Sweetspot means training just below your threshold (FTP). It’s a moderately hard effort that you could sustain for long periods of time. It was popularised by Dr Andy Coggan in his book “Training and Racing with a Power Meter”, which suggests sweetspot strikes a balance between physiological strain and training duration to achieve a maximum training effect.

To work in your sweetspot zone, aim for roughly 88-93% of FTP or 85-85% of your threshold heart rate.

Sweetspot training has a wide range of benefits for your aerobic engine – increases in blood plasma volume, mitochondria, glycogen storage and muscle capillarisation, for example. It’s also an enjoyable level for training where the athlete feels they’ve had a great workout without the mental fatigue of maximal efforts. Don’t discount the value of motivation!

​Sweetspot intensity, especially combined with low cadence / high torque work, is also effective in decreasing the amount of energy you produce through an anaerobic glycolytic pathway (referred to as your VLamax). It might seem counterintuitive to want to decrease your energy production, but according to sports scientist Sebastian Weber, your FTP is balance between lactate production and lactate clearance. Reducing your VLamax can, therefore, increase your FTP without changing your VO2max or aerobic capacity. This means sweetspot should be a regular session for steady state athletes like time triallists, triathletes and duathletes. However, sprinters would be advised to stay away from this kind of work, especially close to race season. Finding the delicate balance between VO2max and VLamax has helped shape the training and success of Sebastian Weber’s elite riders like Tony Martin, Peter Sagan and André Greipel.

​However, sweetspot training will only get you so far. To reach your potential you’ll also need to incorporate other low and high intensity sessions, especially if your event demands include bursts of power like in road racing, criteriums, cyclocross, MTB, track sprinting or draft legal triathlon. Also, for most athletes, two or maybe three sessions a week is enough. Remember sweetspot does have a metabolic cost, so there is a limit to how much you can or should do. 

Sweetspot work can be part of a longer endurance ride or a dedicated session on the road or trainer. Completing sweetspot work on long hills or on the trainer also allows you to get the added benefits of sustained low cadence work.

Sweetspot Hills – Include 2-3 climbs of 15-30 minutes at sweetspot intensity during a ride of 1.5 hours or longer.

Trainer workouts – make sure you bookend these intervals with a suitable warmup and cooldown

• Beginners – 4 x 5 minutes at 85-90% of FTP with 2-3 minutes zone 1 between intervals
• Intermediate – 3 x 10 minutes at 88-93% of FTP with 5 minutes zone 1 between intervals
• Advanced – 2 x 20 minutes at 88-93% of FTP with 5 minutes zone 1 between intervals

Let us know your experience with sweetspot training and how you incorporate it into your season!
 

At Espresso Performance Coaching, we believe that strength training has a part to play in the programme of all endurance athletes. It’s an important factor that has benefits for health, general athleticism and sports performance.

• Health – Strength training prevents injury by addressing muscle imbalances created during the repetitive movement of endurance sports.
• Athleticism – All athletes need to have sufficient strength, stability, power and mobility to train for the specifics of their sport. Strength training contributes to all of these.
• Performance – Strength training leads to increased power (rate of force production) and improves running and cycling economy; many studies have shown increased performance, and none show a decrease.

For masters athletes, strength training is even more important. As we age, we lose muscle mass faster than we lose cardiovascular fitness. This leads to long term health issues as well as performance decline. You will slow the inevitable decline in performance by including strength work in your programme.

The first thing you need to know is that it works. Here are a couple of solid examples from the research literature:

If you need any more convincing, then several mechanisms have been suggested:

• Delayed use of less efficient type II (fast twitch) muscle fibres - With strength training, your Type I (slow twitch, endurance) muscle fibres become stronger so are working at a lower relative intensity during sub-maximal exercise. Stronger fibres might also mean than less muscle mass is used in each contraction, increasing the amount of rest each fibre gets. This means the Type I fibres can work for longer before becoming exhausted and forcing type II fibres to step in.
• Conversion of muscle fibre types – Some studies have shown increased proportion of type IIA fibres and reduced proportion of type IIX fibres after strength training. Type IIA are more efficient and fatigue more slowly than Type IIX so are more suited to endurance performance.
• Rate of force development – Increases in neural activation (how your brain activates muscle fibres) improve economy in both runners and cyclists (especially for low cadence work).
• Muscle-tendon stiffness – Elastic storage and return of energy by tendons contributes a large component of the energy needed for running. Stiffer tendons are more effective and reduce the overall energy demands, even at relatively slow speeds.

​This blog post focuses on strength training for performance and the recommendations reflect that. There are many other strength training modalities, like plyometrics, that we can and should use for general athleticism. Some coaches, like Renato Canova, have had huge success combining endurance work with strength circuits in a single workout. However, we’ll save those for another day.

The exercises most likely to benefit endurance athlete’s performance are multi-joint movements biomechanically similar to their event. I’d suggest you start with deadlifts and squats and, if seeking variety or progression, look at variations of these. As you progress, unilateral, single limb options like split squats or single leg deadlifts could be more specific, help to address muscle imbalances and also develop your core stabilisation.

If you’re new to strength training, you should start cautiously and get individual coaching from a qualified professional. Lifting heavy weights with poor technique is a recipe for disaster so please seek advice. You can also develop your technique while gaining the benefits of strength training using low to moderate weights or even just body weight. If you are happy with your technique, select 3-5 exercises and for each complete:

• 2-3 sets of 10-15 repetitions and 2-3 minutes rest between sets

If you are new to strength training, you’ll find you can increase the weight you lift very quickly at first as you gain the neural benefits even before muscle fibres themselves have been trained. This means you are gaining access to the strength you already have!

As you become more experienced, move to heavier lifts. You can change your protocol:

• 2-3 sets of 4-6 repetitions and 3-4 minutes rest between sets

As an endurance athlete, you might be shocked at the rest between sets and wonder why you are spending so much time doing nothing. However, don’t be tempted to turn this into another endurance session. You (hopefully) do enough of those already! This is much more similar to sprint work, where you should start each set fully rested.
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Ideally, you’ll be strength training 2-3 times a week but if you can only manage one session, do that.

​For the novice athlete, including any strength training in your programme is likely to be effective and the single recommendation is simply to do it and not worry too much about the details. You’ll see gains in performance and your volume of endurance training is unlikely to compromise this.

For the more experienced or advanced athlete, we need to pay attention to programming strength training to get the maximum benefit. There’s little evidence that strength training interferes with developing endurance, but endurance training can certainly interfere with strength gains. This is one reason why you are unlikely to get huge from two or three short strength sessions while also running 80km a week. Sorry to break that to you.

To avoid interfering with our strength gains, one simple option is to complete the training on different days. However, advanced athletes might be training around 6 days a week, sometimes twice a day, and may need to complete strength and endurance work on the same day to maintain training volume. In this case, research suggests that signalling from strength training lasts 3-12 hours following a session. Endurance training in this window will blunt your adaptations to strength training. To avoid this, complete the endurance training first and strength training later in the day. To get the most from the strength session, make sure you allow adequate rest and recovery after an endurance session to avoid reducing the quality of your second session.
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Finally, consider when in the week to complete your strength work. At Espresso we believe in keeping easy days easy so hard days can be hard. This means we usually schedule strength training on the same day as a hard run or bike workout, with the endurance work completed first. This isn’t the only viable approach, however. In a recent conversation with an Olympic triathlon coach I learned that the GB Elite Squad completed strength training on an easy endurance day. This programming meant their high intensity endurance sessions, which were the primary focus, were not compromised. As always, the solution depends on the needs of the individual athlete. The self-coached athlete will need to experiment with different strategies to find what works best.

​This series of blog posts is a quick guide to different types of interval training and focuses on the fundamental principles involved. Armed with this and a few examples, you’ll be ready to start adding intervals into your training week, whatever your event. The principles of High Intensity Training (HIT) or High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) apply to everyone, so you can use these workouts on the running track or turbo trainer.
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This time we’re focusing on short intervals.

​Short intervals last just 15-60s. This isn’t long enough to reach your maximum rate of oxygen consumption (VO2max) in a single interval so they rely on using a very short recovery period and blocks of intervals lumped into sets. This means your heart rate will keep climbing through the first few intervals before you max out. Despite this, you can accumulate a long time at VO2max through the workout.

These intervals have a long history but have also received a lot of attention in recent years as “magic” training, with research showing they might be more effective than standard long intervals (see our last blog post for more on these).
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In their excellent review of interval training methods, Paul Laursen and Martin Buchheit (2013) talk about intervals of 15s up to about 60s and recommend using recovery periods equal to, or shorter than, the work interval. This means something like blocks of 15s on, 15s off, written as 15/15. Other research by Ronnestad and colleagues has focused a 30/15 protocol and found benefits for a range of athletes, from recreational up to elites. Eminent sports scientist Stephen Seiler has also talked about these intervals, noting that they are physiologically very similar to long duration VO2max intervals, but may have some additional benefits resulting from the higher intensities reached.

​Short intervals are designed to increase your maximum aerobic capacity by having you accumulate significant total time at or close to your VO2max. They may also benefit your anaerobic capacity because they involve working well above your anaerobic threshold.

Interval training is typically described as sets of intervals or work and rest, where 10 x 30/30 means 30s of work followed by 30s of recovery, repeated 10 times. Usually these intervals will be arranged in sets with a longer recovery period between them. Runners can do these over any terrain running at around 3k effort or faster. For cyclists, these are perfect for indoor training on the turbo or rollers. Good targets to aim for are about 120-130% of your FTP or 100-120% of your 5-minute power. Effort level will be higher for the shorter intervals and bit lower for the longer ones. Having said that, the best way to pace these is probably by feel. Just go as hard as you can manage without having to drop your intensity. You’ll learn pretty fast what you can do!

Try this progression of workouts, including just one in your training plan each week:

• 2 x 5 x 30s hard / 30s easy with 5 mins easy between sets
• 2 x 16 x 15s hard / 15s easy with 5 mins easy between sets
• 3 x 4 x 60s hard / 60s easy with 5 mins easy between sets

Always make sure you bookend the interval session with a thorough warmup and cooldown.

Alternatively, you could try the “Ronnestad” intervals:

• 4 x 13 x 30s hard /15s easy with 2-3 min rest between sets

​Other combinations of duration, reps and sets are just as valid. Don't feel you have to follow this prescription exactly to get the benefit.

You can download a free Zwift workout for the Ronnestad intervals developed by Espresso Performance Coaching!

Long interval are performed at a high intensity for long enough for you to reach and spend significant time at your maximum rate of oxygen consumption (VO2max). Typically, that will mean intervals of 2-5 minutes with a total work duration of between 12 and 30 minutes. Recovery periods will be about as long as the work interval. If you monitor heart rate, you should be getting up to 90-95% of your maximum heart rate after a minute or two.
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However, there is also some interesting research from Stephen Seiler that suggests accumulating more time at a slightly lower intensity might by even more effective. More on this below!

​Long intervals are designed to increase your maximum aerobic capacity by having you spend as much time as possible operating at or close to your VO2max.

Interval training is typically described as sets of intervals or work and rest, where 10 x 2min / 2 min means 2 minutes of work followed by 2 minutes of rest, repeated 10 times. Runners can do these over any terrain running at around 3k to 5k effort. For cyclists, these are perfect for indoor training on the turbo or rollers. Good targets to aim for are about 120% of your FTP or 90-100% of your 5-minute power.

Try this progression of workouts, including just one in your training plan each week:

• 5 x 2 min hard / 2 min easy
• 5 x 3 min hard / 3 min easy
• 4 x 4 min hard / 4 min easy

Always make sure you bookend the interval session with a thorough warmup and cooldown.
​
Alternatively, you could try the Seiler approach, which involved a slightly lower intensity but longer intervals. It’s been shown to be more effective than the traditional 4x4 session, so definitely worth considering as a part of your toolbox:

• 4 x 8 min hard / 2-3 min rest

Try these free Zwift workouts developed by Espresso Performance Coaching and let us know what you think in the comments below!

• ​4x4 minutes
• 4x8 minutes

The big race is done, the medal is hanging proudly with the reminders of other sporting achievements and… then what? What does the dedicated athlete do next? How do we prepare for next year’s goals when they can feel so far away?

Before we consider how to go about pre-season training, we need to know what outcome we want from it. At Espresso Performance Coaching, the goal of pre-season training is very simple:

​Next season, your build and peak phases will take you to a new level of fitness and athletic performance, but only if you have laid the foundations for success.

​Athletes take different approaches pre-season but few are making the most of their time. Many are actively harming their chances of a successful season to come!

Let’s take a look at some typical approaches to pre-season.

​The Traditionalist believes winter should be spent accumulating long slow miles. There is no variety, no intensity and, for the typical time-limited amateur, no point.  While this approach does address one of the key elements of the pre-season discussed below, it fails to provide adequate support for the work to come. On top of that, those long, slow miles take time. Amateur athletes training 8-12 hours a week don’t suddenly have 20 hours to train and even more to recover. This means the Traditionalist isn’t fully preparing for the demands of race training and faces a significant loss of fitness.

​Like Arnie’s Terminator, the Bulldozer absolutely will not stop. Not wanting to face losing fitness, they take no off season. The day after the race, they’re back on the turbo or the track, banging out hard intervals. Surely, this means they will be ready to crush weak, lazy opponents next year! Sadly for the Bulldozer, they are destined to see early season form slide away in stagnation, burnout or injury. Peak fitness isn’t something you can hold year round. They have no chance to refresh mentally or physically and don’t take the time to build a solid platform from which to build to a greater level of peak fitness.

For the Couch Potato, this is the OFF season. A time to indulge, relax and put their feet up, safe in the knowledge that the race season is done. Throwing the trainers to the back of the cupboard and pulling the dust sheet over the turbo, the Couch Potato worries not about the loss of fitness, changes in body composition and loss of routine. When the time comes to think about next season’s goals, the Couch Potato will be found scrambling for a quick fix, ready-to-race in 4 weeks plan and will never achieve their athletic potential.

So, what do we do at Espresso Performance Coaching? We address the key elements of pre-season preparation that will set up our athletes for their best season yet.

In the wake of the big race, there should be time for a physical and mental break from the intensity and focus of peak performance. This is a time to deal with physical niggles so they don’t become season spoiling injuries. Make time for friends and family that have made their own sacrifices for your sport during your period of intense focus. At Espresso Performance Coaching, we also use time to review last season and plan for the next. What worked and what didn’t? What are your future athletic goals? Are you aiming to go faster or further? Are you considering a change in discipline? Swapping the TT bike for hill climbs or crits, switching from the road to the fells? What excites you for next year? 
However, it is important that this phase doesn’t stretch out and become a Couch Potato’s “off season”. Depending on your event, a few weeks is probably enough before you start to build gently back into training.

​The pre-season phase is for building physical competence and then strength. Hill running and low-cadence work on the bike are great exercises, but they aren’t building your fundamental strength. That only comes with dedicated strength work. Strength training will strengthen muscles, bones and connective tissue to withstand the training to come. It will also develop the neuromuscular pathways from brain to muscle to use the strength you have more effectively. Build your physical strength now and it will take far less effort to maintain it during the build and peak phases of your season. There is no need for complicated exercises and expensive equipment, but your regular routine should include the fundamental movements - squat, lunge, hinge, push, pull and brace. Include exercises that address these compound, multi-joint movements and you’re well on the way to being a stronger, more athletic human being.

​To race fast, you need to move fast. Suddenly adding speed work after neglecting it all winter is a recipe for injury. Prepare your body for the work to come by incorporating running strides and cadence drills. These will teach your body to move fast with improved economy so you get a better return on the energy you use.

Later, strength and speed can be turned into power but the time for that will come. Be patient!

​Winter is the perfect time to cultivate a mobile body. Note that I didn’t say flexible body. Flexibility refers to the passive range of motion, whereas mobility refers to the range of motion that you can actively control. While flexibility may be desirable, what athletes need most is mobility. An excessive range of motion without the ability to control it may even increase your risk of injury. Drills and exercises that expand your mobility in the ankles, hips, trunk and shoulders should be a staple of your winter training. These will help you to become a more efficient, robust and less injury-prone athlete for the season to come.

Finally, the part that most athletes will jump straight to when designing their winter programme. Your stronger, faster and more mobile body will need a solid aerobic foundation on which to build your best season yet. For all events lasting longer than a handful of seconds, aerobic fitness is critical. You can develop your peak fitness for racing in a surprisingly short time, but only if you have the aerobic base to start with. This is also the perfect time to cross train. Your can develop your general endurance while you mix it up, so get off road or hit the pool. This is a great chance to break up the routine and have some fun.

A focus on aerobic fitness doesn’t mean a winter of just long, slow miles either. You may start with an emphasis on easy volume, but you can include increasing amounts of intensity with tempo work, sweetspot and hill repeats. Just remember, you aren’t aiming to be in peak fitness right now. Peak fitness can only last for a matter of weeks, so don’t be a December hero. Use your intense sessions sparingly and progressively to get ready for the high workload to come.

Remember the goal of pre-season training is to prepare your body and mind for the demands of event specific training to come. It isn’t to reach your peak fitness now. With diligence and patience, you can develop a rock solid foundation from which you will surge past your competitors who failed to prepare correctly in the pre-season.

Use this time to develop your core competencies as an athlete:

• Strength
• Speed
• Mobility
• Aerobic fitness

If you would like guidance on preparing for your best season yet, get in touch and see how Espresso Performance Coaching can help.