I got a breakthrough last week and my TP went up quite a bit (up ~ 17 watts). I believe the TP to be accurate but it was under the best of circumstances (few days off work, felt great, slept great, ate great).
I am kinda wondering how much higher my regular day-to-day endurance rides should be? should I bump everything right up?
my TP is ~315 and LTP is 265 (HIE = 20.5 and MPA is 1,000).
I always tried to keep my endurance rides around 90% of LTP (so I was around 225 or so before)…240 watts for me is totally doable but it will be nowhere close to easy…especially when I’m not in perfect circumstances. it’s definitely not an all day every day pace for me. (would love it to be)
this was my ride today…it wound up at only around 200 watts and I would say it was slightly harder than easy (how I felt). the times with 0 watts hold the average down and I have a few spots I have to stop or go super slow. (red light / stop signs / people in the park)
ty for any feedback. don’t want to blow myself up yet I don’t want to go too slow and waste time.
After a big breakthrough like that, I’d probably ease into things - try riding a bit higher and see how it feels, how HR looks (if you monitor that).
Based on the fundamental principle of progressive overload, you will need to increase the intensity of your day-to-day endurance rides (or make them longer, if you’re not pressed for time), or you could potentially plateau.
He says his LTP went from 225 to 265w, does this sound realistic or rather like an issue with that new sig? Or were 225w “90% of old LTP”? It’s hard to interpret from the formulation.
@genefish Do you have some historic HR data from riding around your former LTP after the BT back than? If so you coud compare it to riding at 265w now and if that’s 10+ beats higher than I heavily doubt that it’s valid.
I did exaclty that 2y ago after a big signature bump. Long before it felt easy it broke me and was the begin of the end.
I am in a similar situation currently again after a very steep ramp up and I just don’t bother my LTP. I rather just try to go just as hard so I am confident I will be able to do the same the day after. For current LTP of 230w thats somewhere between 180w up to shorter surges close to TP depending on how I feel that day, how long I am into the ride, terrain and now especially heat.
I see that average ride intensity is increasing, but I am not actively aiming for it.
Everyone is different it seems. Strict adherance to staying below LTP/LT1 for endurance rides maybe necessary if you’ve built up a lot of high and peak fatigue. If you’re deep into yellow (say you’re seeing 4 days of yellow status) then I think you’ll naturally feel winded once you go near LTP. But if you’re blue status, it can feel pretty good to go at or even above LTP, perhaps even introducing at bit of fatigue in advance. There isn’t a lot of confirming evidence that being strict about staying below LTP/LT1 precisely is absolutely necessary to achieve your highest gains. So long as you’re paying attention to your body and don’t overdo the high/peak strain multiple times per week, you may be able to increase strain by riding a bit at and above your LTP/LT1.
I, for one, am happy going above LTP on endurance days. Indeed, I’m even doing many of these first thing in a fasted state without fueling, going 100k much of it at an a intensity that science would put in the “carb-burning” zone without a major fade or bonking. All in the name of science I guess … Maybe our ideas on how all this works will make into the scientific literature one day. Will likely make it into a podcast and would be an interesting topic for sure.
Maybe our ideas on how all this works will make into the scientific literature one day. Will likely make it into a podcast and would be an interesting topic for sure.