Originally Posted by
dysFTP
He's referring to intervals of up to 20 min. He states that the intensity should be approx. LT-5 BPM. He specifically states that you should train slightly below LT. He says "spending too much time at your LT is too taxing and will ultimately diminish any gains".
It's basically Sweet Spot.
Everyone's got their own thing - ask three different coaches the answer to this and you'll probably get three different answers. Truth is that your body adapts to stress when you apply the stress regularly. It also depends, probably, on the "percent of potential" you are at in terms of your potential performance. For me, a second year racer and still making relatively large gains in my estimate of LT, I pull it up, so to speak, because I still have not closed in on my potential. If I were an experienced racer and my gains are more incremental, then "more of less" will probably stress the body more efficiently than "less of more".
Time constraints also probably play a role. If you have limited time to train, it is probably more beneficial to increase the intensity. For instance, I think it is Friel who stated that endurance rides of 3-5 hours are beneficial, but riding at endurance pace for 1-2 hours isn't really doing anything. You need to be at endurance pace for long periods of time, else you should increase the intensity of your rides.
But I don't know. I'm feeling my way along and it really does sound like he is making his way around to the concept of sweet spot training that Allen and Coggan introduced.
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Cat 2 Track, Cat 3 Road.
"If you’re new enough [to racing] that you would ask such question, then i would hazard a guess that if you just made up a workout that sounded hard to do, and did it, you’d probably get faster." --
the tiniest sprinter