Better understanding low-intensity riding

[marcusdarmstrong]

Hi all, I've been lurking for a while but reading the "Hour at zone 3" thread I was pretty confronted with some mistakes I was making in my own training and left with a few questions—and accordingly actually built up the motivation to register and (hopefully) educate myself a bit better.

I suppose I should start with a bit of my own athletic history. I'm 33 with a desk job. I've always been a weekend warrior type with my athletic hobbies (skiing, hiking, backpacking), and accordingly my fitness was always pretty terrible. I'd never been able to get into a cardio routine, and while I own a cheap spin bike, efforts (and similarly results) there were always inconsistent and weak. I bought my first "real bicycle" (a Canyon Grizl 7 1by) just under a year ago. At the time, I was ~82kg (I'm 176cm tall). I started riding as cross training for ski touring, as I'd booked a ski touring trip to Japan this past January and (correctly) felt woefully unprepared for it. After a pretty quick ramp into cycling on a regular basis I quickly discovered my weight was a major limiter and spent through the end of year trying to drop in time for my Japan trip, getting down to ~72kg by way of TrainerRoad (mostly focused on endurance rides) and diet. Alongside that my resting heart rate dropped from ~72 to ~57 (max of 192). That was the first time in my life I'd ever seen meaningful results from a workout routine, which was pretty incredible to me and a good motivator to stick with it.

Since the end of the ski season I've upped my volume and have seen my power rise accordingly (TrainerRoad has marked my FTP as going from ~150W [october] to ~215W [july] over this span, and my weight is down to ~70kg), but I still feel extremely limited on that front, so I've set a goal for myself to be capable of a 275W 20m average power effort.

My typical week this summer has consisted of 3-4 midweek rides of either ~1h or ~1:40 duration, where I was either shooting for PRs (~165 average hr) when feeling good or "zone 2" (~145 average hr) when not, along with a "big" weekend ride, 3-7hr in duration of highly variable intensity on whatever dirt roads there are to be found. In general I've been really bad about keeping my "zone 2" rides easy enough and often would slip into chasing somebody or shooting for a PR on some segment. In reassessing my strategy to get to that 275W target, I've been reading more about the polarized training philosophy and come to a few conclusions moving forward:

1. I need to lower my HR target on my easy rides from "keep it under 150" to "keep it under 135". That's easy enough, albeit less fun.
2. I need to be more consistent about getting out, swapping from an ideal of 1-2 rest days/week to an ideal of 0 (and in doing so up my volume from 5-8hr/week to 8-11hr/week).
3. I need to drop the "PR"-type rides from my weekday schedule entirely and save the hard efforts for my once-a-week "big" rides.

That said, I'm left with a few questions about my best path forward here on the "which way to err?" side of things, mostly.

1. How much does e.g. stopping at lights affect the quality of my low-intensity rides? Is it just about keeping my HR elevated or should I be legitimately attempting to pedal for 90m straight?
2. How much does bumping up to ~150bpm to briefly pass somebody affect the quality of my low intensity rides? That's still "zone 2" as far as Strava would tell me, but in general my concern here is that I'll often need to accelerate past my target HR for safety or to keep my HR up at all, and I'm worried that I'm "ruining" the "low-intensity" nature of the ride with those types of exceptions.
3. Should I be avoiding "anaerobic power" acceleration efforts on my low intensity rides? I've typically resorted to standing efforts to get back up to speed from stops, but again I don't want to be "ruining" these aerobic efforts if that's what's going on.
4. This is pretty specific to some fo the content in the linked thread, but something I'm not including in my intended schedule is those extra-long-slow rides. Part of that stems from some missing understanding on my end of exactly what adaptations are 3+h low-intensity rides promoting, given claims that mitochondrial promotion drops off after 90m?
5. Given my intent to avoid rest days moving forward and do low-intensity 45m spins at a minimum, how do I know if a rest day is legitimately required? Aka is it okay for me to be riding sore or am I damaging muscles pushing through like that?
6. In terms of intensity should I prefer to be aiming for 50-60% of maxhr or 60-70% of maxhr on these "base miles" rides?
7. My garmin/power meter tells me my power curve over the last month (as long as I've had it) goes something like 5s=875, 10s=779, 30s=579, 1m=400, 2m=317, 5m=242, 10m=223, 20m=204, 30m=183, 1h=154, 2h=141. Obviously there are some pretty limited samples in play here since I haven't exactly tried to maximize each of these on a ride this month yet but my read on this data says that I'm pretty purely aerobically limited and don't need to worry about specific strength training just yet. But am I off base here?

Anyway, for those that made it through this wall of text, I salute you and thank you for your patience.

[Andrew69]

I think youve fallen into the common misconception that seems to be prevelant about zone 2 training at the moment...that all training should be zone 2.
All the talk about Zone 2 training, or more correctly, Polarized training, is simply pointing out the fact that many people train "too hard" all the time.

Simply put, if you plan on designing and following a training routine, you will set yourself a couple of key workouts per week based on your goals at the time, and then fill the rest of the volume with zone 2 with the idea being that the zone 2 stuff is easy enough that it allows you to make the key workouts hard enough to really count.
What many have argued is that many people make the "filler" volume too hard meaning they are gassed and cant make the hard workouts hard enough.

Having said that, there are countless riders that still progress just fine by doing what ever they feel like on the day as consistency is key, but when it comes to getting the best out of yourself, that approach is less than optimal.

To answer your questions, starting with your conclusions;
1. As you progress, "keeping it under 135" can be just as much fun, and its often nice just to get out and ride without having to worry about hitting power numbers
2. Im older than you (Im 51) and I work a physical job (although I am semi-retired so its less of an issue now), but I wouldnt think about not having 2 rest days a week. Remember that fitness is what happens between your rides while recovering, not during a ride
3. PR rides are fine and a great motivator to hit your goals during the couple of key rides per week, just avoid trying to make every ride a PR hunt

The actual questions...
1. Training zones and effects are not a hard rule. Both zones and effects are a sliding scale. Remember that you will get the same effect at the bottom of zone 2 as you will ar the top of zone 2 so stopping at lights briefly is fine. Stopping for a 1 hour coffee stop is a different matter.
2. As above thats fine, just resist the temptation to keep going and aim to get back into your target zone as soon as possible
3. Training in a zone (any zone) is about you heart rate, not your speed. Nothing wrong with slowly accelerating back up to speed
4. This again comes back to your goals. If you goal is to do a 3+ hr race or ride, then the 3+hour rides are advisable, but if your goal race is a 30 minute crit, a 3 hr ride isnt going to be necessary. Thats not to say a 3hr ride is going to be a waste of time as the adaptations of a long ride are different to multiple short rides and the stress you induce in the third hour is not the same as that in the first hour
5. As I said, Im not a fan of zero rest days as well all have other stress to deal with, not just the stress of riding and fitness comes while we rest, not while we ride. Having said that, if you find it a real struggle to get out on the bike, it is probably time for a day off. Its much better to have a day or two off then keep pushing to the point you take several weeks off the bike because you over did it.
Cycling is a low impact activity and while it may be unpleasent to ride sore, the chances of doing any real damage is generally low
6. Some people prefer the lower target, others the higher and I look at it this way. I always aim for the "minimum effective dose"
If 50-60% is enough to get the job done, then why aim for more?
7. Unless you have a specific goal in mind (apart from your FTP goal), specific stength trainging is not required from a cycling goal standpoint.
However, strength training is a great tool for overall health and I have seen far too many of my friends suffer from chronic pain as they age because they simply got too busy to keep up with some basic fitness.
You dont need to start squating and deadlifting heavy weights to stay healthy but I think that doing some kind of weight training is always advisable especially as cycling is a non load bearing form of exercise

A long reply to a long question so here is my TL:DR reply
1. Keep the easy rides easy so you can do the hard workouts hard
2. Consistency is key. Adaptation happens over months, not in days, so dont sweat the small stuff, just get out and ride

[marcusdarmstrong]

I think youve fallen into the common misconception that seems to be prevelant about zone 2 training at the moment...that all training should be zone 2.
All the talk about Zone 2 training, or more correctly, Polarized training, is simply pointing out the fact that many people train "too hard" all the time.

Simply put, if you plan on designing and following a training routine, you will set yourself a couple of key workouts per week based on your goals at the time, and then fill the rest of the volume with zone 2 with the idea being that the zone 2 stuff is easy enough that it allows you to make the key workouts hard enough to really count.
What many have argued is that many people make the "filler" volume too hard meaning they are gassed and cant make the hard workouts hard enough.

Going with the 80/20 rule my perception was that my one "big" ride (Where, to be clear, I'm doing 30-45m of z4 and 1-2h of z3 every week) filled that 20% entirely so everything else was pretty much binned into z2 by default. I suppose as winter comes along that'll change a bit, but my understanding of the system would be that I really only have "room" for one high intensity effort a week at my overall volume. Which makes sense, as I've had to take some meaningful time off over the summer at various points due to overuse injuries.

3. Training in a zone (any zone) is about you heart rate, not your speed. Nothing wrong with slowly accelerating back up to speed

Ah, yeah, those standing efforts aren't actually long enough in duration to spike my HR out of the intended zone, but I wasn't sure if doing such a high power effort was messing up some aerobic adaptations.

4. This again comes back to your goals. If you goal is to do a 3+ hr race or ride, then the 3+hour rides are advisable, but if your goal race is a 30 minute crit, a 3 hr ride isnt going to be necessary. Thats not to say a 3hr ride is going to be a waste of time as the adaptations of a long ride are different to multiple short rides and the stress you induce in the third hour is not the same as that in the first hour

My goals are mostly focused around capability. I don't anticipate ever being interested in racing, as I know I'll never be fast enough to win anything. But I enjoy riding and don't currently enjoy being effectively unable to do sustained ascents > 10% (which is where that power goal comes in). For me it's very much about improving my performance and capability in those weekend rides. But in terms of specific events, I am planning (along with my other "big day" partners) on riding the VTXL route (486km, 9,327m ascent) over 5 days this September, but we're all well aware that'll be a sufferfest that we're undertrained for. But I suppose more to your point: yes, I do plan to undertake those sorts of "long rides"... But I'm curious about what those specific adaptations are (and whether or not I'm getting them with my non-slow long rides)?

[Andrew69]

Going with the 80/20 rule my perception was that my one "big" ride (Where, to be clear, I'm doing 30-45m of z4 and 1-2h of z3 every week) filled that 20% entirely so everything else was pretty much binned into z2 by default. I suppose as winter comes along that'll change a bit, but my understanding of the system would be that I really only have "room" for one high intensity effort a week at my overall volume. Which makes sense, as I've had to take some meaningful time off over the summer at various points due to overuse injuries.

Thats not really 80/20, at least not as per what people like Stephen Seiler talks about (at least during your base phase, as you get closer to race day he does recommend more race paced efforts)
Seiler basically talks about 80% very easy and the 20% is very hard, with nothing in between (except as above)
Seiler coined the term polarised training for what he recommends where as your training would be more correctly termed pyramidal training.
One is not necessarily better than the other and you need to find what works for you.
I know Im splitting hairs here, but I just wanted you to understand the difference. Knowledge is power!

My goals are mostly focused around capability. I don't anticipate ever being interested in racing, as I know I'll never be fast enough to win anything. But I enjoy riding and don't currently enjoy being effectively unable to do sustained ascents > 10% (which is where that power goal comes in). For me it's very much about improving my performance and capability in those weekend rides. But in terms of specific events, I am planning (along with my other "big day" partners) on riding the VTXL route (486km, 9,327m ascent) over 5 days this September, but we're all well aware that'll be a sufferfest that we're undertrained for. But I suppose more to your point: yes, I do plan to undertake those sorts of "long rides"... But I'm curious about what those specific adaptations are (and whether or not I'm getting them with my non-slow long rides)?

If you can complete a long ride that isnt slow, then great.
The adaptations will be greater/faster, but the stress induced is also higher and many people (myself included) just cant absorb that level of stress on a regular basis without falling into a heap.
Remember that the total level of stress you subject your body to is not just what you do on the bike, but everything you do everyday and it all adds up

Again, for many people, all you really need to worry about for quite a while when you first start riding is to just be consistant.
If you can build that habit of simply riding often, much of the adaptations will take care of themselves.
Its when youre trying to maximise training adaptations on minimal time (time crunched) or when you have all the time in the world to train (pro) that all this stuff matters.
And as far as racing goes, it doesnt matter if you win or not.
Ive raced my fair share but I cant say I ever stood on the podium that often, but that didnt matter to me.
I wanted to either put the hurt on others (my friends) or have the hurt put on me and just enjoy myself. If I got to stand on the top step, great, but if I didnt, I never saw that as a failure or a waste of my time.

[marcusdarmstrong]

Thats not really 80/20, at least not as per what people like Stephen Seiler talks about (at least during your base phase, as you get closer to race day he does recommend more race paced efforts)
Seiler basically talks about 80% very easy and the 20% is very hard, with nothing in between (except as above)
Seiler coined the term polarised training for what he recommends where as your training would be more correctly termed pyramidal training.
One is not necessarily better than the other and you need to find what works for you.
I know Im splitting hairs here, but I just wanted you to understand the difference. Knowledge is power!

Appreciate the correction!