Whatever keeps you most motivated to stay consistent is the top priority and those 65% FTP rides are good chunks of aerobic work. It is good training and, as you say, it is good to have options.
I do think it is worth noting that the MAF rides you posted before - the ones that you said these very positive things about:
“I feel like I killed tonight’s workout as my power to HR ratio was better than normal. In fact, I was in the tempo power zone for 28.2% of the ride”
“I can hardly find fault in holding low Z3 power/high Z2 power at such a low % of cycling peak HR.”
are very different workouts to those two constant power ones.
It is the larger amount of work in the MAF rides (especially in the first half of the ride) that led to the decoupling being higher.
Your MAF ride (below) was 12% higher Power/HR than the constant power rides: 1.03 vs 0.92.
Would you agree that, whilst you are demotivated by the decoupling number, the workouts felt pretty sustainable, even at their higher workload?
I stick with my earlier posts: if anyone persists with MAF for a few months, the results will come. Decoupling will reduce and power at MAF HR will increase.
That said, I also stick with this fundamental principle: everyone should do whatever training they prefer.
Here is one thing that could be seen as an advantage that the HR+ workouts have over the steady power workouts.
In the HR+ regime. As you get fitter, you don’t need to make any adjustments. Your power goes up at the same HR as you get fitter and the load of the workouts remains appropriate to your improving fitness.
Compare that to the fixed power workout. Sure, your HR goes down when working at that power as you get fitter. But you need to decide when to retest your FTP / up the power, to keep increasing the workload of the workouts, in order to continue providing the same stimulus to your fitter body.
That doesn’t make either type of workout better / worse than the other of course. But if I was representing “team HR+” it is one of the things I put on the table.
Due to Christmas i fell out of my training schedule and kinda fell into a motivation hole.
I want to get back to do regular exercising but I got some new old questions regarding the Z2 approach.
I don’t know if it’s a difference or if it doesn’t matter at all but first question would be:
Is it better to ride everyday or less days but in these days spending more time?
My problem is, that I can’t really increase my total ride time per week.
Weekdays I usually do 45 mins. Weekends I do 60, up to 90 mins but 90 is already painful (got some tumours located in my butt cheeks, which get compress riding and will slowly getting more painful the longer I sit on my bike).
My personal maximum is somewhere between 4-5h. That’s not a lot and I also question the benefits for myself. Spending the same time, at the same HR, week for week, I think it will increase my FTP yes but is this really more work for my body, when my HR stays the same? The question here: Can I really improve my aerobe base more and more without increasing the time?
It is very hard to imagine a training effect, when my body does feel like doing anything. Possibly that’s only a mind issue.
If I were you, I would not worry about it. Meaning 4-5 hours a week is enough to be healthy, are you going to beat genetically gifted 18 year olds riding 20 hours a week no. Back when Maffetone method was first getting started there were lots of discussions and experimentation of longer vs more frequent. No conclusive decision or evidence was clear but many people said more short sessions worked well for them. I was running 100 days in a row and started at 135bpm and going the speed at the end was 95bpm… 15 to 20 minutes everyday… Life got in the way so not sure it would keep improving and it seems like it had slowed down.
I believe their are many advantages to low intensity short sessions 6 or 7 days a week, especially when motivation is a problem. I have been rather high motivation most of my life but still periods of inconsistency for one reason or the other. Now at 59 inconsistency just kills motivation, I am back to 20 minutes a day of 7 days a week and starting to get motivated after almost 30 days in a row. Then I will start increasing duration but consistency is always goal number one. If I have motivation for more I will, if not, I accept consistency is enough to be happy about.
Yes. You can absolutely improve your aerobic base doing workouts of those durations.
Go for as many days per week as you can. Consistently and persistently.
Get to the point where you are doing a solid aerobic workout in every session. If, for example, you are doing Maffetone HR level sessions every day for 45 minutes (and more at the weekend), you will be improving your aerobic base and metabolism.
Once you have done that for 12 weeks or so, you might consider adding a higher intensity session once (and then maybe even twice) per week. Maybe that is a VO2 workout, maybe a sweetspot, maybe a tempo.
Build the harder sessions up gently. Jumping straight into a 6x6 VO2 workout as your first foray into higher intensity would not work. But a progressive series of higher intensity workouts will get you further than you might first think.
Keep the hard session only so hard that you can properly complete the next day’s (and the next day’s) aerobic session.
And if that’s too hard, just shorten it to 15 or 30 but do it seven days a week. I would say avoid the suffering as much as possible. But if 45 feels acceptable, then that’s perfect.
Too hard mentally. Meaning if it feels like suffering. I would focus on making it as fun as possible. When motivation is low, try to make fun high. If that means more intensity and more intensity isn’t causing you problems, or slightly increased intensity, then do that.Or more flexibility as to riding how you feel.
That’s probably very personal. Meaning, for me, 15 minutes a day, 7 days a week for 30 days, with 5 minutes a day of weight training, becomes extremely motivational, and soon I want to do a lot more. But, as I said, I think this is very personal, so what drives your motivation might require longer durations. A crazy one is Roger Bannister set the one hour record for the four minute mile, and he trained one hour a day of seven days a week. Now, running one mile for four minutes is a bit different than trying to do long aerobic events.
If 45 is great for you, that’s great. If you can bump a few of those up to an hour, that’s likely going to be better. Usually one long ride a week makes a big difference for more serious performance athletes.
You are a king compared to me… Good job. I dream of when I get back to your level. Pushups and bike are a fantastic minimum combo, maybe some kettlebell swings or body weight squats…
According to the Joe Friel Cycling 7 Zone model that is built into intervals.icu, my Zone 2 HR range is 130 - 142bpm.
I created a workout to explore that range. Four minute steps up from and then four minute steps back down again.
This is a HR+ workout, but I have added power for erg mode if required. With the peak at 75% FTP, it starts and ends at 62% FTP (a bit higher than the 56% that intervals suggests as the bottom of the Zone 2 power range).
Before I try it out sometime in the next few days, does anyone have any improvements to suggest, or other comments please.
The title is either click bait, or clumsy, but the video makes a good point (that @alex and others have made on this forum previously):
As your aerobic fitness improves, the amount of work (power put out) you can do at your Zone 2 HR increases. It can get to the point where a HR Zone 2 workout isn’t “easy” (by any stretch of the imagination!).
Yes, I’ve just seen it over and over again, that for people that are very strong aerobically “zone 2” is not easy. So this particular clickbaity title I like.
