Thoughts on over/unders during FTP sessions
I'm curious what some more cycling experienced folks think of this modification for the FTP sessions. The other day, I modified the FTP bike session so that instead of straight-up FTP, I did 1' over/unders - so 1'@105% FTP, 1'@95%FTP. This really helped break up the monotony and my NP was able to be sustained through the 3x15' segments, whereas the FTP session from Saturday I tailed off a bit on the 2nd 15' segment. As far as the mental aspect, it was nice to think that when I had 6-7 minutes left, knowing that 3 of those minutes were 'rest' (95%) as opposed to the working sets (105% FTP) made it easier to maintain power during the 105% FTP portions, because the whole mental thing of 'I can do anything for one minute'.
So I'm curious if there are any major detriments of doing the FTP sets in such a way. I'd think not, but I'm not sure.
Comments
If you are bored with the plan and have been through an OS before and been around here long enough, you know that may bring a down range problem to your door sooner than later.
If you just tried it for fun and like it and are being creative with your fitness, well rock on. There may be a cost associated with that creativity. Modifying the OS to meet your needs has been done you just need to know the why and what your goal is in doing so.
1) The over/unders are pretty popular in the trainer road workouts. Very few of their FTP sessions are straight up @ FTP.
2) The FTP work in the OS is supposed to be 95-100%, so it's not likely appreciably outside of the acceptable range.
3) The FTP test is just an estimate anyway, with the goal of being 'close enough'. Outside of a lab, one never knows precisely what their FTP would be anyhow. With that in mind, the OS workouts cannot be built without inherent.... wiggle room in them in the first place.
Personally, the reasoning for me is just that it helps break up the monotony of multiple, long FTP sessions while still getting the work in. The point about potential downstream effects is a good one. I haven't been through an official OS before, but I've gone through periods of similar training intensity, and so far I've discovered that I burn out mentally before I do physically.
This may sound dumb, but I'd be careful b/c of the cumulative stress of the plan. I think the key test is whether or not it messes with your other workouts over the course of the next week or two. I can say from my measly four weeks that I have definitely come to appreciate the OS plan's logic; as soon as my legs start to get tired, the plan eases off a bit. YMMV.
Perhaps a better option to break up the monotony is 1'@95% and 1'@100% instead of 95/105. Also, the cadence variances that Peter mentions is an idea as well.
Is there a diffrerence? The brain is the place where the work starts. Controlling all those muscle bundles, deciding which can fire when, etc. is draining of neurotransmitter resources and also results in the creation of new nerve fibers. That's "mental fatigue" and is every bit as real as "physical", by which I assume you mean muscle soreness and/or tiredness. The neuro system will take longer to recover/repair than the purely muscular.
If you're unable to do a owrkout, it's probably becuase your brain is tired, not your muscles. Pay attention to that "mental" fatigue, it can get dangerous.
As to the Original Question, there is a farily simple inverse relationship to time spent "working" and the % of FTP you are working at. It's OK to "go over", but you need to decrease the work interval and the total time working. TSS is meant to reflect this. Then there's the issue of what "system" you are training. The more you go over FTP, the less you are training the capacity to maintain a high level of effort for mutliple hours, like we need to do in a 56 or 112 mile time trial.
All work will work, it's simply a question of (a ) how much you can do and (b) what charactaristics you want to train for, i.e., your competive goals.