What is LTP based on? Is it just a point on the PD curve? What causes XERT to calculate a higher LTP? How does one raise one’s physiological LTP?
I have a big gap between LTP (125W) and LT (196W) according to Xert as well as my gut feel based on my performance and I’m wondering what type of training would help me bring this up. Longer rides at endurance power levels?
I’ve been following a polar approach for the last couple of months. Doing 1-2 days with intense intervals and then as much time as I can averaging around my LTP.
You have it just right Edward. More time at LTP raises it. LTP is like your LT1 in polarized training. See our blog on the topic. We provide another explanation on when polarized should be used.
That article made a lot of sense to me and is partially why I started down the path of polarization. I am the fast twitching person in your example. Sweet spot intervals and longer sessions at high percentages of TP in Sufferfest would absolutely kill me to the point where I would avoid them. I ate up the high power intervals but the middle stuff was painful. I’m liking the polar stuff but I’ll have to see if I can improve steadily. Thanks!
I was wondering if I have the correct understanding of the LTP. I assume it is the power I should be able to sustain after bonking…so all of my energy systems are depleted (CP, Blood glucose, Glycogen) so I am only running on fat …hence the all day long power. So I am correct that this is the power I should be able to sustain with out any exogenous glucose or does it mean body fat stores + exogenous glucose.
If the above is mostly correct then I have a problem. I think XERT is overestimating my LTP and I find myself constantly reducing the intensity of my endurance workouts. Is there a way to manually change it or does it do a pretty good job ? I think its of by 20%. Or would my freshness effect my LTP but not be reflected in the workouts?
Oh and also curious if I want to do fasted rides should LTP be the target power, if not then how could I workout what my fasted workout target power should be?
Btw as a future development how about fueling advice. XERT could advise me on carb intake during workout. You kind of do it already post work-out but how about a user friendly advise before in the work out adviser.
I think I recall Armando saying on a podcast that LTP is lowest level that your TP will fall to when, as you say, you are completely done. As such your “all day” power will be I would have thought a little below that. On outside endurance rides I try to keep LTP as my ceiling power. I have a reasonable handle on what my LT1 heart rate is and try to keep my heart rate near that without exceeding my LTP. ie keep my Power field in the Blue and my Fat field in the Red as much as possible.
Cary, LTP isn’t your all day power, it would actually be below that (I’ve found around 90% LTP is a good starting “all day” intensity). Think of it this way, riding at LTP towards the end of a longer ride would be similar to performing an effort at threshold when you’re relatively fresh. Just like riding at threshold is not sustainable forever, you’ll find trying to hold LTP at the end of a long ride will also be unsustainable forever. HTH
I’m interested in this as well, I’ve just started my base period, in the past this would involve progressing the length of intervals when following a traditional plan, example would be sweetspot intervals say 5 x 10, then 4 x 15, then 2 x 20 etc. Will following the advisor workouts provide this type of progression and therefore raise LTP or is it worth progressing intervals at LTP? After a good number of years following the ‘normal’ progression I’m finding the Xert workouts a bit hard to see how the progression works, that said I’m doing okay on it!
Increasing LTP (which pushes TP up) is about Volume. Volume. Volume. If you do any level of intensity that makes you reduce volume, avoid it. This applies to high intensity workouts, sweet spot workouts, really anything that makes you unable to train when you have time to. If you’re taking recovery time and you could have been riding, then you’ve gone too hard. This is the best way to do base training if you have the time, based on Xert’s model.
If you are short on time and never have to worry about recovery, then adding intensity is ok. You can use the added intensity to increase volume. You can either ride harder (sweet-spot, threshold) or do long endurance intervals under fatigue.
Many coaches will also refer to the push/pull method. The idea here is that, as Armando mentioned, you push LTP by adding volume, lots of volume. However since LTP is also capped by TP, you can also pull LTP up by raising TP.
I usually like to add volume until there’s no more time to ride. Once that time cap is reached, I’ll start adding intensity to help pull up TP (and LTP with it).
Thank you for the replies, I think (after listening to the latest podcast) what is happening is that due to having had a few easy weeks after my race season finished the advisor thinks I only have an hour on Thursdays and so is recommending shorter workouts with sweetspot and threshold. I’ll do a couple of weeks of longer sessions and hopefully give the advisor a more realistic picture of what I am able to do. Thanks.
Yup. Remember that your TP is tied rather closely with your Lower Training Load (LTL). So to improve TP (and by extension, LTP), you need to progressively increase the amount of Low Strain you are accumulating. Besides adding more volume by riding more hours, you can also accelerate the rate at which you place stress on your low system by a) increasing the intensity, b) reducing MPA, or both. What makes it challenging is that too much intensity (roughly 2-5MMP) will increase your High Training Load and train your HIE, which will have a negative influence on LTP.
I’ve found that the “SMART - Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger” or “SMART - Hammer to Fall” type workouts are a good balance of intensity that can be used to target LTP.