SWEETSPOT 101

The ‘comfortably hard’ zone just below FTP promises sweet rewards for your aerobic fitness, but how much and how often is best for you? Pro coach Brendan Housler explains

"Ineed a plan this year, otherwise I’m just going to end up riding around doing random workouts,” said my mate Chris as we caught our breath at the side of the road. It was a crisp day earlier this winter, and we had just completed one of those spontaneous sprints, the kind with no clear training objective. “At best, it’ll involve trying the latest thing I’ve read about. I’m just not sure what I should be doing at the moment.”

As much as Chris loves riding and racing, he can’t currently justify the cost of a coach, so he started to look around at online templates and training schedules, desperate for some structure. He was baffled by the number of different plans on offer, but one specific type caught his eye.

“I see a ton of sweetspot plans, so I’m going to give that a try. It’s the one I’ve come across the most, so it has to be good, right?” added Chris.

He’s right in one sense – sweetspot training plans are extremely popular, and understandably so during these uncertain times when many of us still don’t have any race targets on the calendar. But how much can we rely on this level of intensity to maintain and build our fitness? Let’s dig a little deeper to understand how you can use sweetspot training to get faster in 2021.

The first question is, why do I need to do sweetspot intervals? This intensity of training provides many of the adaptations that threshold intervals provide, but cause less fatigue and less stress on the body. Making fitness gains is always a balance between intensity and volume, and most athletes are able to do more volume at sweetspot than at threshold, simply because the stress is less and mentally it’s less forbidding.

More gain, less strain?

The physiological gains made from sweetspot cycling are increased blood plasma volume, increased mitochondrial enzymes, increased lactate threshold, and increased glycogen storage. These are all very important ingredients for cycling success. However, your body adapts best to new stresses – you can’t just do the same thing all the time. This holds true for training in any zone; after a while, you need to change things up.

Most of the physiological changes that take place as your body responds to training stimuli happen over the course of the first four to eight workouts, depending on the athlete and training zone. You then recover, the body gets stronger, and you come back and train slightly harder – that little cycle happens over and over.

For those who race, sweetspot training increases the tolerance for holding a high intensity over long durations, which means you’ll last longer in the break. Of course, if you are racing riders who are faster and fitter than you, do not expect sweetspot preparation to keep you in the mix; you will also need other workouts including threshold bursts and VO2 max intervals.

The big advantage of sweetspot

intervals is that you can recover faster from them compared to harder efforts, which allows you to do more of them in a week. On the other hand, this repeatability has led to the overprescription of sweetspot. “OK, mate! I’ve got my plan,” concluded my pal Chris. “I’m going the sweetspot route, mainly because I know these intervals are fun to do.”

It was time to offer some advice. When to do sweetspot training?

Sweetspot, AKA high tempo/ low threshold, is a great way to get aerobically fit during the base period – and for many of us, base training is currently extended, owing to Covid-19 lockdowns. You can do two low-end sweetspot sessions during the week to complement your heavy lifting in the gym. If you enjoy interval structure or are riding indoors on the trainer, add one higher-end interval set at the weekend. Sweetspot saves time; it’s more efficient than sitting on the trainer for hour after hour at endurance pace.

A classic sweetspot session is three times 10 minutes or two times 20 minutes, and the correct intensity is 84-97 per cent of your FTP power. Once you’re ready for it, you can build up to intervals of 30-45 minutes – after which 20-minute intervals will seem a cinch.

There is nothing wrong with doing sweetspot intervals during the race season, especially if you are short on time. Again, you should not rely on sweetspot alone. Although you might prefer riding at sweetspot to 100 per cent FTP sessions, remember that it is not a replacement for riding at 100-105 per cent of FTP, and you still need to do some over-under type intervals too. Sweetspot may be “comfortably hard” but don’t get too comfortable and familiar with it – it is not a complete training plan in its own right. Once you can nail sweetspot intervals and increase their duration, you need to go harder so you don’t stagnate or plateau. Pushing threshold

“I worked on my ability to go above threshold last year,” said Chris, “so that I could make the break with the elite group, but was finding I didn’t have anything left at the end.”

Do you find yourself making the break or lead group but getting dropped or not having a kick at the end? This can be extremely frustrating. One thing that could be wrong is that you don’t have the capacity for that final high-intensity work. You’re zapped when you really need to be able to hit it hard.

Sweetspot is going to help you increase your workload and allow you to get further down the road with the lead group, so that you have more matches to burn when people really start throwing down the pain. If you are making the break but just hanging on, training at 90-97 per cent of FTP can help you elongate your longduration wattage. But you will also need to work on your threshold, FTP and VO2 max intervals. I worked with one racer who was struggling for kick at the end of the race even though his sprint power was at an excellent level. Whenever he was able to sit in and save watts, he could win, but from

“Your body adapts best to new stress; you can’t just do the same thing”