Duh. Originally posted asking for opinions; just realized it's not published yet.

Still curious though...

http://www.amazon.com/Cutting-Edge-Cycling-Hunter-Allen/dp/0736091092

Hunter Allen, is one of the big-name coaches, and he really seemed to make a name for himself focusing on power. It's been a while since I've read a professional coaching book, but ones I've browsed/read in the past have been a disappointment because they assume a certain level of access. Access to particular kinds of roads, particular kinds of equipment, and access to gobs and heaps of time. I think though JP might have some more detailed thoughts on Hunter Allen's style, knowledge base and application. I could be wrong, but JP has either gone to some of his power seminars, or interviewed him or something like that.

I don't know about the new book. Agree with Marc for the mist part, but Allen can be adopted easily to those with less time. That's what the coach can do. Plus I've known coggan for a very long time.

I've sort-of been to a Hunter power seminar. He's done talks at InterBike and I've been to just about all of those. And I have interviewed him a number of times. And have been using WKO+, and have reviewed both WKO+ and his first book.

He's good. I find him far easier than reading Friel. He seems to stay away from cluttering the reader with too many names or complicated concepts. I find his magazine articles pretty much the same.

I haven't read nearly as much Cheung, but he's one of the few reasons to visit Pez cycling news.

I'm going to get the book.

@Wump: per your last I trotted on over to Pez and found this:
http://pezcyclingnews.com/?pg=fullstory&id=10040&status=True&catname=Tech News
Cheung shillig some pill with equivocal results and (basically) unknown side effects

Bit of a bummer, really.

I can split the cost of the book Jules

@ eragot: it's a deal. 5 bucks each. But wait I owe you 2 beers. So that means I'm buying the book AND a beer? Sucks to be me.

120% is fucking hard. having spent the last couple of years scrounging for training time, I think this high-intensity stuff is great.

http://triathlon.competitor.com/2012/02/training/high-intensity-for-high-performance_48031

Jules,
Stick to the "toolbox" pieces. Most of Pez's gear reviews read like advertorials.

BTW, tried the Optygen HP. Didn't notice any performance improvement.

@ Wump: team lab rat? Very noble. I put my hand up for testing the performance enhancing effects of Peat. Bottled.

Posted By: Jules Roazen120% is fucking hard. having spent the last couple of years scrounging for training time, I think this high-intensity stuff is great.

http://triathlon.competitor.com/2012/02/training/high-intensity-for-high-performance_48031

I don't disagree with intensity given that one can't build a big base if one doesn't have time. However, the article gives a sample workout for Anerobic workouts. I stick to the Coggan definition of VO2Max being that of 105-120% of FTP for 3-8 minutes. Under that amount of time, 120% is pretty darn easy.

I mean think about it - Jules your FTP is probably about what? 280w? Sample workout has you doing 336w for 1min or 3 min? Plus the recovery time for VO2 needs to be sufficient so that you are ready to go again. 1 min on / 1 min off is a great workout, but not for VO2.

Train what you'll race. If you're not doing really long madison pulls at 1on 1/ off?

For a perspective on raising threshold, the question often comes up if it is better to push from the bottom or pull from the top. Meaning base or high intensity. That question was recently addressed in the training with power forum:

So 'push up' is doing much or most of your base work below your
current FTP but expecting your FTP to rise as a result of that
submaximal work. It typically does if you do enough work, frequently
enough and get good recovery between harder workouts. At some point
almost everyone moves to some maximal work either to prepare for
racing or to put a bit more top end on their fitness in short periods
of time. That sort of 'pull up' work also works but tends not to be
sustainable for long periods and tends to leave athletes very fatigued
both mentally and physically after many workouts which can take its
toll over the long haul.


Pull up simply is very difficult both physically and mentally to keep up for too long.

Eric wrote:
"I stick to the Coggan definition of VO2Max being that of 105-120% of FTP for 3-8 minutes. Under that amount of time, 120% is pretty darn easy."

I wouldn't write that it is easy, but that it is, almost by definition, sustainable. How sustainable at what percentage depends both on one's ability to go over FTP and how rested one is.

I think it is simpler to write that the "cost" in terms of mental strain and recover time is greater when doing supra-threshold efforts than it is working sub-threshold efforts. And that there seems to be a decent body of evidence that dosing supra-threshold carefully is a better receipe for increasing FTP and overall fitness than overloading on supra-threshold.

Now it's time to discuss "sweet spot"

The other thing that happens when you start doing suprathreshold work is that your overall fitness begins to decline because you just can't do that much work. Thus, you may start to bring on a peak before you want to.

Here's a link to Hunter Allen's new book if you care about getting one with an autograph:

http://campaign.r20.constantcontact.com/render?llr=faoe66cab&v=001e5WobZtxxKQmuBNUc2iBfZacAOHu7YfMyz6F-9T6THXQz6qeL54axOJQ0STKrh-D7phA9-zoDOvrTOMUFfx0sZcOcUPayBsLBFmgK_aA8dM=

Interesting re: Intensity above (pull) being more effective but at a cost of both overall training volume and emotional burnout. I've definitely noticed both before but nice to see such a sharp point on it.

One big question I have is the consequence on rest between efforts. I get the idea of "train what you race" but if I'm just trying to move my FTP higher, how do the training effects of these compare?

5 minutes on, 1 minute rest "just below" ftp
5 minutes on, 5 minute rest "just below" ftp

and is the answer different for

5 minutes on, 1 minute rest "just above"ftp
5 minutes on, 5 minute rest "just above" ftp

@Jules. I'm personally doing threshold efforts of around 12 minutes in length with complete rest in between these days.

My coach has me doing a lot of above/below efforts with little or no rest; length between 25 and 45 minutes. I only have a few more hard days like that

(But the "above" is not in the V02Max territory)

Generally speaking he & I try and focus on a week long training effect; not any one day. Accumulated time in ranges is the name of the game until we get to the shorter efforts.

Jules,
I'm not an exercise physiologist. However, I have found that many coaches have workouts that have incomplete rest when riding at FTP and below and rest equalling the effort when above FTP.

For example, a popular trainer workout is 5m FTP followed by 1m rest. Whereas VO2 max efforts through neuromuscular efforts are always followed by equal rest (that is your max 30s-8m of "on" is almost always followed by an equal amount of rest. Sprints, while I'll define here as 5-20 second efforts, are usually followed by much more rest than work.

If you're discussing 96-99% of FTP and 101-104% of FTP, I haven't seen any discussion of using those ranges. That written, efforts that are within 4% of FTP strike me as FTP efforts because of the variability of power meters, which is +/- 1.5-2% and then give yourself another 2% on that for day to day fluctuations.


and when I looked at Pez again, I have to say that most of their gear reviews are advertorials. It's nice they outfit Richard Pestes so well.

Wump,

Yes, I've seen the "on" time on equaling time "off" when the efforts get rough; but it's always a bit of a mystery to me.

Very good point on the +/- range of both efforts and power meters. My ranges (both above and below) are 15-20 watts wide, so there is a real difference between scraping the bottom of the low and blowing the lights out on the high.

I asked the Smart Roazen (not me) to take a look at the literature behind the Optygen and she basically asked if I wanted her to bother writing a real reply since the holes were so gaping - they sponsor their own studies to begin with - but If anyone is interested I'll ask.

Equal on to off:
For short efforts - 3 minutes or under - not VO2 in my book. For these efforts because of their high demands placed on the body, the recovery must be such that a person is ready to go again and try to repeat the effort. The performance will decline over the number of intervals if done properly though, they will level out at effort #3 and continue until the degradation is such that the proper training level isn't being reached (below 120%, i.e., Vo2, not anaerobic). The very point is to target the zone and effort level. Its much the same as sprints because the effort level is so high - physically and mentally the rider has to be ready to go again and these are ALL OUT EFFORTS!

For VO2, the efforts are all out as well, but because of the duration, are never really all out because to go all out for one and to try again would mean you weren't all out. Hard to describe, but try to do 5 min all out more than once. If you are going to try, reload with 5 min in between. Any less and you'll be in trouble.

So, the way I see it, the supra-threshold intervals get pretty much full recovery or you won't be able to do the next effort propery. and even if you could, the subsequent one will be of lesser quality and so on. The idea is to replicate the training effect.


As for FTP intervals - 95-105% is that zone for me. As long as you are in there, you are threshold. They hurt, but are doable. Rest doesn't need to be that long because you should be able to do one HOUR at that level. But instead, you take a break (mental). So, you don't NEED any recovery in threory. That's why the less intense FTP of SST or Tempo efforts get shorter rest periods. You don't need the rest.

So, if you're trying to get the benefit of 1 hour at FTP effect. Then you need to do 1 hour at FTP. That can be accomplished many ways - 1x60, 2x30, 3x20, 4x15, 6x10. The rest periods would be 0,15,10,7,5 minutes respectively. You can't do another hour at threshold thereafter.


Enough for now.

ER,
Thanks for the long answer. I was going to go with a short one about FTP and and efforts an hour or less.

Thanks for that Eric. Much appreciated.

Eric, JP, Marc and Jules

Thanks for the great discussion about pushing and pulling FTP and the role of rest. It helps clarify some concepts that were fuzzier to me than I realized.

If nothing else it should motivate me to keep putting in the miles even on those really cold days.

See you on the road!

Miles, who needs stinking miles? If you are training below say 12 hours per week, then traditional base is out as you need the greater intensity of Tempo or Sweet Spot.

Sweet Spot as seen by Frank Overton


Part 1
http://www.fascatcoaching.com/realtstwkt.html

Part 2
http://www.fascatcoaching.com/sweetspotpartdeux.html

JP, that second one is easily among the top five links on these boards. Thanks for posting that!

Anyone who's ridden with JP knows his favorite Sweet Spot workout:

Example 2: "Group Ride Sweet Spot" ride on the front in the wind, take longer more frequent pulls. Do more work, be aggressive. While all this is going on, use your powermeter to confirm that you are indeed sweet spottin'. Or participate in a group ride with stronger riders that force you to ride harder just to stay with the group. Also see example 4.

Hah, on the second link there is a picture of a cheetah riding a bicycle. I appreciate that. I wonder if they would be fast cyclists? Cheetahs I mean.

Am I getting this right? In a perfect world, where you are super motivated, it is best to work at as high a level (zone/%threshold) as possible, keeping good form? So, if you were superhuman, and could somehow rest and recover efficiently in 4 hours and you had immense motivation and metal strength, you would try to do all workouts 100+% of threshold?

In real life, due to the mentally taxing nature of these sessions, need to recover, lack of time, other commitments, compromises need to be made. Hence, the other, lower level workouts?

I purposefully ignore base-building in this question as I believe that is a load of balls. I don't think a 400m runner (us racing in the park) needs to be putting in a lot of 3000m/half marathon distances (4 hour base-building rides). I believe the relative improvement in performance with this is definitely not worth the time investment for said runner, aiming for a 400m event. Pro cyclists are different for two reasons in my mind. They compete in both 400m races and marathons (crits to grand tours) and it's impossible, by definition, to train at threshold for more than an hour so if they were to do that they might only be be able to train for 7 hours or so per week.

Also, it looks like the cheetah is in the tuck/Cancellara/forearms on bar TT position. I appreciate that. He may be on the hoods but it looks that way.

This is a great thread. Worth MORE than the price of admission to the team - ping, those of you who need to re-up your 2012 membership fees know who you are

My big takeaway from this is that the name of the game is "collecting" minutes in your various zones over the week. Rest matters a lot when you are training to sprint, but much, much less for the other zones.

I think of it as a bank account of time & emotional energy that I get to spend every week. The game is to spend it in such a way that you gather most number of minutes in the zones that do you the most good; and some zones (sprinting in particular) require so much time that the others will suffer.

ie: 10 minutes of sprinting come with a cost of AT LEAST 10 minutes of rest (total) but 10 minutes right below threshold only requires perhaps 1 or 3 minutes of rest.

Posted By: Adam
I purposefully ignore base-building in this question as I believe that is a load of balls.

Goddamn...am I really going to have to bust my primer on the importance of base miles again this year?! I mean, if you really want to skip base miles, and you only plan to do short park races, then fine skip 'em. You'll do all-right.

Posted By: Jules RoazenRest matters a lot when you are training to sprint, but much, much less for the other zones.

Rest matters regardless of what zone you are training in...the importance of rest is related to the overall physiological toll of your workload. And that toll is related to both volume and intensity.

I would be surprised if you could do three or four 10-minute threshold efforts with only 1 to 3 minutes of rest between efforts. I mean, I'm sure you could do the power, but look at your heart rate, what zone are you in now to maintain your threshold wattage by the third 10-minute effort after 20 minutes of work with only two to six minutes of rest? What is your perceived rate of exertion? Are your power numbers in the threshold zone, but it feels like a harder effort? Are you now at the lower end of your threshold wattage range with the same level of effort that you started your workout at the higher end of your threshold?

Mr. Sweet Spot Frank Overton reminds us that:

"In my experience as an athlete and a coach, a large aerobic foundation should be your number one priority this winter for a successful 2008 season. There are several areas of your training you'll need to address afterwords but starting with the "big base" will increase your performance. The bigger base you can build, the faster you will be."