Three 90 minute trainer rides a week - what would you do?

Triathlon Forum
1

This winter, I have three 90 minute training slots each week (M/W/F, so separated by a day each time) and want to get the best training effect I can in terms of boosting my FTP. I race everything from Sprint to IM in a normal year (i.e. when all the races around me aren’t cancelled). At the moment, this is what I have been doing:

Mon: Short, hard intervals (1-3 minutes as hard as I can sustain for the interval, usually 15-30 minutes total time at intensity).

Weds: Longer intervals (4-10 minutes as hard as I can sustain for the interval, usually 20-40 minutes total time at intensity).

Fri: Longer efforts (45 minutes, riding as far as I can, or timing myself for 30 km for example).

I only have a bike computer with speedometer and odometer to measure intensity (no power meter), but I am okay at RPE as well. Basically, my question is this: in order to raise my FTP should I be doing something different? Should I be doing short intervals three days a week? Is it better to hit all three different intensities each week or is it better to pick one and hit that one three times a week? Would it be better to do a four week block of all short intervals, then a four week block of all long intervals (for example)? Is there anything to be gained from zone 2 riding on the trainer, given that I only have 4.5 hours a week to ride? I have read lots of threads about the 80/20 and about FOP vs MOP training and am curious to know what the ST brain trust thinks of the plan I have set up.

Thanks for any helpful feedback.

2

For that? I would swap between several weeks of doing just sweetspot workouts and then a week of high intensity. That’s not a ton of time. But I’d worry trying to make up too much for the lack of time with HIIT all the time might cannibalize form for running or otherwise.

IMO, some of the hiit stuff on low volume still needs some kind of volume stimulus to prepare you for intensity that actually builds up. Instead of just maintaining.

The thing with that hiit stuff every workout every week, think about it like a person doing a crit season. You can’t have all A races. Some weeks you have to have B or C races where you work on your volume and build back fitness. Racing isn’t necessarily good for fitness as racing takes form to do well and diminishes your fitness. You don’t do big weeks when you want to win. But doing hiit every workout is like treating all races as A races, but never training otherwise.

With that time period I would probably do the Zwift sweetspot workouts those 3 days for 3 weeks. That would maximize kilojoules per time to build volume. Just make sure you’re more on the tempo side of things than threshold so you can complete them and get the total times. Take two days consecutive off, then go into a week to week and a half of workouts more around the 5min to 8min set durations but perhaps shorter overall. Like 4 or 5xmin or 3 or 4x8min. If you want to, close those workouts with 20min of Z2 into cooldown since you burned up the glycogen and can work on some fat. Perhaps. Then after that week, cycle back to the sweetspot at a pair or so of watts higher if you don’t care to test.

Rinse, repeat.

3

The Scientific Triathlon podcast did one a little while back about base building. They had someone on who advocated for 4 rides/week, 3 at 90-120 minutes & 1 longer ride. Two sweet spot sessions a week – 1 shorter intervals, 1 longer. 1 easy day. 1 long ride with no prescribed workout. I’m going to tailor that for my winter training. Sounds like 3 rides of 90 minutes is similar enough. I would do 2 sweet spot days, which you basically wrote out, alternating shorter & longer reps. If you can be flexible with the 3rd day, I’d make it a long ride if you can. 2-2.5 hours. Maybe longer every now & then. Wouldn’t force another workout. Going hard twice/week is probably plenty with whatever other training you’re doing.

& I wouldn’t stress about “going all out” every week. You’ll get better by handling work in the right zone & getting more efficient at it. Every now & then you could mix in some time trial stuff but I wouldn’t advocate all-out intervals twice a week every week on the bike.

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So you wouldn’t recommend the really high-intensity stuff like 1-3 minute hard intervals for building FTP?

5

So you wouldn’t recommend the really high-intensity stuff like 1-3 minute hard intervals for building FTP?

Just not every workout of every week.

You can do short stuff, but I would build some kind of volume or capability first then go do a week or so of it. Then back to the other stuff.

6

So you’d recommend switching the 45 minute TT effort for a longer, easier ride? I might be able to stretch to two hours once a week, what sort of intensity would you recommend for that time-frame? Two hours doesn’t really seem long enough to tool about in zone 2.

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I mean my hour TT power considered I often do a 2 hour ride by the house at 85 to 88%. On 6hrs a week bike riding. 88% for 2 hrs ain’t Z2 slouching. It’s a bunch of sweetspot.

Either way Z2 is wide. 2hrs at the upper limit of Z2 ain’t slouching.

8

Yeah I just think you have a lot of quality crammed into 3 rides. I would hit sweet spot on 2 of the days versus all-out reps and then extend one ride to make it a true long ride. 2 hours @ Z1/2 is totally fine. You could throw in something like 30:00 straight or broken (3 x 10:00) @ Z3 every so often but having a longer ride is going to help build some endurance & make sure you don’t just hammer 3 rides/week.

9

So you wouldn’t recommend the really high-intensity stuff like 1-3 minute hard intervals for building FTP?

If ftp represents your ability to do work for an hour, 1 to 3 minute intervals might not be the most useful. 3 to 5 at V02 pace with an equal recovery and 10 to 30 mins at your ftp with minimal recovery makes more sense. It’s hard work though.

10

Look. Three all-out workouts a week are crazy. You should always have something left in the tank - I’m not sure if that’s possible if it’s always on a “best effort” basis. What you’re doing seems like Trainerroad on steroids.

Been there, done that - much of the effort would go to waste in my case, after a short initial boost. You’re probably not able to go hard enough when you have to, due to the fatigue from trying to do too much intensity (there is a good deal of guesswork in this, but let’s say it is not entirely uneducated). When I switched to Mikael Eriksson’s plans, my race power went up by 10% and my run off the bike became 10+ s/km faster, even though I was training half as hard as previously.

40 minutes in zone 2 is a good workout. 60 or 90 minutes is, as well. Do not listen to people who tell you that adaptations start after 2 hours. That’s nonsense. What counts is total time spent in Zone 2 over the month, year, decade. Yes, long rides bring additional benefits that short ones don’t, but that doesn’t mean shorter ones are a waste of time.

So, I don’t know what you need and I’m not a coach. But a generic week could look something like:

  1. zone 2 with high-cadence spin-ups,
  2. zone 2 with 6- to 8-minute tempo repeats at a low cadence (at least 10 rpm below comfortable) for a total of max 40’ at tempo,
  3. in alternating weeks - vo2max (say, 10x2’ at 120%, so RPE 9 if threshold is 8-8.5) or threshold/sweet spot (but not 45’ all out but more like 4x8’ at 45’ TT intensity).

Any additional rides would be zone 1-2.

11

This winter, I have three 90 minute training slots each week I race everything from Sprint to IM in a normal year

Mon: Short, hard intervals (1-3 minutes as hard as I can sustain for the interval, usually 15-30 minutes total time at intensity).

Weds: Longer intervals (4-10 minutes as hard as I can sustain for the interval, usually 20-40 minutes total time at intensity).

Fri: Longer efforts (45 minutes, riding as far as I can, or timing myself for 30 km for example).

I only have a bike computer with speedometer and odometer to measure intensity (no power meter), but I am okay at RPE as well. Basically, my question is this: in order to raise my FTP should I be doing something different? Should I be doing short intervals three days a week? Is it better to hit all three different intensities each week or is it better to pick one and hit that one three times a week? Would it be better to do a four week block of all short intervals, then a four week block of all long intervals (for example)? Is there anything to be gained from zone 2 riding on the trainer, given that I only have 4.5 hours a week to ride? I have read lots of threads about the 80/20 and about FOP vs MOP training and am curious to know what the ST brain trust thinks of the plan I have set up.

Thanks for any helpful feedback.

If you’re going to be limited to 3x90 for the entire year, and I’m not sure you are based on your post, I would not do an IM. That is just dumb. Yes there is a lot to be gained from doing a zone 2 ride.

I’d probably structure it a bit different
1 ride around LT 1 or 6-6.5 or so on the PRE scale
1 ride with just below FTP to FTP intervals and I’d aim to stretch these intervals out to an interval of about 45-55 min. The rest for warming up and cooling down
1 ride where I probably rotated weeks doing 1 ride around LT 1 only and 1 ride with some threshold/near threshold intervals maybe 30-40 min of it.

You mention being able to get a 2h ride in once in a bit, I’d probably do all of that around LT1 most of the time. Some of the time I’d probably do a 40-60 min long just under threshold interval.

FWIW there is a thread on trainer road (TR), at least I think it was on the TR, that discusses/debates a lot of the pros/cons of a high intensity approach that’s probably worth reading. Over time my thoughts on TR have not gotten kinder based on the number of athletes I consulted with who used their approach.

At some point you can not trade intensity for duration and expect to improve/keep improving.

12

If you are doing 3 interval rides a week, you’ll get better for a while, then plateau and if you keep pushing it you’ll start to decline. Depending on how hard the intervals are you’ll follow that arc over a 3-4 month period. Variety works a lot better. You are training your brain as much as you are training your body and partially your brain’s perception of the workout and ability to focus on it.

Another interval workout you can throw in, which isn’t easy, but is very effective would be 10s @ 200% of threshold and 40 seconds easy, repeat 50-70x.

Hope this helps,

Tim

13

Thanks for the responses. It’s interesting to see how much the ST view diverges from the book I have been reading (“Time-crunched cyclist” by Chris Carmichael) and to get a different perspective on the idea of interval training.

To keep things sustainable, I’m going to do the hard interval session once each week and then switch one ride to a zone 2 ride and see if I can eke out an extra 30 minutes so that I am riding for two hours. For the third ride, I’ll just assess how I’m feeling and do either a second zone 2 ride or a second interval workout.

Mentally, I actually find a two-hour zone 2 ride more challenging than a 90 minute interval session. Probably because I grew up playing rugby and doing martial arts, so short, intense bouts of pain are something that I am used to. I actually enjoy the pain (especially afterwards) but I won’t tug too hard at that thread. It is always good to train a weakness, so the two hour zone 2 rides on the trainer should definitely help me.

Thanks again for the feedback.

14

If you’re going to be limited to 3x90 for the entire year, and I’m not sure you are based on your post, I would not do an IM. That is just dumb. Yes there is a lot to be gained from doing a zone 2 ride.

.

I agree! The 90 minute rides are what I can fit in during the week. Through the winter I have other family commitments that mean I only train Mon-Fri. I should be able to get out one weekend morning from April onwards to do a weekly long ride. I’ll be aiming at 4 hour rides, because then I can be back in time for my coaching commitments. My IM is at the end of August, so that should leave enough time for long rides.

The main thing I want to accomplish with my trainer sessions through the winter is to ensure that when spring rolls around I have the fitness to either head out for 4-hour rides or to race short distance tris (fingers crossed) without my body falling apart.

15

How much do you value your time? The reason I ask is that it makes sense to invest in a direct drive turbo trainer, and a subscription to a cycling app or training program. Personally I race on Zwift once per week in early winter, and probably 2 - 3 times as it gets colder and I do less outside. A Zwift race, in a competetive series like ZRL (Zwift Racing League) will be 45mins - 1 hour max effort, depeding on the course, it could be a series of max efforts followed by short recovery, or it may be a constant FTP level effort. Last season, my FTP went from 330w to 350w through zwift racing. 90 minutes is about right for warmup, race and recovery.

For your one of the other sessions, you could do a structured program or join a training group ride at a set w/kg, there is a social element to these rides

For the final session, I would probably look at another race, but go for a slightly less intense series. The Crit City races tend to be easier

Not interested in Zwift, the trainer road have some great ftp building programs

16

Not sure if it was Samtridad or anonother poster but I recall him/other being very busy, with many many children and a big hour job.

An unrelated thread a long time ago talked about how by far and away the best training investment for someone like that….if able….would be to selectively and a little bit selfishly allocate a small percentage of your annual vacation to dedicated training time.

1 week equals 10 individual weeks with say Thursday afternoon off, you can fry a few more fish with a bit of self selected give in your schedule.

(Again if able, this may be pure fantasy for some)

Maurice

17

How much do you value your time? The reason I ask is that it makes sense to invest in a direct drive turbo trainer, and a subscription to a cycling app or training program. Personally I race on Zwift once per week in early winter, and probably 2 - 3 times as it gets colder and I do less outside. A Zwift race, in a competetive series like ZRL (Zwift Racing League) will be 45mins - 1 hour max effort, depeding on the course, it could be a series of max efforts followed by short recovery, or it may be a constant FTP level effort. Last season, my FTP went from 330w to 350w through zwift racing. 90 minutes is about right for warmup, race and recovery.

For your one of the other sessions, you could do a structured program or join a training group ride at a set w/kg, there is a social element to these rides

For the final session, I would probably look at another race, but go for a slightly less intense series. The Crit City races tend to be easier

Not interested in Zwift, the trainer road have some great ftp building programs

Mind you, you’ve got a 350w ftp and likely the volume behind it to do multiple races a week. I would say that’s in the vast minority of folks who can do that for an hour. We’ve a person here budgeting 4.5 hours a week.

Which is why most of us suggested to not do all out the majority of the time. I think two races out of three workouts is still too much. I think one of the three could be fine.

18

Mind you, you’ve got a 350w ftp and likely the volume behind it to do multiple races a week. I would say that’s in the vast minority of folks who can do that for an hour. We’ve a person here budgeting 4.5 hours a week.

Which is why most of us suggested to not do all out the majority of the time. I think two races out of three workouts is still too much. I think one of the three could be fine.

Very good point, I did mean to say something like that but forgot. My training on the bike is 82% Z1 and Z2, according to intervals.icu so high intensity is a small proportion

19

Mentally, I actually find a two-hour zone 2 ride more challenging than a 90 minute interval session.

Same here (assuming the intervals aren’t balls-to-the-wall), even with Netflix, etc. What helps me is splitting the 120 minutes into 5-minute segments with different power targets, so that I average whatever I want to average over the 120 minutes (say, 65% of FTP) but zigzag between 55%, 73%, 62%, 69%, etc. Cadence targets (within a comfortable range) also help with the boredom.

20

Not sure if it was Samtridad or anonother poster but I recall him/other being very busy, with many many children and a big hour job.

An unrelated thread a long time ago talked about how by far and away the best training investment for someone like that….if able….would be to selectively and a little bit selfishly allocate a small percentage of your annual vacation to dedicated training time.

1 week equals 10 individual weeks with say Thursday afternoon off, you can fry a few more fish with a bit of self selected give in your schedule.

(Again if able, this may be pure fantasy for some)

Maurice

Yeah, I have nine children (ages 0-19), teach full-time and coach several different sports in my community, so September-June is definitely busy. The flip-side is vacation during July and August, when I try to hit more volume and less intensity. For the winter, I just want to hold on to as much fitness as possible so that I can race and ride successfully in the spring.