I think you’re all quite right. Perhaps I’m trying to find too many answers, that perhaps, like you said, ecome lot of opinions.
It’s just that it’s little time that I’m starting to really study these things, and I’m very curious in nature and I like to understand, instead of simply listening and having faith in the words of others.
I’ll keep riding and pushing (and having rests). Let’s see where I’ll land.
thank you for your suggestions and explanations
I really wanted to find the magic workout.
I came to the sport at about 40 years old and not the best recovery. The idea of a short cut sounded great.
I think that is the allure of Seiler or San Milan. They’ve broken the code and all you have to do is follow!
Not so fast though…
I’m sure there are many ways to screw up your training, but not so many that are so much better than everything else.
The key I think is to ride your bike a lot. Ride it hard sometimes. Manage recovery. And above all have fun.
I think your approach is a great starting point for what it is worth
Dave
yes, fun and consitency are the key. After buying the hometrainer I’ve seen in two months how much better is to train four times per week instead of 2 (or sometimes 1 due to rain).
Just today I was able to smash a nice uphill that I use for training every Thursday:
it’s unbelievable for me the results that I’m seeing, and this result is after a set of 10 x 30/30 repetitions (160% ftp / 80% ftp)
These are the kind of days that you’re so happy that you would to get on bike immediately again 
But I think that I’ll have easy workouts for the rest of the week + ftp test on Monday (in intervals.icu I see that in the last 2 weeks eFTP increased by 15w, better to adjust the targets for the workouts)
I’ll stick to my plan:
Tuesday: SFR workout (CJ plan 75->90 minutes)
Thursday: (105 minutes ride with VO2 max rep + the uphill shown before all out)
Saturday: Threshold workout (CJ plan 120->180 minutes)
Sunday: free ride low/medium intensity for 4+ hours
Not a lot of time on bike, but I can’t ask more to the family and work
Nice, yes this is an addictive feeling. Anaerobic work capacity increases quickly but hits it’s limit quickly. Be careful hitting your peak too early in the season but if you just want to feel strong for the season it sounds like you are in good shape. I am back home tomorrow night and really excited to get more serious… Vacations are terrible for my waist line these days… They sure are fun with the kids but after 2 winter travel vacations man do I have some work ahead of me…
@Alex I’m also “concerned” for 18days of vacation I’ll have in April! 
In my case I’ve not a real “season”, I don’t race (and I’ll never race), I just like to get stronger and see what my limits will be and how I can move them upper more quickly. I race against myself
Enjoy getting back to riding!
The whole purpose of training, of course, is that numbers change so you can perform better. You can interpret the numbers from different angles. You could say that power goes up and heart rate goes down. You could also say that heart rate thresholds go up.
I meant that zone, though the numbers change, zone 2 will always be zone 2 for heart rate and for power.
Let’s say 140bpm correlates with 180watts and both are zone 2. After a few months of training, you got better. So, your heart rate at 180 watts is 135 or even 130. From the perspective of power, your heart went down. From the perspective of heart rate, your power has gone op.
But your zones shifted as well. Zone 2 is still zone 2, the numbers just changed for power and heart rate. Sometimes it is more power, sometimes it is more in the heart rate. That depends on the training and the “wiggle” room you have with the time you invest.
Does that make any sense?
Hello,
I’ve just found and read this very interesting article about my questions on how to define the Z2 boundaries and the target HR for the AeT test.
[TL;DR] the general rule of thumb is that the Z2 HR zone is between 68% and 81% of CFMax, with the 81% normally very close to the ventilatory threshold LT1. In my case CFMax is 185 and LT1 is 146bpm, and the Z2 HR range is between 125 bpm and 150bpm. the 135 I chose is very well in the middle between the 125 (risk of too low effort) and 145 (high effort).
It is also very dependent of your training effort. The more quality time you put in, the higher it will be. If you ignore zone 2 training it will be lower, so the risk of overtraining with that rule of thumb lies well within the 81%.
Since testing is almost the same as training, meaning it takes a while, the best thing you can do is get on your bike and start making hours at a speed you can still talk. 
I am not a fan of Matt Fitzgerald. He does not seem to do his home work. In this example he does not even know what 80/20 means, or what is “proven” or true…
Here is what he says
“science has repeatedly shown that both elite and amateur athletes improve most when they spend about 80% of their weekly training time at low intensity”
This is not true. Dr Seiler clearly points out that it is 90/10 when talking about TiZ. 80/20 refers to # of sessions not time in zone. Also in talking with Andrea he has done a lot of analysis of the pros he has worked to and he says they also tend to gravitate from 95/5 to about 85/15 (peak season) so also about an 90/10 average.
I read Matt’s books and feel it contains the same level of errors. So I would not use him as a model for setting your zones. My research agrees that very elite athletes might have very high AeT, like 80%+ but most of us are not very elite athletes.
Also the article he referenced for minimum training intensity is useless…
Hello,
today I made a new AeT test after 4 weeks (during my recovery week), here the results:
At the start of the thread the previous results.
In short (both tests made @135bpm HR target):
25/02/25: avg power 180w and decoupling rate 3.91%
30/03/25: avg power 200w and decoupling rate 1.21%
I see an improvement in both avg power and decoupling rate.
Do you have comments about it? is it a good result after 4 weeks? test conditions were not the same, today I tested in the evening (vs morning) and after a super easy ride of 3.5 hours with kids (avg hr 85bpm, avg power 47w, training load 15)
I noticed that cadence this time was 68, vs 74 of last time (I felt the test a little bit harder this time, probably doing it in the evening didn’t help too much to feel it easier)
Very interesting. If I remember correctly your FTP is 250 so 200w is 80% of FTP. That little of decoupling at 80% seems extremely low. Also if 135 is truly AeT or below then 80% of FTP at AeT is again amazing. So if you are so aerobically efficient, you better just start training hard all the time Skip this Z2 BS Kidding (kind of), meaning part of the value of Z2 is building an amazing base. It seems like you have an amazing base, now in reality if you have this level of base yet you are continuing to see aerobic efficiency improvments, you really should continue to ride that train while it lasts. You are an N=1 study so it’s hard to say what comes next other than you should have a strong cycling summer.
Skip this Z2 BS
Yes you remember correctly; my current FTP (indoor) is 250W, and outdoor is 255 (intervals.icu reports 258w). But probably both are a little bit higher (I still had some room at the end my FTP test, and this is the reason I changed the FTP test workout to add extra 2 minutes in slope mode, just in case I’ve again some extra room).
My LT1 measured with mask in January was 146 bpm.
80% FTP is basically low Z3 (Coggan power zones), very strange also for me to see such numbers. I started cycling only 3 years ago and in the past only done weights (for 30 years) and basically no endurance sport (except 1 year of running at high school, and an extra year 10 years ago)
I’m curious to see what happens next, but I’m seeing very nice progresses. Also thanks to your suggestions and CJ workouts.
I’ll continue to do SFR (Tuesday) and Threshold (Saturday) indoor workouts with CJ and hard VO2 10x30/30 intervals + sprints + 18 minutes all-out on a steep uphill on Thursday. From this week I’ll start doing 35/25 intervals (on a 10% uphill)
OT question: I’m a little bit concerned about a stop of 18 days I’ll have for next upcoming vacation in April (recovery week planned in that period). What do you suggest to keep some kind of fitness? I think I’ll have cyclettes at the resort. Could 1h 3 times per week be enough? probably better to optimized and do some intervals. Eg 10 minutes warmup + 8 x 4/2 HIIT (4 minutes very hard + 2 recovery) + 10 minutes cooldown. It should be ok to keep VO2 progresses. What do you think?
So on your vacation, you will lose anaerobic fitness not so much aerobic fitness. And you’re likely to do lots of zone one zone two walking or whatever so potentially you won’t lose any aerobic fitness. Anaerobic fitness you can likely get those 18 days back in 10 days of hard training. So personally, I would focus on enjoying your vacation and just moving as much as possible. What you want to do beyond that is up to you, one hard session of all out 1 minute intervals for 4 or 5 intervals one day a week and you likely will lose nothing.
It’s a great news to not loose much
thanks Alex!
I’m just rereading this sentence and trying to figure out what else the 135 can be (or where it’s). In theory (based on LT1) it’s 11 bpm below my LT1. It’s a bpm rate at which I feel I’m doing hard work, I can talk, but it’s not like doing Z1 with kids
If during the next test the decoupling will be very low, should I perhaps increase the target HR? (I read your posts Alternative method to find AeT and Optimal Zone2 HR Target - #6 by Sport_IT_Diederik + some external links).
During the test with mask, my LT2 was 171 and LT3 was 181 (and CFMax 184). Lately I’ve measured my HR at rest and it was around 50bpm, with some “lows” at 43/44/45.
Of course all those numbers are garbage after some months, but are still very fresh (test made on the 17th of January)
This is normal for a person with a very good base. It’s just most people don’t have such a good base. Based on Maffetone’s research, I don’t think their is any risk in lowering to 130. Normally people feel that having normal long conversations is no problem below AeT. Mark Allen (5-time ironman winner) said after a year or more of doing strict low HR he would frequently do intervals at AeT because they felt too hard to do sustained efforts.
Got triggered in this conversation and got triggered again by this comment of Robert
The way I interprete the zones:
The zone SHOULD be defined by lactate, which basically is the indicator telling you which energy system your are using (Fat, carbs,…) for fueling.
Hence in a lab (or with pro riders on the road), lactate tests are used. In absense (and while waiting) of a “continuous lactate sensor” (which btw will cause the next revolution in cycling TRAINING, since it will not be allowed in races), the closest indicator or these lactate zones is heartrate. It’s not perfect, but as far as I can find, it’s the closest. NOT power. Power highly fluctuates and as such, doing zone2 training based on power is a funny concept.
So : if your Z2 heartrate is between 120 and 135 (just saying something), with trainerday, you can put it at 130 and train in Z2. If you do that, you will actually see why power is so flawed. One day will give very different power outputs compared to another. Based on fatigue, stress levels, previous training, time of the day,…
@Robert_UCL : are you saying here that Z2 heartrate also shifts? AS in : one day 135 might be Z2, another day it might be Z3?
I know there are no risks at lowering at 130bpm; I’m just trying to find a good balance and also use that “test” to have a little bit higher TSS and make a better use of the time.
The risk to avoid is being too low, in that case the training stimolous could be too low. At the moment I can stay at 135, better to not change this variable for now and keep next tests comparable.
