Building base

MintID said:

Been reading a bit on the forum.
It seems that the general opinion, on this forum, is that building base in the winter months by going easy and long is BS!
I must admit - I'm confused here is a quote from Chris Charmichael
It seems to me that he advocate the Joe Friel way of doing things... and he also incorporates weight training into lances program...
There must be some sense in that - seeing that Lance won the tour 7 times! (please don't bring doping into this)...
Why would Lance waste time doing long hours in the saddle if he could reach the same level of fitness or even better by doing 2x20s or what ever...
Can somebody please clarify this whole matter to me[img]cyclingforums.comconfused.gifOpen ↗[/img]
please do ask me questions if I didn't express myself good enough.

thanks in advance...

Well, you'll get a lot of varying opinions, but I don't see anything in the quote above that supports or refutes the idea of SST/L4 base as opposed to old school LSD (L1/L2) base. Both approaches are aerobic. The question is whether it's better to do aerobic work up near threshold or a bit below at SST or to do your aerobic work at an easier level like endurance pace or active recovery pace. Friel advocates the latter for early winter base building, a lot of folks on this forum including Andy Coggan(I apologize if I'm misquoting you Andy, but that's how I interpret your advice here and on the Topica list) advocate the former.

One thing to consider is the CTL needs of a protour cyclist vs the average amateur racer. Chris doesn't say exactly how he defines "aerobic" in relationship to Lance's training but assuming it's on the lower end means he could spend a lot more hours in the saddle which is one way to build big CTL numbers. It's also possible he's doing those long hours at Tempo(L3) or above which is a really good way to build CTL but long hours at Tempo also mean long hours to recover and a schedule that allows both, not easy and likely not necessary for the average amateur.

I definitely don't buy into Carmichael or Friel when it comes to weight training for road cyclists but that's another topic of debate. Have you read this piece by Andy: home.earthlink.netid4.htmlOpen ↗
Sure, Chris coached Lance, but Andy actually studied exercise physiology but you'll find advocates for either side of this debate.

Anyway, I don't see any contridictions between Carmichaels quote and the idea of SST/L4 base vs. L1/L2 base. I tried the old school(LSD, L1/L2) approach for years and it didn't get me very far and have a year invested in SST/L4 centered base work and have come a long way in that time.

YMMV,
Dave

daveryanwyoming said:

Well, you'll get a lot of varying opinions, but I don't see anything in the quote above that supports or refutes the idea of SST/L4 base as opposed to old school LSD (L1/L2) base. Both approaches are aerobic. The question is whether it's better to do aerobic work up near threshold or a bit below at SST or to do your aerobic work at an easier level like endurance pace or active recovery pace. Friel advocates the latter for early winter base building, a lot of folks on this forum including Andy Coggan(I apologize if I'm misquoting you Andy, but that's how I interpret your advice here and on the Topica list) advocate the former.

One thing to consider is the CTL needs of a protour cyclist vs the average amateur racer. Chris doesn't say exactly how he defines "aerobic" in relationship to Lance's training but assuming it's on the lower end means he could spend a lot more hours in the saddle which is one way to build big CTL numbers. It's also possible he's doing those long hours at Tempo(L3) or above which is a really good way to build CTL but long hours at Tempo also mean long hours to recover and a schedule that allows both, not easy and likely not necessary for the average amateur.

I definitely don't buy into Carmichael or Friel when it comes to weight training for road cyclists but that's another topic of debate. Have you read this piece by Andy: home.earthlink.netid4.htmlOpen ↗
Sure, Chris coached Lance, but Andy actually studied exercise physiology but you'll find advocates for either side of this debate.

Anyway, I don't see any contridictions between Carmichaels quote and the idea of SST/L4 base vs. L1/L2 base. I tried the old school(LSD, L1/L2) approach for years and it didn't get me very far and have a year invested in SST/L4 centered base work and have come a long way in that time.

YMMV,
Dave

thanks for the reply...
He set a HR ceiling for lance at 145BPM and I think lances MaxHR is 201BPM.
about weight training - I just find it interesting that most people advise against it - and yet - two of the most talented cyclists ever (Jan Ullrich and Lance Armstrong) used weight training.

MintID said:

thanks for the reply...
about weight training - I just find it interesting that most people advise against it - and yet - two of the most talented cyclists ever (Jan Ullrich and Lance Armstrong) used weight training.

One could easily argue that their success was not affected, or was even in spite of, their weight training.

I always followed the conventional old-school, don't-burst-your-capallaries!, LSD approach in the past but it never did me much good probably because my volume was way too low. Like a lot of amateurs, I don't have the time, nor the desire, to do long winter endurance rides--especially up here in snowbound Wisconsin. So this winter, I'm really looking forward to L3/SST/L4 work. From what I've read, I think most professionals have abandoned the LSD approach as well.

i believe that the truth is less well know, and we don't actually know what he did (or didn't do). Plus, it was Ferrari who actually trained LA.

it's unlikely we actually get told what is done. When you read interviews with pro cyclists (even amateur ones) they, lets see, exaggerate their training data... whose to say that they (or their 'coaches'😉 don't exagerate their training prescription to confuse people...

Ric

Animator said:

One could easily argue that their success was not affected, or was even in spite of, their weight training.

I always followed the conventional old-school, don't-burst-your-capallaries!, LSD approach in the past but it never did me much good probably because my volume was way too low. Like a lot of amateurs, I don't have the time, nor the desire, to do long winter endurance rides--especially up here in snowbound Wisconsin. So this winter, I'm really looking forward to L3/SST/L4 work. From what I've read, I think most professionals have abandoned the LSD approach as well.

[IMG]weightweenies.starbike.comt long ride01 112.jpgOpen ↗[/IMG]
Taken from this:

forgot to include the link to the article(s)
http://www.lancearmstrong.com/training/training.html

POGATA said:

[IMG]weightweenies.starbike.comt long ride01 112.jpgOpen ↗[/IMG]
Taken from this:

I don't think long endurance rides for people who aren't time limited contradicts the SST approach particularly. The interpretation of SST that involves only riding at 0.91FTP or some other narrow intensity range is overly prescriptive. It also makes sense for time limited people to work in the upper end of the sustainable aerobic intensities, so this kind of prescription will be good for many people on the forum. You'll note that this ride would have been a sustained aerobic effort that earnt a lot of TSS. You'll also note that it's his least intense ride of the week. Other days he does 'power work' and 'cadence work', which I am going to guess are both a bit more intense.

By the way, has anyone else noticed Adam isn't using WKO+ to its fullest capability? Either that or he is criminally unfit in the off season, which I highly doubt. His NP is 237W, yet his IF is 0.764. Is Adam's threshold really only 310W?

As far as the 'how do the pro's train' question, I wouldn't advise basing much of what you do off it. It's a curiosity of mine I'll admit. The problem is, as Ric says, much of what is said is obscured by commercial interests or the desire to throw off the competition. Having either read work by, emailed or spoken directly with people who have a genuine role in shaping how professional athletes train (either as coaches, exercise physiologists or both - Ric, Andy C, John Hawley and others), I think the best thing is to develop a sound, scientific way to think about your training. That way you won't be beholden to fads, marketing and whatever nonsense Chris Carmichael is spouting this week.

Roadie_scum said:

By the way, has anyone else noticed Adam isn't using WKO+ to its fullest capability? Either that or he is criminally unfit in the off season, which I highly doubt. His NP is 237W, yet his IF is 0.764. Is Adam's threshold really only 310W?

never mind not using WKO+ correctly, unless he's *extremely* heavy his SRMs aren't calibrated correctly, or he's about to set a new 200-metre world record... a shade under 2.4KW for ~5-secs...

Ric

ric_stern/RST said:

never mind not using WKO+ correctly, unless he's *extremely* heavy his SRMs aren't calibrated correctly, or he's about to set a new 200-metre world record... a shade under 2.4KW for ~5-secs...

Ric

That's pretty fast. Theo Bos can do 2400 watts for 10s but most road cyclist can't come above 2000 watts for 5seconds.

ric_stern/RST said:

never mind not using WKO+ correctly, unless he's *extremely* heavy his SRMs aren't calibrated correctly, or he's about to set a new 200-metre world record... a shade under 2.4KW for ~5-secs...

Ric

It must be powertap since it measures torque? as far as I know - only the old SRM ( IV ) had torque measuring capabilities - I might be wrong though.

MintID said:

It must be powertap since it measures torque? as far as I know - only the old SRM ( IV ) had torque measuring capabilities - I might be wrong though.

The rider in question is on T-Mobile/Telecom. It's an SRM

Ric

ric_stern/RST said:

never mind not using WKO+ correctly, unless he's *extremely* heavy his SRMs aren't calibrated correctly, or he's about to set a new 200-metre world record... a shade under 2.4KW for ~5-secs...

Ric

Dammit. Can't believe I didn't notice that. Good pickup Ric. 😄

ric_stern/RST said:

never mind not using WKO+ correctly, unless he's *extremely* heavy his SRMs aren't calibrated correctly, or he's about to set a new 200-metre world record... a shade under 2.4KW for ~5-secs...

Ric

Does this kind of calibration error get fixed by adjusting by a linear constant?

If that's the case (and I wouldn't know because I don't have an SRM), this would look like a pretty damn slow ride for a pro. In fact, this whole thing looks fishy. Incorrectly calibrated SRM. Incorrectly set FTP. No avg speed info. It's like any other thing about how the pro's train: not particularly informative. At all.

Roadie_scum said:

... The interpretation of SST that involves only riding at 0.91FTP or some other narrow intensity range is overly prescriptive. ...

But that's the whole point! Andy coined the term Sweet Spot Training to describe that range of training intensities that strike a nice balance between eliciting an FTP building training response without being so hard you can't sustain the workout for very long. That's the definition of Sweet Spot. If you generalize it to anything aerobic then there's no point in even talking about the sweet spot. I'm sure you've seen some form of the attached diagram taken from: fascatcoaching.comsweetspot.htmlOpen ↗ if you extend the concept too far down to the left then you're missing the whole point. Sure the boundaries are vague but if you extend them all the way down to endurance training levels then what's the point of even using the term?

Hi there, first post as a new user. I am having trouble gaining much from the training posts at the moment as I don't know what most of the abrieviations stand for, ie SST, FTP, LSD etc. Hoping someone can enlighten me. Thanks, Chris.

Roadie_scum said:

Does this kind of calibration error get fixed by adjusting by a linear constant?

If that's the case (and I wouldn't know because I don't have an SRM), this would look like a pretty damn slow ride for a pro. In fact, this whole thing looks fishy. Incorrectly calibrated SRM. Incorrectly set FTP. No avg speed info. It's like any other thing about how the pro's train: not particularly informative. At all.

"Tell me about it. The SRM cable I have is broken on the speedo mount. So when it rains water gets inside and this it craps itself. All my other SRM cables are in Europe."

"Arh yeah, this one area I pass makes my SRM go hay wire for a second or two. The Cyclingpeaks software only has Heart rate correction and not Power or Cadence."

"Regarding the 2400watts, thats the error I was saying before. No way I can sprint that much. I hope(Hope!) to max out at 1500watts in Feb, thats one of my goals."

daveryanwyoming said:

But that's the whole point! Andy coined the term Sweet Spot Training to describe that range of training intensities that strike a nice balance between eliciting an FTP building training response without being so hard you can't sustain the workout for very long. That's the definition of Sweet Spot. If you generalize it to anything aerobic then there's no point in even talking about the sweet spot. I'm sure you've seen some form of the attached diagram taken from: fascatcoaching.comsweetspot.htmlOpen ↗ if you extend the concept too far down to the left then you're missing the whole point. Sure the boundaries are vague but if you extend them all the way down to endurance training levels then what's the point of even using the term?

I don't think there's any point at all quibbling about the semantics of what SST is or isn't. I think plenty of people view upper L2 as SST. My point was just that a long endurance ride by a person with unlimited time doesn't provide a counterexample to the general concept or philosophy of SST.

Eyeballing the graph in the link you provided, SST seems to encompass intensities from 70-100%FTP. I'd say the optimum point in this range to train at will depend on the stage of the season you are at, the training you plan to do on days before and after and a host of other factors. For many people the psychology of having a narrow target wattage for all/most of their workouts is not too good either. The point of SST is definitely not that you should target 0.91 of FTP all the time. I really can't work out why people seem to think that (not to say you do, but I've seen it said a bunch of times).

SST is about what we always should have known (which isn't to say it isn't a very clever idea and well put). Road cycling requires highly trained aerobic metabolism and the best way to do this is to do a high volume of training at sustainable aerobic intensities. The TSS concept refines the measurement of volume and aids us in planning appropriate intensities given time constraints.

On a related note, I noticed the other day Andy suggested (or at least I understood him to suggest) that he felt optimal training as understood by members of this forum had gone too far in the direction of intensity. I wish he'd clarify this.

warthog1 said:

Hi there, first post as a new user. I am having trouble gaining much from the training posts at the moment as I don't know what most of the abrieviations stand for, ie SST, FTP, LSD etc. Hoping someone can enlighten me. Thanks, Chris.

Cycling Acronyms: FTP. VO2MAX etc.

POGATA said:

Cycling Acronyms: FTP. VO2MAX etc.

Thankyou, it would help if I looked at the top of the page first:o . Oh well at least my posts can't get any worse from here.