Road Bike Racing - SST, building Aerobic Base and Friel

So, i'm in a bit of a quandary here and my knowledge is tapped...

SST now seems to be the way many people are turning to build (or supplement in building?) their aerobic base as opposed to the long duration/low intensity Z2 ride. This works great for me in terms of my own time commitment, preference for shorter/more intense efforts, etc. I've made myself a training schedule using the Friel 'bible' which calls for 15 hours this week, the second week of Base 1. My first question is thus whether or not the Friel 'hours' derived method of building base is somewhat incompatible with SST workouts? Rather than being concerned with long Z2 rides and hours, should I instead cut back the proscribed hours and instead attempt to attain a comparable TSS while monitoring TSB? A typical 20min SST effort for me has been between 28-31 TSS, with more difficult rides for myself being in the 180+ TSS range.

How have others integrated SST workouts into their training? Are you only doing SST workouts or are they complemented by longer Z2 rides?

Finally, when doing 2x20 or 3x30 SST sets, how much rest do you take between them?

Oh, and here's the mandatory graph, my 28 day PMC taken on the 1st.

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2153/2155010015_af916aa576_o.jpg

I'm doing a lot of SST and L4 workouts. For my 2x20s I'll take 5-10 minutes rest between.

I don't train with power. But I am doing a combiniation of SST and long Z2 - Z3 rides. For my SST workouts I usually do 2x20 or 3x20 with 5 minutes rest between.

Your CTL is 55?

What are your defaults in your PMC? Are you sure you're not overestimating FTP? That CTL seems very low.

I'm curious to know how SST translates into HR zones.....is it Z3/tempo? or is it Z4/sub-threshold? i imagine if you up the intensity you would have cut back on the hours that Friel usually suggests. My understanding of SST is you get more bang for your buck riding in that 'sweet spot' and hence can do shorter sessions rather than the traditional long and slow rides.

I don't train with power. But I am doing a combiniation of SST and long Z2 - Z3 rides. For my SST workouts I usually do 2x20 or 3x20 with 5 minutes rest between.

Me too, except that I am training with power. I havent gotten advanced enough to use all the software and acronyms as of yet.

SST on weekdays when I'm attached to the trainer in the basement, usually 2x20 at 85% - 90% FTP, then longer 3-ish hr. rides of varying intensity on sat and sun. typically clocking around 9 hrs/week.

Orig. Poster - I'm not sure how to correlate SST with Friel other than how I'm doing it. A 15 hr. week in mid Base 1, what are you on like a 700 hr. annual training plan? That's alot, depending on the level at which you race. I'm a fairly competitive all arounder C3, and really have never gone much beyond 10 - 12 hrs./week, when I have, it's been a bunch of junk time/fun riding. I wouldnt really worry much about how to correlate the 2 training philosophies, and would suggest just do the volume and intensity that your body dictates you can. I've never read or heard of someone building their "base" fitness too much.

I'm curious to know how SST translates into HR zones.....is it Z3/tempo? or is it Z4/sub-threshold? i imagine if you up the intensity you would have cut back on the hours that Friel usually suggests. My understanding of SST is you get more bang for your buck riding in that 'sweet spot' and hence can do shorter sessions rather than the traditional long and slow rides.

for me, it's upper Z3 and builds to upper Z4 on >20 min. efforts. Problems with using HR are lag and cardiac drift, for me, my HR takes a few minutes to reach the zone corresponding with the power level targetted for SST. Then, HR will continue to go up while power level is constant. Therefore, if you use HR as your metric, you might start off at an effort that is not sustainable in order to get your HR response, then your power will decrease throughout the effort even though your HR continues to increase.

I am starting to think some people (not the OP) are abusing the SST idea in order to justify easier workouts.

Remember the time when 20min intervals were standard threshold intervals? Now people are lowering the intensity and calling it SST while keeping the duration constant at 20min. The whole SST notion is to “balance volume and intensity” in order to maximize training adaptation. If you are reducing the intensity of your long intervals you have to increase the duration!

If you are doing a 1 hour trainer session including 2x20min intervals keep the interval intensity up near 0.95. If you want to train at a lower intensity (~0.85) I suggest abandoning the 20min timeframe altogether and doing something like 1x45min or make the workout longer and add more intervals.


To the OP I suggest taking some of your historical base training data and creating a table like this from that data.
http://www.fascatcoaching.com/training_tips/_images/sweetspot_table.jpg

Then for your current training go by the equivalent TSS not hours.

^^^^

this is a great point. 2x20 unless you are really, really close to LTP, is wussy. If you can handle LT power, why only work at SST power ranges?

I've been using SST work outs as one solid block aiming at finding a nice challenging groove at around 92% LTP and pushing through the 20 minute wall at which point i want to give up. Trusting in the power numbers, I push through and have been slowly increasing SST duration.

I did my first few @ 25x2, but quickly went to 37', 42', 51' and finally nailed down an hour at the same power levels as the shorter intervals.

I find myself throwing in 3-5 minute bursts at or slightly above LTP to mix it up, too. I think NOMAD mentioned doing this and it really is a nice way to break up a looooong interval.

Also seeing his 2 hour SST workouts encourages more wussy out of me.

I am still dumb wussy, and dont know what I'm talking about. (disclaimer)

Is there a big list of training-related acronyms somewhere? This stuff is getting ridiculous. I stop reading the training posts and books for a week and 20 more of the damn things pop out of the woodwork.

Is there a big list of training-related acronyms somewhere? This stuff is getting ridiculous.

http://www.roadcycling.net/t386984.html

I <3 you

So what's LTP?

Today I managed 1 hour at 85% FTP for SST. It was pretty tough solo, but I wasn't gassed at the end. Mostly just achy and sore from not letting up.

This week I've also done 2x20s (averaging just at FTP) and a bundle of 4-6 minute intervals at around 110% FTP... and sprints at around 470% FTP ;)

This kind of riding over the last month has made significant changes for me at all durations. I had plateaued before I got the PowerTap, but phasing out one short interval workout and replacing with SST type stuff has been great so far.

http://www.roadcycling.net/t386984.html

There's also this one, but I like the first one better: http://bikesafety.org/Wattage/glossary/index.aspx

If you are reducing the intensity of your long intervals you have to increase the duration!

If you are doing a 1 hour trainer session including 2x20min intervals keep the interval intensity up near 0.95. If you want to train at a lower intensity (~0.85) I suggest abandoning the 20min timeframe altogether and doing something like 1x45min or make the workout longer and add more intervals.




I think you are missing part of the point of SST. You don't reduce the intensity just so you can do more volume in that one workout (as you are suggesting), but so you can do more workouts in a week. I can do 3 days in a row with 40 - 90 minutes in my "sweet spot". If I do 2x20 at FTHR, I am too sore the next day to do it again.

yeah theres no way I could do 2x20 @ FTP two days in a row.

I think you are missing part of the point of SST. You don't reduce the intensity just so you can do more volume in that one workout (as you are suggesting), but so you can do more workouts in a week. I can do 3 days in a row with 40 - 90 minutes in my "sweet spot". If I do 2x20 at FTHR, I am too sore the next day to do it again.

Valid point. I did briefly consider that and should have mentioned something along those lines in the "add more intervals" section.

My first question is thus whether or not the Friel 'hours' derived method of building base is somewhat incompatible with SST workouts?
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2153/2155010015_af916aa576_o.jpg

When I first started training w power I used Friel's yearly program based on hours to guide my training and tried to incorporate the ideas of Andy Coggan and Hunter Allen. Over time I came to the realization that what really mattered was building CTL, but building it in a way that would serve my needs based on improving various energy systems based on the events I was tackling.

So now I base my training on weekly/monthly TSS targets, trying to incorporate certain intensities at certain times of the year. For example I'm putting in lots of SST and increasingly more TH because I'm trying to raise FTP. As I get closer to my target events, which will require VM and AC abilities, I will begin to add those as well. The one thing I do all year round is incorporate sprints on a weekly basis.

So I no longer care about hours (sorry Joe), miles, heartrate or any other measure.

gene r

All this CTL and TSS talk and all the neato graphs are making me want to get a power meter.

Thanks for the responses. Appears that I was headed in the right direction as far as tracking TSS, as opposed to sticking to a hard number of hours.

So does anyone care to share some sample weeks of their Base, or sample workouts?

As for my CTL being low, I just recently purchased cyclingpeaks so all the constants are set to default. I believe my FTP is accurate, based upon 20min testing. I would be curious to hear why you think so however, because I'm new to all this information and how it translates to real world application. I think monitoring TSB may be my next thread.

I'm training by weather right now. On days when I'm shut in, which are most days, I do SST or similar with specific goal workouts and tests intermittently. When the weather breaks I try to do epic rides to keep my endurance and sanity.

So far I have found the gains to be larger than when I tried to follow Friel method. I think most of the gains are caused by my increased motivation and ability to do shorter spans on indoor trainers

Transplant if you just started using CP then I wouldn't worry about your CTL, assuming you used the default seeding values. Over time they will come up and it will all work out in the wash. You can try and estimate your initial CTL and ATL if you want but I know for me by the time I knew enough about what I was doing to make a good call on that it know longer mattered as it was too far in the past.

I have gone with more and more SST work this year after also having done a lot of lower level work in the past. For me I feel like I get the most out of my training time and its helping me build my FTP.

I agree that you can't neglect your work at threshold by working entirely below it but I like to go with the building block approach. Work your way up from 10 minute SST intervals to 20+ minute ones (or longer depending on event) and then start again at 10-12 minutes at threshold and work your way up to 20 minute threshold intervals. For me by the time I have done some 20 minute threshold work I will be able to raise my FTP which changes my SST level and I start over again with new numbers. Of course you can't neglect the other things that are important to your event but I think SST is a great foundation to build on.

Here is a link to some thoughts on SST that I really liked, the example 1 workout is one that I like to do and really puts me in the hurt locker:

http://www.fascatcoaching.com/training_tips/SweetSpot_partdeux.html

So, i'm in a bit of a quandary here and my knowledge is tapped...

SST now seems to be the way many people are turning to build (or supplement in building?) their aerobic base as opposed to the long duration/low intensity Z2 ride. This works great for me in terms of my own time commitment, preference for shorter/more intense efforts, etc. I've made myself a training schedule using the Friel 'bible' which calls for 15 hours this week, the second week of Base 1. My first question is thus whether or not the Friel 'hours' derived method of building base is somewhat incompatible with SST workouts? Rather than being concerned with long Z2 rides and hours, should I instead cut back the proscribed hours and instead attempt to attain a comparable TSS while monitoring TSB? A typical 20min SST effort for me has been between 28-31 TSS, with more difficult rides for myself being in the 180+ TSS range.

How have others integrated SST workouts into their training? Are you only doing SST workouts or are they complemented by longer Z2 rides?

Finally, when doing 2x20 or 3x30 SST sets, how much rest do you take between them?



Oh, and here's the mandatory graph, my 28 day PMC taken on the 1st.

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2153/2155010015_af916aa576_o.jpg

I am doing strictly L3-L4. I take 2' between intervals. I am not doing anything premeditated in terms of workouts, other than having a duration in mind and knowing the average power I can sustain for the duration. I just let the ride develop depending on how I feel during my warm-up, which consists of gradually ramping it up from <100 w to ~85% FTP over the course of 10-15 minutes. I set power/duration goals for each interval as it progresses, usually building in the last half.

Here is a run-down of my last 10 rides: (warm-ups, rest intervals, and cool-downs included in IF)

1) 3:11 IF: 0.83 TSS: 218 (5x30')
2) 2:05 IF: 0.88 TSS: 160 (1x20' 2x30')
3) 2:23 IF: 0.84 TSS: 166 (3x30')
4) 1:51 IF: 0.80 TSS: 116 (3x30')
5) 2:00 IF: 0.90 TSS: 160 (1x20' 1x30' 1x40')
6) 2:07 IF: 0.82 TSS: 142 (tempo w/sprints)
7) 2:45 IF: 0.84 TSS: 196 (3x40' 1x30')
8) 2:00 IF: 0.88 TSS: 155 (1x20' 1x30' 1x40')
9) 1:55 IF: 0.88 TSS: 149 (3x30')
10) 1:52 IF: 0.81 TSS: 120 (1x45' 1x30')

This is all of my training for the past 3 weeks. I usually train 4x a week for a total of about 8 hrs/week. I am looking forward to the warm weather when I will add a long L2-L3 ride and a group hammerfest. These two rides will give me a total of ~500 TSS for just Saturday and Sunday.

My feeling is if I can hit that 500 TSS mark over the weekend then its not too hard at all to squeeze in enough during the work week to progress.