CJ: plans too easy?

Coach Jack Features and Questions
#21

I agree completely with this. If they numbers are fun for you, then that’s fine but getting fast is not about the numbers. Put fun as the first priority. Remember to get good recovery which is Zone 1 power Z2 HR a lot of the time.

In our Jack plans it’s all about logical progressions but those start out easy and should get reasonably hard when you get up to the #15-#20 in the sequences.

You could train by RPE, HR and/or feel and likely get as fast as you do training by power (I should not say that since we are a power based platfom :))

A lot of us like the numbers to see progress. A power meter gives a fairly clear sign of progress, and gives some reaonsable estimates on good targets that react faster than HR, so better for shorter efforts. Just like Dr Seiler says, don’t chase the numbers.

It’s very easy for the numbers to get in the way of our training. For me personally if my power meter pedals are dead, I am thinking, do I really want to train/go on a ride (terrible)… Have fun. If the numbers are fun, that’s fine too :slight_smile:

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#22

If you are regularly exercising without problems, there is no reason for concern. In fact, when you are doing a ramp test, you will end at or very close to your max HR. A demanding VO2max session will equally bring you there. And probably, you already reached it before during a hard group-ride where you were trying to hold on for dear life. Or when going up a hill at full throttle that takes you about 4-6 min to climb.
Don’t mix up max HR from running and cycling because they can (will) differ a couple of beats for the simple fact that during running, there is more muscle mass involved. Max HR for running is for most people a couple of beats higher, similarly to treshold HR.
And don’t trust the 220-age formula. It is the result of a bell-curve where only 67% of all people fall within that result +/- one standard deviation. And that SD is already around 20bpm… So 33 % is more then 20 bpm from it.
I’m 57 and have reached every season for the last 10 years a max of 185bpm. The simple fact of exercising on a regular basis, stops or at least slows the reduction with age.
Here’s a good video on max HR:

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#23

There you are. :slight_smile: Great response as usual.

#24

194? João, considering your cycling history you might be a super human or it sounds like HRM error :slight_smile: My experience shows that if this is a ramp to and from 194 it’s probably actual but if it is a spike or spikes it is an error. You likely know this.

#25

It was good for me to be a superman eheheheh, but actually in training I sometimes do a peak or two to test my maximum, and I always manage to walk between 189 and 194, 194 my maximum that I reach once or twice in this phase of the year, before races, but I’ve always had a natural tendency to have frequencies a little above normal,
a physical characteristic of mine possibly

#26

None of this directly answers you question. After you get max HR and Andreas ramp test I will get you better advice :slight_smile:

I personally would consider raising either your FTP or the starting intensity to 5+ and possibly do a custom plan like I recommend above. But better advice will be after we see these test results.

#27

Oh I see. Yes as Claude pointed out consistently over the years you can avoid the large slip in max hr (and super human) Lucky you.

#28

Understood. I’m thinking I may take today off and do the ramp test tomorrow. Max hr test I’ll have to plan a little better.

#29

After ramp test peak ends, take 1 minute rest. Switch to resistance or slope mode and do 1 minute sprint as hard as you can. That should be close enough.

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#30

Yep, take the ramp test as far as you can, then act like you have a couple 100m to prepare for a sprint to the finish line and really push it. You will have a very good estimate for HRmax.
It will hurt, but you’ll have both results in a single shot.

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#31

Here’s the result of the FTP…but it’s not my best test. I for some reason kept having Bluetooth dropouts making the app think I was ‘done’. I basically ended up doing 30 min of warmup and then 10 or so minutes of the test before starting over and skipping to where I was in the test when it stopped. So I don’t know if this test is over or underinflated due to all of that.

The short story is that the app updated my FTP to 300 from my previous 259. The highest my heart rate got in the test was 171. I probably could have gone a bit harder but after all the frustration at the beginning, I decided to take this for what it was and worry about the heart rate later - I was about to pass out and fall of the bike so I called it a day.

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#32

That plus the gradual raise in HR and the cadence drop near the end, indicate that you have done a maximal test. Ramp test would indeed indicate 300W FTP but the 75% is often a bit too high (a lot of coaches use 73%). I would suggest using the value returned by Intervals and set your FTP at 290W. HRmax of 171 should be a close enough estimate.
Endurance zone would then be 160-218W with a HR (Karvonen based on HR reserve with max 171 and rest 45) of 120-133 bpm. Based on HR max it would be 127-138 (based on this calculator:
Simple Heart Rate Training Zone Calculator​ | MyProCoach).
You haven’t given us an idea of your treshold HR so I can’t calculate those. Usualy, HR zones based on LTHR are the closest match to the FTP % zones.
But with the quality of this test, I would use the power targets.

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#33

Send me this tcx file to support@trainerday.com please. It’s looking like your HR zones are a little off of your power zones compared to Coggan’s estimates but not significantly like we originally assumed. Looking at your original question, if your FTP was 300 then your workouts were too easy and just raising your FTP should solve part of or most of the problem because it seemed like your Z4 efforts were peaking around 144bpm which is a little on the low size but if your FTP was right that might be fine.

I agree with everything MedTechCD said other than 73% :slight_smile: meaning according to Coach Andrea that does mask LT tests almost everyday for years, he sees 95% of the riders coming in there are between 70-80%. So in Claude’s case 73% might be right but heavier riders and riders that don’t do a lot of sustained hard efforts might be much lower than this even. In my case it is probably closer to 68-70% but I am more of sprinter that rarely does longer hard efforts, not a real cyclist at this moment.

If you take a hard core TT rider with a low W’ and I have seen it in 65+ year old riders it could be closer to 80%. So the bottom line is that 300 might be an over estimate in your case but is actually likely a good number for the coach Jack plans because they are designed based on a ramp test results which I usually see over estimatimating more than under estimating. These plans were designed primarily by Andrea and I and he exlusively uses ramp tests for testing his athletes. He says you could not pay a pro to do a 20-minute test.

#34

File emailed.

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#35

Not for argument’s sake, but the other thing I’ll say to this is that no matter how many times I do an FTP I always get nervous for some reason - I suspect because I want to see improvements, and I’ve always been nervous on a test day, all the way back to grade school.

That said I have noticed that even before I start a FTP my HR is at 115-120 or so…this is way higher than any other start of a workout. For example - the warmup of any of my previous rides this had a HR of 85.

#36

Yeah it shows here your HR at the end of your threshold ramp (300w) is 156, so that is 91% of your max so that’s inline with a typical threshold. So I don’t see a big disconnect between HR and power.

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so really just following Jack plan at 300w it will feel easy in the beginning but after 10 weeks or so should be a nice progression. If it is driving you crazy to train so easy you can just grab the starting intensity slider and increase it up to 5 or something. Even at this it won’t feel super hard. This assumes your peak season is more than 8 weeks away and closer to 16+

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#37

Yes, generally we are not so metrics heavy here and I don’t think FTP tests are so critical. Just to get a basic base line. The numbers are not what are critical but should get you in the right ball park for training. Stop worrying about increasing your FTP, I know it is addictive but this is actually frequently more of a problem rather than giving you a benefit. Do the right training, get the right recovery (including try to sleep 8 hours a night) and HAVE FUN :slight_smile:

#38

I’m very numbers driven - my career is based on it! so it’s hard to ignore, but I get it.

Thanks for working through this with me. I’ll do another CJ plan at 300 FTP and give it a go for a few weeks and see how it turns out!

#39

Yeah I am a computer programmer so I fully get it. I have been into the endurance math for 10+ years and understand most of it pretty well, but I understand it enough to realize math and endurance a loose relationship. So just enjoy the math. I think math is very valuable for coaches but I think self-coached athletes run the risk of poor training techniques and reducing their fun because of the math. Try not to let it drive your training but more as a guide. Many pros don’t even know their FTP :slight_smile: or really care.

#40

A good example is during a base period. Looking at Garmin Strava or even TrainingPeaks will say you are loosing fitness. And then you can follow this period by the best season of your life. So it’s not that the numbers are so bad it’s just people use them in the wrong way and come to the wrong conclusions. It’s also the case with CJ plans. Many might say it feels easy. The numbers say it is too easy but plans very similar to the training plans that have gotten pros to his best form / seasons ever. And the argument that you are not a pro might hold true in some cases but trying understand what does hold true and what does not is not easy to determine.

If you look at Dr. Seiler’s work on Polarized training, his evidence it shows that traditional understanding of PMC/CTL/TSS math is wrong. It’s about doing the right workouts, not about doing the highest TSS per week as many thought.

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