Can you get BASE RIDE benefits from a short hard ride?

fergie

I think the drop in performance for Nural is simple. 3 months of no riding. Putting on weight only compounds the problems. For those heading into a harsh winter can keep that hard earned form from doing 3-4 hard one hour sessions (2 x20s) a week.

Hamish Ferguson
Cycling Coach

john979

I will third this. The idea that long-distance low intensity riding trains your body to burn fat is a myth. The way to induce adapations that cause the body to burn more fat instead of carbohydrates is to raise the FTP.

I came to with 4% of my target functional threshold power goal. Interestingly, my functional threshold power in June was only marginally higher than that in March, despite a significant increase in training load. My conclusion was simple – starting in March, too many long, hard rides with too little recovery time and not enough sweet spot high L3 – low L4 training; nobody’s fault but mine here. In addition, looking at several years’ data, I find that a foundation of 2X20s is not as effective for me as longer duration, slightly less intense workouts; however, others, like Hank, have the opposite experience. OTOH, my VO2 max power seems to increase significantly with only a small volume of VO2 max power training while too such training negatively affects my functional threshold power.

Therefore, may approach now by building a "base" by balancing both volume and intensity to a sustainable day-in and day-out level, which for most is at L3 intensity. As the winter progress, add in some L4 workouts but do not over-do them. In the spring, make sure endurance ride are not too hard for too long; in TSS terms do not go above 300-325. Employ L5 training sparingly, primarily during a taper period, where 2X20s then become quite effective. Finally, 30-second intervals appear to be the “holy grail” of training. A block of 6-10 repeats with a couple minutes rest between efforts provides initially anaerobic, increasingly aerobic training that is intense but when supplementing an L3 or L4 workout will not wipe you out. Above all, per Dr. Coggan, keep it simple.

If you only have limited time, than you must work hard in the limited time. If you don't, your are not building a base -- you are detraining.

Jono L

+4
Also, I find that hard sessions supress hunger whereas long easy rides just make me bored and hungry

fergie

+5

Long road rides usually means eat everything when I get home and then dial for Pizza. 1 step forward, 2 steps back.

postal_bag

I like a long ride, but I like to keep the pace up closer to what I can sustain for the duration. If I can average ~75% FTP and have an NP of ~80% I feel like I am not wasting my time. I don't seem to have the hunger issue either, for some reason.

I would love to do this once a week all winter, but I don't like riding in the cold, rain and snow.

When I ride with a small group, however, and get home having averaged 153 w and accumulating only 170 TSS on a 5.5 hr ride, then I feel as though I have wasted my time.

Frigo's Luggage

Here is my less than technical take on this issue.

All things being equal, if one person rides ten hours per week and another person rides five hours per week, the 10 hour guy will probably end up in better shape. If the ten hour guy is riding only zone 1 or 2 and the five hour guy is riding zone 4 all the time, there might not be much of a difference. But the five hour guy could certainly benefit by doing some longer rides. The more riding you can do, the better.

The 10 hour guy would certainly be better off if he spent a good chunk of time at zone 4 instead of riding zone 1 and 2 all of the time. Riding zone 4 will not blow out you capillaries and will not lead to overtraining. That is an old school/Friel/triathlete myth.

I understand that there may be some scientific evidence that riding solely at zone 1 or 2 actually decreases your ability to ride fast. Does anybody have any info on this?

I personally use an extreme approach to training. I've ridden over 40 miles about 10 times in the last decade. I think I see much more benefit from riding short and hard instead of long and easy. If I do a bunch of long and easy rides without any hard stuff, I notice an adverse effect on my performance after two or three weeks. So, most of my training is either hard solo riding in the 25 to 30 mile range or intervals.

Last year is used the Morris/Ross approach and was able to become fairly fit by the time spring arrived. However, I felt I was missing some longer tempo/L4 type work that caused me not to reach my potential. So, this year I am going to use the Morris/Ross high intensity block approach with some longer one hour hard intervals.

I won't be able to do any long slow base rides this year because I just had surgery on my wrist and am confined to the trainer for the next 3 months. So, when the season comes around I'll be able to tell you if you really can substitute shorter hard rides for long slow "base rides".

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john979

Adding a bit more data to this, as the year winds down I use most of September and all of October to refresh my body and mind, mostly mind. Not real structured training and I mainly ride longer rides on the weekends and hop on the trainer a couple time per week. November starts my "base" training, and was the weather gets worse, the balance of my training favors L3/L4, with very, very little L1 and L2.

Even though my CTL is still higher than the mid-winter, my current FTP is signficantly lower than what it will be in January. IMHO, L1 and L2 is de-training, unless perhaps a large volume of it can be performed. Since I don't have that time, I don't ahve any real data to look at, however.

John

mullerrj

Graham/Dave- I'm no physiologist but I thought if you want a bigger aerobic engine the way you do that is work at or near VO2max, not threshold. Increasing FTP will not make the engine bigger, only let you ride that engine longer and harder. Yes/No? Thanks Rob

mullerrj

Fergie..what's wrong with that? That's why I ride long..so I can dial in for that Pizza and have that beer.

john979

FTP is the true measure of the aerobic engine, not VO2 max. Take a look at the data below from Horowitz, et al. of subject pairs match for VO2 max and otyher parameters yet their is a significant difference in their FTP:

4.62 4.67 357 335
4.39 4.38 336 299
4.59 4.54 363 336
4.12 4.06 325 287
4.61 4.66 324 314
4.00 4.01 313 287
5.00 4.91 376 359

mullerrj

John, what this data shows me is that VO2max doesn't tell you anything about FTP. i.e. no relationship...which I kinda knew already. I guess I should be more clear in what I ask. That is, I thought if you want to improve the "size" of your aerobic engine..or your engines upper limit (potential) you work VO2max, and if you want to improve the "duration/endurance" of your aerobic engine..you work Lactate Threshold (FTP). Yes/No? Just trying to clear this up in my head..thanks a bunch. Rob

john979

FTP is more readily trainable than VO2 max and is not just a measure of endurance as FTP increases with training.

For example, right now, I am somewhat detrained, but I know for a fact if I did a 5 minute test right now it would be closer to my summer peak percentage wise than an FTP test.

daveryanwyoming

Perhaps, but it's riding that engine harder and longer that will help you win races. Sure being able to go a little harder at redline is a good thing but it's the percentage of redline you can sustain for longer efforts that really matters in the end. There's a lot of published work out there demonstrating that two athletes with the same VO2 Max perform differently because one can sustain a higher percentage of that VO2 Max for longer efforts.

VO2 Max establishes your redline or aerobic ceiling but FTP determines how much you can put out for the longer efforts and is a better predictor of overall performance. Ideally you'll raise both FTP and VO2 Max but working on the former is sustainable for months on end without inducing early peaks and leads to higher CTL. L5 work targeting VO2 Max improvement is definitely part of my yearly training, but not now as I go into early winter base building. Right now I want to work on FTP and CTL, harder stuff will come later as the racing season approaches.

All the engine talk is just metaphor anyway. We could probably quibble about engine timing and torque curves and how that maps to fitness training but these are just convenient ways to get the ideas across. Map it to whatever metaphor is convenient, but I'll build my training foundation on SST and L4 work in order to build both FTP and CTL. Working the higher end systems definitely belongs in the yearly schedule, but it's base building time right now and that's the focus of this thread. Some of the HIT authors will have you build base with L5 and L6 work, I don't buy it if for no other reason because it's hard to sustain that kind of work for long enough to build much CTL. Some folks do reverse periodization with L5 work before L4 work, that's cool if it works for you but I prefer early season SST/L4 work for base building.

-Dave

rmur17

aye - I'll second all that.

Last year from an FTP plateau for six months, I started a training routine in which I gained a full 15% in FTP. I did a little L5 work in there but not one single workout which a true L5 devotee would give claim to. That is, I added in a a couple of LL5 intervals after my core L4 work once a week and I tried to get in some L5 hill work during the season on small group rides. According to my logs, on average I got in maybe 10-min per week ... not even half a proper L5 workout.

My point? Well despite only that smattering of L5 (and only droplets of L6!), when I decided to add some L5 work prior to a Sept stage race I was pleasantly surprised to find that my L5 interval working power and 5MP were up in exactly tandem with FTP. My Sept. 2006 FTP/5MP ratio was 0.84-0.85 and my 2007 ratios were the same despite very little L5 work.

It felt a bit like cheating .

My takeaway, work hard on FTP/CTL and, until you need to peak and taper, let L5/Vo2max take care of itself. Or 'push-up' works better than 'pull-up'.

Since I doubled my previous year-to-year best FTP gains (different training plan), I doubt very much if I could have done much better.

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rmur