Currently in week 10 of 18 Wk SS plan and after reading the great success & increase Theodore made in his plan by slightly increasing his FTP throughout the plan when he noticed decreases in HR it got me thinking as I’ve noticed a significant decrease in my HR zones for the past few weeks now. I"m riding right at my sweet spot power limit and my average HR for last week’s intervals was 22 beats lower than my max HR for SS, actually the average was in the low end of my tempo zone. Additionally I’ll add that my average HR for each interval got lower & lower, by 1-2 beats. I’ll also add that for my 3hr SS Group Ride last weekend I achieved the prescribed TSS in 2hrs with NP bang on my SS power limit and HR average again in the low end of my tempo range.
Very pleased & encouraged with what I’m seeing & feeling, should I re-test or make any adjustment or just keep on FTFP’ing?
I tried testing after the first six weeks and it showed no improvement and left me exhausted so I don’t recommend it either. What I settled on is just going back to the spreadsheet and playing with the FTP number until the HR better matched my numbers vs power. You may have to calculate your own numbers within the ranges if you have better knowledge of those numbers rather than the displayed numbers (e.g. the midpoint of a power zone and the midpoint of an HR zone.
From my perspective if you are seeing big differences then you are understating your TSS significantly and not overloading optimally, and it sounds like you @Gavin have improved so much that you’re barely in your SS when you are doing SS workouts!!
And of course after you change the numbers you verify them in your next couple of rides to confirm or dial back just a bit. And you don’t have to confirm at the max edges of your new zones, you can start in the lower to mid areas of the new zones and work up over the next sessions.
My results from each bump up were surprisingly precise across all zones, but the fact that I used Zwift and erg mode exclusively in the same atmospheric conditions (basement) were probably the reason for that precision. Folks who ride outside or more variable situations may find it less precise but probably still effective.
Thanks @FRANK I’ll watch that and check it out this evening.
Great insight @theodore.powers , thanks you & great work on your big results!
Yes, all my weekly intervals are done in the basement on the trainer as I find the integrity of the workout is far superior, only rides I do outside at the moment are my long weekend rides.
Additionally, I’m going to assume HR (such as threshold) is a constant and not really going to change much if at all in such a short period, it’s the power that’ll change?
Yes, it’s possible your threshold heart rate could be improving by 1 or 2 bpm but even if so that’s negligible for this purpose. Eventually when you do test you can make that adjustment.
