through a sequence without falling over.

Ttoc6

I appreciate the knowledge y'all are dropping on me. It was my understanding that the reason we even do sweet spot workouts is it allows us to perform a high quality workout day in and day out without putting excessive fatigue in the legs that would prevent us from being able to do it again the next day. If I'm continually pushing that number up until it's always *hard* I'm going to dig myself into a hole that I won't be able to get out of without excessive rest. But I'd like to learn, so educate me!


Yesterday I had no car in the morning and had to go pick it up after work. So rode it work and then back home. After that I did 4x6 on a nearby hill at about 120%. First one didn't go well but the next three were right there.

Last night I went to a concert and "danced" for 4 hours. Pretty sure that made me more sore than the riding I've been doing .

jsk

That's certainly true for sweetspot, they definitely should not be maximal efforts for the duration. In fact my recommendation for SST workouts would be that instead of increasing the intensity when you're feeling strong, increase the duration of the intervals and/or decrease the rest between intervals.

I think the point some of the others were making is that sweetspot is a range, so upping your target power by 3 percent probably isn't a big enough change to take you out of that range unless you were already at the very top (which is unlikely if the intervals weren't feeling hard enough).

TMonk

what did you see?

Ttoc6

First EDM show I've ever been to. Decently small venue, but not the smallest I've ever been in (for the number of people). Really good sound system. Could really feel the bass. Made me glad I brought ear protection.

Was fun. A slightly different genre of electronic got played than I was expecting, but was still a great time.

TMonk

nice, sounds like a good time. I like to listen to some extended EDM and progressive house mixes when doing extended chores or tasks at home and work. SuicideSheep (Youtube handle) has a lot of good stuff.

back on topic: finishing up core and upper body work at home. Plan to ride another century tomorrow, getting back in shape! This time of the year can be fun; I'm not (yet) burnt out on monotonous volume, and I get stronger by just riding around.

topflightpro

Ygduf

I did Huddart yesterday and lost to a guy with hairy legs, but still 444w for 5 minutes and re-irritated my tendonitis!

Woohoo cycling.

furiousferret

I've started Trainerroad and will do some of the sessions, mainly intervals over 10 minutes since in the winter its hard to find strips of road I can go for that long nonstop (Oak Glen, Onyx, and other mountains are iced up). The stuff under 1m I'll keep on the road, so it probably wont be more than two sessions a week.

First workout they had me do a 2x8 FTP test (which is kinda odd) and came out really low. My CX bike is on the trainer which meant a 40x11 would spin at 110+ to break 300 watts; so my fatigue was caused my by spinning as fast as I could (which I'm not a spinner) than spinning optimally. I'm leaning toward keeping there but I do think its probably off by 20 (if I did a tt on the road).

All aboard the excuse train!