Lots of opinions on how to approach training. There are several variables that may affect your bike training.

But, personally, I would replace one of the Sweet Spot sessions with a VO2Max work, have at least one Sweet spot session with progressive duration towards the race, and then your third week-day workout could be determined by your fatigue. A lot will depend on how spirited your weekend ride gets and how much fatigue you carry into the following week. Also depends on your run training.

Main point, I think adding a VO2Max session in replacement of one of your sweet spot workouts would give you the best value for your time.

This is by no means the only way. Training depends on time to train, but more importantly time to recover for the next workout.

I don't think you will improve much doing 3 x sweet spot sessions a week.
The fatigue from 1 alone is too much I'd wager.

Much better to do a mix as said of 1 x sweet saw 2x20, 1 x VO2 say 4-6×4-6 @ 105-110%, then endurance for others poss with some hills and sprints thrown in.

I saw great gains on 1 x ss session a week tweaking format each month.
More when adding a VO2 every other week.

All about balance. If you think you can tolerate 3 x sweet spot sessions a week you're mad.
Try it for one week and realise the next when you don't want to train that you overdid it.

I thought the whole point of sweet spot training was that you could do it consistently without too much fatigue.

I thought the sweet spot session were 'sweet' becase you recover relatively quickly?

That was my train of thought and why I did not added the ftp intervals into my plan.

Fazz might be mixing up sweet spot and vo2max workouts...

As suggested, mix it up, adding vo2max workouts into the mix. an oly bike is a hard effort. you'll need to do hard efforts in training so you know what to expect during a race.

The whole point of SS training is to go hard enough to push your FTP levels up and sustainable hard work.
2 x 20 @ 90% is hard if done right. I know I struggle on the second rep frequently and I'm doing it correct at 90-92%.

Then VO2 to help pull ftp up in shorter durations above ftp level.

Then endurance and hills/big gear work for overall fitness and strength.

I spend no more than 40-60mins in ss zone for the session.
Couldn't do any more. And wouldn't want to for a few days.

Would never try 3 x ss sessions a week. Rest of training would suffer and stagnate.

If you think it's doable then your ftp must be set too low or you're not doing it at right intensity.
You should not want to do another one for 5-7 days imo! It's a love hate thing :-)

Mix it up. You will improve more and enjoy it more.

I've followed the TrainerRoad Sweet Spot plan, if you do high volume then that has up to 5 sessions a week involving sweet spot training, up to 90 minutes in the sweet spot per session. It's hard work but doable. Probably not a good idea if you're combining with running and swimming, but 3 x sweet spot sessions in a week shouldn't cause too many problems if you've built up to being able to do it.

That's the impression I've gotten from the wattage group as well.

Thanks, I appreciate the advice. I think I will change one SST session for a Vo2max session. Should make the week a bit less dull I guess.

How's that going for you?
Are you swimming and running?
Has ftp improved and by how much?

Seems a very hard programme and quite how anyone could do 90mins at 90% per session with another 3 or 4 sessions at more 90% work (be it 30 or 50 or 80 mins) in one week sounds absurd tbh.

Basically you are doing 90mins at above 70.3 race pace and close to Olympic race pace in one session.
And you are to do another 3 or 4 sessions that week at same effort.
So like 4 or 5 sessions with say 40-90mins at Olympic race pace or close to in one week?!

Sorry but that's just not going to work.
Is the trainer road sweet spot not really 90% of ftp then?

Ok, I'll be the one to say it:


and now


If I've got that right you now want to go 6+ mins faster over a proper 40k distance when you weren't close when the course was 2k short? Even if you do accomplish this do you hope to be able to run well?

Perhaps a better approach would be to focus on smaller steps to eventually get yourself to a sub-hour Oly bike time rather than trying for it all at once.

The plan was to do 2x20' at max. At the moment I do 2x10' and although kinda hard, it feels 20 minutes should be doable after a couple weeks.

At least I'm of the idea of doing FTP intervals, that will be to brutal.

It's the same course. So the same distance (i hope). WIth more focused training this year and! a Tri bike... I feel this isn't a to ambitious goal to set. It's a tough one, I agree, but a nice challenge.

Can only agree that sweet spot 3 times isn't going to give you the best chance of achieving a stretching goal (I assume you're doing the 38k course) even if the Tri bike positioning saves you 1-2 mins that's 4 mins from your engine. I'd also say you'll be bored of sweet spot x3, twice a week is manageable if you do 1x under/over session and another @90% as 2/3 blocks of effort e.g. 2x20

My best advice is that if you're investing in a Tri bike then invest in a good book e.g. Friel and/or a coach to get the best out of your engine.

everyone handles it differently. I'd say the most common is 1-2 times per week.
But I would suggest this rule: "as many as you can handle while still being able to do the work"

i.e. if you try 3 per week, #1 and #2 go fine but on the third workout you are too tired to execute the workout, then 3 is too much. Also, experiment with the spread. For example some guys can do 2 hard days in a row, for others they need a few easy days after each hard day. Figure out what works for you. If you can do 2 hard days in a row, then you might be able to do something like SS, SS, easy, easy, easy, SS, SS, easy easy, SS, SS etc.

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Most folks under estimate recovery needs and the benefits from easy aerobic training. If you are new to multisport my advice would be 1 key harder session in each sport a week, to start with and see how your body responds, before adding more hard training. If you are seeing improvements stick with 1 hard session per sport. Once you plateau then you need a new stimulus to help improve further. This could be an extra hard session or simply doing something different to challenge your body in a different way, thus providing a new stimulus.

I like working more than one intensity or zone in a key harder session. Something along the lines of some shorter fast efforts to start when you are freshest 4-6 x 1min hard efforts with 1-2mins easy, followed by 15-30mins worth of FTP work, sometimes broken up, other time continuous. You might want to use your 2x20 SS session as a bench mark session and or a 20min best effort.

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I would agree with some of it. But one thing, 4-6x4-6min @ 105-110% is a massive session, i wouldn't recommend something like this.

3x Sweet Spot sessions a week is a tad much. If you do two good SS sessions a week, that should be enough of a hit to your system.

It is better to get in 2 very good quality sessions that sneaking in a 3rd.

Many ways to skin a cat, but error on the more frequent bike riding (3-5xs) with less frequent bike intensity sessions (2xs) and that will help with longevity and adaptations.

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Inside The Big Ring: Podcast & Coaching

I find it interesting that your question is about improving the best part of your race while, seemingly, neglecting the areas of biggest improvement. In terms of the overall finish time, you'd be best to stay the course on the bike and work on both your swim and run. These both are relatively weak compared to the field, much more so than the bike.

Anyway, to your specific question, with the little info you've given and only 4 sessions a week, I'd have you do different intervals.
-1 with short sets above threshold
-1 with sweet spot
-1 longer aerobic
-Social/ group

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Take a short break from ST and read my blog:
http://tri-banter.blogspot.com/

You may also want to look at their 40k TT training plan.

Reading the responses has me wondering how people define Sweet Spot. When I do SS work I'm fatigued but not sore or unable to run the next day.

Anyway, I started the low volume SS program on Trainerroad in November. I finished the 6 week block and filled in a few weeks with other SS work (and a week of skiing) then re tested before beginning the 2nd volume. I had a nice 12% bump in my estimated FTP. That is 3 workouts a week. It's not pure SS 100% of the time. It includes VO2 max work also.

So for me, 3x a week works perfect.

Olympic distance triathlon cycling speed=FTP+Aerodynamics.


After taking a long (6 year) hiatus from training I moved my (untrained) FTP of 260 up to 335 over the past 7 months using the following cycles

Endurance Cycle (2-6 weeks)
Focus is Sweet Spot intervals. If you do these right, they should feel a little hard, but in a good way.
The high end of "sweet spot" as trainer road defines it is also the low of threshold work.
A great session is 90 minutes on trainer with 3x20 minutes at sweet spot power. I find heart rate and perceived exertion to be two great ways to make sure you are not overextending yourself.
As you get stronger these will start to seem "too easy", which is a good sign that your endurance is improving.

FTP Boosts (2-4 weeks)
1-2 workouts with time trials or 2x20 minutes slightly below FTP power, or 6-12 minute intervals slightly above FTP power. Work to rest should be 2-4:1 ratio. These should be hard and uncomfortable, but still have enough left to do a short run off the bike.
stay AWAY from sweet spot training during FTP boosting periods. You will fatigue yourself excessively.

VO2 (1 week focus intermittently)
VO2 sessions can boost threshold power, but you will hit a ceiling quickly
3-5 minute intervals with almost equal rests are ideal. Shoot for at least 108% of FTP power. (go just short of puking)
can do some sweet spot or shorter ftp sessions on other days.

do short sprints for neuromuscular activation every week.

It's really going to depend on how much training load your body can take and what your swim and run training looks like. For what its worth, for SS, I wouldn't go above 95% of FTP but that's just my $0.02.

What does your weekend "social" ride look like? I'm guessing ~2:00 hours at something like 60% of FTP?

And then walk the run?

Well.. I do get the most satisfaction out of cycling.

For the swim part, my training is basically following the plan the local Tri-club has (3-4 times a week 1 hour session). I cannot tweak this plan, just follow what the the trainer has planned. I know this is not really an optimal plan. But i started 2 years ago with swimming, so I just need to do it a lot. Right now I'm enrolled into a freestyle course (6 lessons spread over 3 months) in as well, thats to improve technique. But i can not really do much more.

Running. yeah.. not my best part... could put some more focus on that...but started to increase volume and sign up for some local races to keep motivated.



I appreciate this a lot, I 'm going top take another look at my plan and see if i can mix the intervals up.