Does LSD work on the bike like LSD for running?

Triathlon Forum
1

Background: Age 57, 70.3 focus this year. I have spent 9 months doing LSD for all my running and have had a strong improvement. Built up to around 40 mpw. Took my 70.3 run from 2:09 to 1:52. I realize that is not fast by ST standards but for me 17 minutes is big.

Currently for the bike I am doing top down training. Working on boosting my FTP. My problem is that working at that intensity 3 days a week takes a toll on me that jeopardizes me hitting all my workouts in a week.

My question is can LSD training on the bike provide a similar boost in performance like it does on the run? If so what is the time per session required to drive the results. On the run I built up to 2.5 hours but generally did long run of 2:00 to 2:15. Do you need a lot more hours on the bike like 4-5 per saession or what? Anyone with experience on this topic would love to hear about it!

EDIT: Have computrainer so specific instructions regarding times and zones being solicited. Current FTP 240.

2

What’s LSD?

3

What’s LSD?

Long slow distance, easy pace, Zone 2ish depending on your definition.

4

Long steady distance
.

5

long sustained distance?

or are you talking about tripping?

6

Not quite as well, at least if slow gets too slow. It is hard for most of us to run so slow that we get no aerobic benefit, but even if we do our running efficiency can improve.

Biking too slow to get any aerobic benefit can be easy, and there is no (or not much) efficiency to be gained by biking around real slow either.

But, keep it in zone2 at least and yes, move volume can make you faster. Dig up that article on Dave Luscan’s assault on the state time trial.

7

can you cover 56?can you run after covering 56?can you cover 56 quickly?can you run after covering 56 quickly?can you run quickly after covering 56 quickly?
ride long enough for each step to lead you into the next step.

yes, there is a place for LSD on a bike. but it’s usually in the ‘off season’

good luck

Tim

8

Well, it doesn’t work for running, so…

9

Jack:

I am usually around 2:45 for the 70.3 bike. Would like to lop off a few minutes.
Tim:
1 yes
2 yes
3 yes
4 yes
5 yes all yes answer apply to my age group. Last 70.3 was 5:14 swim 30, bike 2:46, run 1:52.

What would you recommend for bike time per week/per session to see real results? Lets assume I keep at least 1 FTP sesion per week? FTP = 240. So 1.5 hrs at 180 3X week, 1x3 hrs@x or what?

10

Depends on where you are now. I can say from n=1 experience if you are already >= ~150mi/wk with range of intensities it’s not going to make an appreciable impact on 40k TT.

Can’t speak for 56mi distance.

Based on your run mileage I’d work on increasing that rather than biking more than ~150mi/wk. Its all about the RUN! I just wish it were about the swim…or bike…anything but the run

11

I hear you but 40mpw is about all I can do and still do the other disciplines. More running mileage will have to wait for the off season. Right now I am only at 4-4.5 hours a week on bike - about 80-90 miles.

12

Long Slow Distance, I think the term comes from Arthur Lidiard in the seventies. The thing is that back then they all ran fast. When they went out for LSD, they still ran sub six minute miles. Frank Shorter said that no one should ever run more than two hours in training, that’s because he would run 20 miles in under two hours in training.

13

for comparison sake… what’s your stand alone half marathon time?

with out knowing that variable your run could either be spot on or way off.

Tim

14

Yeah, and he would do the last hour of his training at a 5 minute/mile pace, not exactly slow. :slight_smile:

15

Long Slow Distance, I think the term comes from Arthur Lidiard in the seventies.

Joe Henderson, actually:

"A period of conditioning by long runs is essential to Lydiard’s method. His system depends on full preparation for running fast by first running long. He insisted that “the last thing you should do is speedwork without the stamina to support it,” and that edict moved the world forward from the 1950s’ preoccupation with intervals.
**
"But that’s not ‘Long Slow Distance.’ That as a training philosophy was devised, and given the tongue-in-cheek name LSD, by Joe Henderson, then with Runner’s World. For Lydiard, stamina running was the springboard of a training schedule, not the whole program. He never claimed that training slow was all you needed to race fast. Once the conditioning and the hill-spring drills are done, Lydiard’s schedules are a finely tuned and changing mix of long runs with intensive track work.
**
Journalists who attributed LSD to him should be made to spend a week on one of the schedules from Run to the Top, co-authored with Garth Gilmore in 1962. It comes as a surprise now to find how much speed work he prescribes…"

(source)

16

Tim:

My only stanadlone 13.1 was done in Feb this year. I ran a 1:49 on a course that had a fair amount of grades. The 1:52 HIM 13.1 was a flatter course.

17

I’ll say this so hopefully all STers can be educated on training methodologies. Volume is the #1 way to reach 100% of your fitness potential. Where people get lost is in this fact, slow volume training only works well if you do a LOT of it, A LOT A LOT. Training peaks and TSS actually support this. A good guess on endurance pace for an hour is a TSS of 35. Now if you bike 5 hrs a day this is 175 points or 1.75 hrs at threshold power. Now if you think 5 hrs is a lot, you’re right, it is, and thats the point, but you can adapt to riding 5 hrs a day with hard work, but try riding 5X20 minutes at FTP 6 days a week, you can’t do it.

If you have a limited time to train, intensity is the best way to get a high TSS with that time limit, but that doesn’t mean its superior to LSD training. If you disagree then you aren’t doing enough volume or you’re new to the sport. Case study, Logan Franks, blew himself up with intensity and FTP games and burnt himself out.

Intensity is an indispensable part of training even for high volume athletes but a few sessions each week is all thats really needed for sustained improvement.

If you really want to educate yourself, check out this research paper from a scientist who knows his stuff better than any of us.

http://www.sportsci.org/2009/ss.htm

To the OP, volume will make you better but there are diminishing results with higher volume so I would recommend building a long ride in, and doing 1-2 sweet spot of FTP rides a week if time is a constraint.

18

Mix it up. Some long and slow, some short and hard. There are no shortcuts.

19

Where people get lost is in this fact, slow volume training only works well if you do a LOT of it, A LOT A LOT.

The more I train and the more I read, the more I believe that the above is true. But it really depends on what you call A LOT and on which sport you are training.

Maybe for many, 40 mpw running is A LOT and will lead to consitent improvments (though I think I have reached my 40 mpw plateau and either need more volume or more speed to continue).

In the pool, triathletes may think that A LOT is 30,000m/week, but swimmers would scoff at that.

On the bike though, I am betting that A LOT is a whole different story (especially since you are far less likely to sustain over use injury on the bike as compared to run). Last year I did what I thought was A LOT of bikeing during IMFL build up. But the only reason I couldn’t do more was time (it wasn’t like I had to stop after 2 or 3 or 6 hours of Z2 riding). I could feasibly have doubled it, that would also have been A LOT and I probably would have been better.

For us non-pros, I guess the question is do you ever have enough time to do enough bike training. For me, I don’t think so. Thus I have tried to add one big time FTP workout per week, and I try to keep 2 other rides in high Z2 or low Z3 and I have one recovery ride that I do in high Z1.

Doing the above, I can’t do the same bike volume as I was doing (when everything was mostly low Z2). I am just too fried.

If the TSS model is to be believed (and I haven’t seen anything saying that it shouldn’t be) I am getting into better bike shape now on less volume.

As the IM races approach, I intend to put in some 80 - 100 mile rides, maybe even cover the 112 once or twice as rehearsals, but the way I feel getting off the bike after the FTP ride, I know I am getting a solid workout without going for 4 hours.

I guess the proof will be in the race pudding later in the year.

Just one guy’s experience.

20

Well, it doesn’t work for running, so…

comically false
.