Sweetspot bike training

Triathlon Forum
1

Hi everyone !
I’m an age grouper triathlete, with a bike level relatively bad.
I wanted to structure more my bike training this season.

I followed the british cycling base Builder, wich is 3 key sessions (2 sweetspot/threshold, 1 long ride).

I wanted to keep running volume/intensity about the same (4-6 runs, with 1 long run 15-20k and 1 threshold run or cruise intervals).

After 8 Weeks Following the plan, I feel very tired and with little motivation.

Any advice about how to adapt my run training to keep doing the sweetspot base building or other type of training ?

My Schedule was :
M: swim 2-3k
T: indoor bike+short run
W: medium run with threshold
T: indoor bike+short run
F: rest
S: swim 3-4k+medium run+long ride
S: long run+short ride

2

My first guess is that you simply need more sleep. Or manage your non training time/stress better so that you have more real recovery time off your feet. A lot of people who “are really tired” aren’t over training. But they work 50-70 hours a week, have a family, other obligations, etc. So while they might only be training 10-12 hours a week, they have very little time to sleep and relax.

That said, if your focus is to improve your bike, then you need to structure your schedule to focus on the QUALITY of your bike rides. It seems like you’re trying to have your cake and eat it too by piling in a lot of training around your key bike days. I’m not opposed to a short run on the same day as a quality bike day, but IMHO, that means 30-40 minutes at stupid easy pace. I also think your medium run and 3-4k swim on Saturday is interfering with the quality of your long ride. So I would move the 3-4k swim from Saturday to Sunday and ditch the short ride on Sunday. A short ride, especially as part of a schedule that is leaving you tired, is likely doing very little to improve your bike fitness. I would also limit the medium run on Saturday to 45 minutes at an easy effort.

If you feel like that’s not enough running for you, add easy runs on Monday and/or Friday.

I’m not a coach, and I don’t even do triathlon anymore…so all of this is likely worth exactly what you paid for it. :slight_smile:

3

Not a lot of detail in your post but the whole point of sweet spot training is to be able to do a lot of it and recover quickly to do it again the next day. Throwing out things here but perhaps your zones aren’t right or your fitness isn’t really in a place to do all this (take it down a notch?).

4

If the bike is your focus why is their more running than biking ?

Maybe change to one hill/interval session a long easy run and a few short brick runs off the bike.

Traineroad Low or Medium volume Sweetspot base seems quite popular

5

Thanks for the answers !
To give more details, current level is 36’45 standalone 10k, 25’ for the 1500m swim, and for the bike I live in hilly area, times doesn’t reflect level, but I often end the bike between 80-100th position.

I can manage 10-15h per Week, with long workout during the weekend and 1-2h workout during the Week.

I like the british cycling training plans, not for the results (I Don’t have enough experience with them), but because it allows me to structure all my season (base, pre season, specific TT or hill block, and in season training plans available).

Some advice about a typical Schedule, to keep my running level and improve on the bike with 2 swim, 3-4 bike, and whatever I need running ? (2-5 sessions)

6

With bike only training, within reason, you can execute a sweetspot workout pretty much daily. If doing it something like 3 days in a row, intensity should taper over the 3 days but duration increase until you hit your rest day.

The key is knowing up front that your RPE will increase over those 3 days, but you can do it. Control the mind and the legs will follow.

I can’t really give advice about balancing the running.

I’m very novice to the run/bike balance part. Only recently have gotten running up to about 12mpw. I do find though I must polarize the work. Hard bike? Easy run (duration and intensity). Hard run? Easy bike (duration and intensity).

That’s all I’ve got. You already seem pretty quick doing math on the run numbers. Wish I could run a 10k at less than 6min/mi, geeesh.

7

My Schedule was :
M: swim 2-3k
T: indoor bike+short run
W: medium run with threshold
T: indoor bike+short run
F: rest
S: swim 3-4k+medium run+long ride
S: long run+short ride

We need more detail on the composition and length of each bike/run. What is long, medium, short? What intensity level is each workout at. Do you train by HR, power, pace? How do you set your zones?

The complex from Tue - Thursday looks problematic if both of those bikes are Sweet Spot. But, that depends on where in the sweet spot you are working…closer to 88% or closer to 92% (FTP)? Regardless it looks like three intensity days in a row. My guess is that the bike is pretty compromise by the time you get to thursday.

As someone else said, in general it looks like you are trying to cram everything in. That won’t work very well for getting better at anything. So, if your goal is to improve your bike, like you say…then you need to scale back on the run. Your training focus should be to minimize fitness losses on the run while making major gains in the bike. You should aim to enter every bike workout fresh (or nearly fresh), and everything else should flow around and support that.

When I’m in a focus block, I like to schedule my FOCUS sport as the FIRST workout of the day. then, I can do “whatever” I want after I’ve accomplished that…on the same day. Then the attention returns to recovering for the next FOCUS workout in 48-72 hours.

Given how fast you are on the run, I’d probably kill your long run, and I would definiately eliminate ALL threshold running. I’d probably drop to 4 runs a week, either 2 each short and medium…or maybe even 3 short / 1 medium. All runs EASY with just some strides to maintain speed.

I’m assuming a LOT, but maybe somethign like:
M: swim 2-3k
T: indoor Sweet Spot bike+short easy run
W: short easy run
T: indoor threshold bike+short easy run
F: rest
S: swim 3-4k+long ride+short easy run
S: medium easy run+recovery ride

That’s 5x runs. I know I said 4x above. I’d seriously consider any run “optional” in favor of recovery. After a week or two, if I wasn’t seeing improvement in the intense bike efforts, I’d kill either the sunday run, or the tuesday run. Depending on when I was feeling the worst. If I didn’t feel recovered on Tuesday for the SS work, I’d kill the sunday run. if I didn’t feel fresh Thursday for the Threshold Bike, I’d kill the Tuesday run.

I’d also think about the composition of the “long ride”…just a long stead ride, might not be very productive. After a long warmup, I like to mix in some harder efforts at different times of the year. Might be 4-12x30s (30s rest) at 150% FTP, or VO2Max intervals, or 45-90min at 85-95% FTP. Then finish the ride at endurance pace.

8

I’m very novice to the run/bike balance part. Only recently have gotten running up to about 12mpw. I do find though I must polarize the work. Hard bike? Easy run (duration and intensity). Hard run? Easy bike (duration and intensity).

Mr. Sheep:

If I were you (and, I have been), I wouldn’t do ANY hard running. I would run as easy as humanly possible, and just work on building frequency to 5-6x, then volume. Even easy running is going to be relatively HARD on you. Relax, go slow, repeat again tomorrow. When you are down at 12mpw, I’d just do 2 miles a day, 20minutes or whatever that works out to. Then I’d add 2 minute to each day, every week, until you get to 30min / day.

That keeps the balancing simple. Just this dull background of running, and everything happens on top of that.

ETA: Just a little friendly, (admittedly) unsolicited, suggestion.

9

After 8 Weeks Following the plan, I feel very tired and with little motivation.

Seems logical, because the cycling plan is probably made assuming you do nothing on top of that.

10

Thank you for the detailed reply, very usefull.

Yes, with the time I have, I need to make choice. I think I will do Something like that, with my 3 structured bike sessions, 1 recovery ride and keep it easy on the run !

Before race season, add in some run intervals to have some speed.

Thank you very much, sometimes we know the answer before, but good to have someone else explaining !!

11

With bike only training, within reason, you can execute a sweetspot workout pretty much daily. If doing it something like 3 days in a row, intensity should taper over the 3 days but duration increase until you hit your rest day.

The key is knowing up front that your RPE will increase over those 3 days, but you can do it. Control the mind and the legs will follow.

Agreed.

When done right and with the right athlete - Sweet Spot training on the bike can be VERY effective.

It’s really important to dial the effort level in and I’ve found that it works best with very experienced riders who have a very good life base of training volume and are looking to ramp things up reasonably quickly.

It’s typically what I use to get me ready for certain things in cycling - a big group ride with some faster riders that I know I have coming up in 6 weeks, or getting ready to go away to a big cycling focused training week. I’ll start throwing in 2 - 4 Sweet Spot sessions on the indoor trainer per week in preparation.

About the only other thing that I will do is some hard sprint like efforts to get me ready.

12

I would take the rest after your two biggest days in the week. Sat and Sun you’re putting in a lot of training, but don’t really rest from it. Maybe an easier day on Friday (just a swim), sat and sun a big day, mon rest.

13

**I would take the rest after your two biggest days in the week. Sat and Sun you’re putting in a lot of training, but don’t really rest from it. Maybe an easier day on Friday (just a swim), sat and sun a big day, mon rest. **

Yes.

Even for the super serious athlete - pick one, Fri or Mon - depending on what you have going on over the weekend and where you are at, but one of those days probably should be completely off or ULTRA easy training for 30 - 40 minutes tops!

14

https://youtu.be/JUAUJEP5EX8
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15

You are doing too much scrunched together for a weekend schedule. Rest day should be after your Sunday. Drop your threshold run because most of us simply can’t do run and cycle threshold stuff regularly without adding too much fatigue; keep your sweetspot rides to focus on your weakness. Keep your run threshold up doing a 5k, 10k or even 15k once or twice a month max to maintain your strength. I generally favor doing runs before any focused/hard riding, and keeping them relatively easy to moderate. If your intention is to do a brick, there is no reason to have it be extended beyond a couple miles of running.

Keeping the long stuff on the weekend, this might be a bit more practical:

M: rest
T: medium run (easy-ish), indoor bike
W: swim 3-4k, easy short spin
T: short run, indoor bike (or + short run easy off the bike)
F: medium run (tempo)
S: swim 2-3k + short run + long ride + (and/or short brick run after)
S: long run (+easy swim?)

Good luck

16

Thanks for all the good answers !

The Schedule you wrote doesn’t adapt to my life Schedule. It could more Something like that with the advices you gave me:

M: Easy swim optional
T: indoor sweetspot (I like to do the cool down running, it’s just 15-20min brick and it allows me to add frequency to the run)
W: tempo run
T: indoor sweespot+swim (club)
F: easy run
S: swim+long ride
S: long run+ optional recovery ride

Just to be sure: I train on the trainer with heart rate. My FTHR is 177. I do my sweet spot training between 160-177, mostly around 165-170

17

Just to be sure: I train on the trainer with heart rate. My FTHR is 177. I do my sweet spot training between 160-177, mostly around 165-170

Would strongly recommend getting power or at least estimated power on your trainer instead of relying on HR. With most trainers and most training software you can get estimated power using a cheap and simple speed sensor. I train with power but also track HR and I can tell you that my HR is pretty variable at any given power. It changes a fair bit day to day depending on time of day, how rested I am, what I’ve eaten, whether I’ve had caffeine, etc. And within a workout there is a fair amount of cardiac drift (i.e. HR gets higher for the same effort), particularly indoors where even with multiple fans you tend to get pretty hot.

18

Just to be sure: I train on the trainer with heart rate. My FTHR is 177. I do my sweet spot training between 160-177, mostly around 165-170

I train with power but also track HR and I can tell you that my HR is pretty variable at any given power. It changes a fair bit day to day depending on time of day, how rested I am, what I’ve eaten, whether I’ve had caffeine, etc. And within a workout there is a fair amount of cardiac drift (i.e. HR gets higher for the same effort), particularly indoors where even with multiple fans you tend to get pretty hot.

Maybe that‘s the reason why you should in fact train according to HR rather than power?

19

It’s pretty much the opposite. The power I’m capable of putting out tends to be pretty consistent from one session to the next, my HR much less so. Particularly on race day when the taper, the swim and race day excitement/nerves all give HR a boost such that I find my HR is typically 5-10bpm higher than it would be in training for any given effort. So if I raced by HR I’d be going slower than I would in training.

HR is really useful to keep an eye on, partly so you have a backup plan if there are problems with your power meter, and partly to pick up on the times when HR is telling you something your power isn’t (e.g. if you’re sick, overtrained, overheating, etc). But there’s a reason why pretty much every pro cyclist and triathlete trains primarily with power these days.

20

It’s pretty much the opposite.

You might be right, and this argument:
But there’s a reason why pretty much every pro cyclist and triathlete trains primarily with power these days.
is a pretty strong one.

But let me make some remarks in your post, showing that I‘m still a power meter heretic:

The power I’m capable of putting out tends to be pretty consistent from one session to the next, my HR much less so.
This is pretty subjective: if you say „capable of“ you are using RPE (perceived exertion) to assess your exertion, acknowledging that it is in the end you want to hold a certain physical exertion (for which you use power as a tool). To me, the HR tends to be pretty consistent, at least sweet spot and below (for VO2max intervals e.g. the HR is not suitable, I use RPE then).
Furthermore, the fitness (and thus the power for a certain exertion) should become more and NOT consistant from one session to the other, otherwise you‘re not improving. To my point of view, HR stays pretty much constant while improving. In this aspect, HR is a bit easier to use because you do not have the stress of constantly having to determine your FTP.

So if I raced by HR I’d be going slower than I would in training.
Racing is something different: but holding a certain Wattage killed already a lot of races because of things like heat and so, where it might have been better to stick to HR.

But there’s a reason why pretty much every pro cyclist and triathlete trains primarily with power these days.
Maybe because this is kind of fashion nowedays. Coaches have to use power because their customers demand it. It also leads to believe in a kind of scientific preciseness, because the exact wattage is displayed.
Advantage of power is of course though that in this way progress can be monitored, at least if the constant ftp-determination is done. Great point for coaches. However, if you train the right way there should be progress in fitness anyway, if you monitor this or not.