Sweet spot training is one of the biggest “bang for your buck” workouts available to an athlete, especially early in the season. WEven when you're late into a season, sweet spot training can give your regular interval work a significant boost. Even once your season has been shut down and you're cruising through the off-season, some weekly sweet spot training can help to keep your fitness from degrading too much as you wind down and rest.
Unlike high-intensity interval work, sweet spot training takes longer and leads to slightly different adaptations. It takes up a little more time than typical high-intensity interval training, but it is easy to recover from and the value per minute of training is huge.
In this podcast, I'll go through the definition of sweet spot training, some of the benefits and some ways to get more sweet spot training into your workouts. As a bonus, you can pick up a free copy of my power testing and fatigue resistance tool (which I'll explain how to use during the podcast) at the end of the show notes!
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Sweet Spot Training Definition and Benefits
Sweet spot training is defined as an area around 91% FTP. The range is between 88%-94% FTP range.
SST is “balanced intensity and volume, allows for increased amount of training” while still allowing for sufficient recovery.
The body can recover efficiently between efforts: by not depleting significant amounts of energy substrates, ATP etc.
SST causes aerobic physiological gains such as increased plasma volume, increased mitochondrial enzyme density, increased muscle glycogen density, increased stroke volume (a result of increased plasma volume), increased threshold and increased VO2 max.
SST causes interconversion of type 2B fibers into 2A fibers (see strength training for cyclists part 1 and part 2: build strength then turn strength training to cycling power)
SST is an easy way to add valuable TSS to your training without burning you out (too much HIIT can lead to burnout.)
Getting More Sweet Spot Training In Your Workouts
Adding SST is easy to do:
You can use a power meter or HRM or even RPE (power meter is ideal)
Base period 30-60 minutes/week of SST. Build period 30-45 min/week. Peak 10-30 min.
If your longest ride is a multi-hour event, you'll need more SST: somewhere near the length of your event in a single week.
Workouts:
1: Simple blocks of SST (2×20 min @91% FTP)
2: Combine SST with other work: do SST with ME work, single leg drills, standing drills, high cadence superspin work.
3: During HIIT intervals, do recovery intervals around SST to get extra SST training stress (and force recovery at higher intensities to challenge your body more.) vo2 max training in 30s
4: Singlespeed workout at SST gearing (averages out to SST over the ride)
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With the northern hemisphere's cycling season winding down, you can think about riding cyclocross or settle in and start building strength for the upcoming season. If you're in the market for a complete training solution, you can pick up your training plans by checking out my modular training plans in my online store. Let me help you build towards your best ever season with my season long training solutions and modular plans!
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