Hope you can help me sort something out. I am curious to understand what SST is and what the benefit is. Supposedly the benefit is to get a workout that will create physical adaption to improve FTP, yet not so hard that it affects subsequent sessions over the next couple of days. That all sounds very nice but here is my confusion:
– true threshold training is upper zone 4 or just below LT. Supposedly this can have a major impact on FTP but can also be quite draining so it should not be done too often
– VO2 max training is in zone 5 or above LT. Also quite impactful but also hard so not to be done to often
– endurance work in zone 2 which is great for long course triathletes especially but it also requires quite some hours of riding
So what is left is zone 3 where I then would assume SST to fit in but I have also read that zone 3 is not a very good place to be in as it is not hard enough to create any benefit yet it impacts your recovery too much. In other words, zone 3 has negative cost benefit trade off.
So if SST is in zone 3, what did I get wrong?
If it is not in zone 3, then I would assume it is lower zone 4 or roughly 90% of FTP. Is that so?
What would a typical SST session on the trainer look like?
Too much thinking. Just ride at a pace that initially feels doable indefinitely, but in fact after 90 minutes you want nothing more than to stop pedaling and eat a cheeseburger.
Or be like Gerry Lindgren and reeeealy stop thinking and just train with PASSION!
I think the easiest way is try it out on TrainerRoad. There are like 30 steady-state workouts, and contrary to the poster above, they don’t feel at all like an ‘all-day pace’ (much harder than that for sure) or quite as hard as a true threshold pace (but pretty darn close.)
It’s uncomfortable enough that in the middle of training season, without tapered fresh legs, I’d be very glad to immediately stop the interval, pretty much anytime, but just short of pushing me into the grit the teeth pain category. Rack up a good 60+ mins of it, and it actually gets hard.
TrainerRoad as one particular workout that’s even captioned with text to explain steadystate workouts, and it plays out exactly as they say if your FTP is tested correctly on it.
Here’s a good article (that’s part of a series of good articles) that has everything you wanted to know about SST and its close cousin, tempo training.
Consider an hour time trial: how much distance / watts / whatever could you throw down in an hour?;
Your ability to go fast for an extended period of time is somewhat limited by your ability to get rid of metabolic waste products (the words “lactic acid” gets thrown around a lot, but it’s actually hydrogen ions that cause the problem). Go too fast on your 1 hour TT, you go partially anaerobic and fatigue rapidly;
The most efficient way to improve the point in-between aerobic and anaerobic (know as the “lactate turn point” or “lactic threshold”) is to train
a) At it for 10-20 mins (true threshold training).
b) just below it for longer amounts of time (this is sweet spot training); or
c) a little bit more below it for extended periods of time (this is tempo training).
Do a few of these, and you’ll find that the speed/watts/whatever you could keep up for 1 hour has magically improved! This in turn improves the pace /watts you could keep up for a long ride. Kona awaits!
This type of training differs from true threshold training in that the intensity is slightly lower, but the volume is higher. It enables you to work at close to the threshold for longer periods of time, which can improve adaptations to the metabolic system.
As an aside, this kind of training can really make you suffer. You start out feeling ok, but towards the end of a 1 hour tempo run/ride I really start contemplating why I chose this stupid sport. In running they say a tempo should feel “comfortably hard”: you’re working, but not so hard you couldn’t keep it up. A sweet spot session should feel “uncomfortably hard”.
Aside 2: this obsession with zone 3 being no man’s land has really got to die. There are very good reasons for training in this zone, and “quality junk” has no real basis in reality. It’s a good mix of duration an intensity.
Tempo training is about 80-90% FTP. Sweet spot is about 90-95%.
2x20s at 90% FTP is a fairly classic trainer session that hits the sweet spot. In running (which I know more about), 10k to 10 miles at 10k pace + 10sec per kilometer (15sec per mile) is fairly standard.
– VO2 max training is in zone 5 or above LT. Also quite impactful but also hard so not to be done to often
– endurance work in zone 2 which is great for long course triathletes especially but it also requires quite some hours of riding
As others have said, SST is the sweet spot between those two zones. It’s high enough to hurt while you’re training, but low enough that you can do it again the next day.
And although it’s defined as being between 85%-95% of your FTP I have found that it often varies throughout the week, and you should adjust accordingly. If you feel great push 95%. If you’re tired and suffering ease back a bit towards 80%. The point is to always be as high as you can while still being able to train again the next day.
If you get a chance to try Trainer Road, the Intermediate Base Plan 1 has lots of it.
Sweet spot is supposed to have many of the metabolic benefits of lower intensity training (Z2 and Z3) and even some of those of LT/Z4 training.
You can generate a lot of stress in a little time.
You can’t get all the benefits of z1/z2 training; some is still necessary
I’m curious, especially for outdoor workouts: do y’all shoot to stay in 80-95% range for the entire interval or just shoot to have NP average for the interval in the range?