Zone 2 vs VO2 Max Training: Who Wins!?

Despite doing just three similar sessions, that person improved incredibly because they didn't really miss that and they were really, you know, we really pushed the VO2 threshold type of training sessions and it's because we know the outcomes are so, so vastly more beneficial than just doing long, easy, slow riding.

This podcast is brought to you by Trivelo Coaching, where we help triathletes and cyc cyclists like you train smarter to race faster. I'm your host, Jordan Donnelly, and on my left is former Australian Ironman champion and head coach of Trivalo Coaching, Jared Donnelly. This year in our Trouvello Group, we had two insane but very different FTP improvement results in our athletes. Athlete A went from 4.1 watts per kilo as an FTP, which was 300 watts for them, to 5.0 watts per kilo, which was 360 watts over a 16 week period. Athlete B went from 2.9 to 3.8 watts per kilo. So two hundred and twenty watts for them to two hundred and eighty five over a similar period. So what was the difference? One athlete did mostly zone 2 training mixed with a bit of high intensity and the other did purely high intensity sessions with minimal to no Zone two. So that begs the question, do you really need to do Zone two training? There are a lot of factors at play here and we're going to discuss them later in the episode. It's a great case study of zone two versus basically VO2 max training. Dad, welcome to the episode. We'll get into that later. Firstly, what are you grateful for?

Thanks, Jord. Once again, a very topical topic that we're going to be talking about today because it is a bit of a buzzword zone too at the moment. And I'm really excited to discuss this because it is very specific what we're going to talk about. So the gratitude today. I am absolutely so happy that someone invented the TV remote control, because there's that much flicking from one sport channel to another sport channel. Imagine having to get up out of your seat every time to change channels like we used to do, which you would never remember back in the 1970s when we first got a tally into our lounge room. The only way to change stations was to get up out of your seat and change it physically on the tv. It had a dial that you turned, um, and it spoiled the whole relaxing aspect of watching telly because you just had to. If you wanted to watch two programs at once, you had to keep getting out of your seat. So. So the remote control has absolutely been a brilliant Invention because I was just flicking from, you know, the tour and I love the Ashes cricket sales. Whichever one was more riveting at any particular point. I was actually watching that for an extended period and then flicking back and thinking, damn it, I just missed the break or I just missed a wicket. And then, you know, while I was, while lunch was on at the cricket, I ended up watching Wimbledon. And so, yeah, it's, it's a great time to be in Europe. And of course, you know, the sport is, is just rife there with summer and you know, the Diamond League, the cricket, the tennis, the cycling. There's so many elite sports going on in summer and it's, it's really one thing that keeps us going, isn't it, in winter in Australia is to, to tune in to what's happen the northern hemisphere of the world during our winter period, which is pretty dull and cold to indulge.

Yep. My gratitude is very simple. It's just the fact that the tool was on. Just can't get enough of it. The first week has been absolutely epic. Probably one of the most hectic weeks for the GC contenders in a long time. And they did that on purpose. So it's been great to watch. I can't believe it's only been a week down. They've got two more weeks to go and they look exhausted. And the poor sprinters have had an absolute hell of a start to the tour. So absolutely loving that it's on. And I guess that brings us to our first part of what's caught your attention? Let's chat about the tour so far. What's been happening? What's caught your attention? What have you loved?

Yeah, there's so much to talk about and we're gonna have to try and cram in the first seven days into one episode, which is not easy. Yeah, I'm always interested in the form that athletes, I suppose cyclists come into the tour with and what happens to their form as they progress through the three weeks. And we're at the 1/3 mark of a 21 year old day tour. We're at day seven and already the form of some riders has been good and bad and, and if you're finding yourself, Ben o' Connor would be an example where he's just bewildered as to what is happening with his form and he's, he's actually being interviewed and saying, I don't know what's really going on. I couldn't be in any worse feelings about how I'm writing and it's kind of not what you want to get to a, you know, and he's such a, you know, he's a top 10 GC contender and he's just not able to perform the way he wants to. And, and even Poguchar, you know, on stage three or four, whatever it was Vinegar attacking him and Pogucha not being able to respond. And then one day later the reverse happened and that almost doesn't make sense. If you're inform, you should be able to hold that for a few days, even up to a few weeks. And if you're not informed, that will stay like that and doesn't really change within 24 hours yet. It did. And that's what makes it exciting really is to see that even the best in the world have good and bad days and it's how they react to that. And I really take my hat off to Pogacha at a shocker really in his, you know, in his high standards to be ridden away from. That hasn't happened to him many times in any races in the last three or four years for someone to attack him and ride away. I mean, it happened last year for Vinegar to win the Tour, but that's about the only other time I can remember someone has been able to do that to him. And, and he didn't lose his cool, he didn't drop his bundle. He, he gathered his, his mental state and, and came out the next day and did the same to Vinegar, which I just thought was super impressive and shows the measure of character and, and that, you know, just because you have a bad performance on one particular day doesn't mean that's it for the next 21 days. You've just got to have that mental resolve to, to, you know, think about it and put it in perspective about, well, you know, there's other opportunities here. Let's just not, you know, drop my bundle and curl up in the corner and wave the white flag. And I think that's, that's impressive.

That's the nature of Grand Tours, isn't it? It's that the stages are so intense and so hard that you don't know how you're going to recover each day by day. And this just out of this world how tough a Grand Tour is. And so, yeah, every day is a bit of a lottery, it seems like, to whether you have good legs or not. And this is such a great lesson for as always for us age group amateur athletes where if you look at comparatively, Pogucha looks like he's had a shocker, like you just said. Because Vince has run away from him. But they both rode. I can't remember exactly what it was.

But nine watts per kilo. Jordan and I looked up. I looked up Vinegar's weight, and it's 60 kilos. So that means you, you know, 6.9 watts per kilo. He had to ride 415 watts for 21 minutes, 700 watts for 15 minutes.

What was it?

It was. Wait, I know it was. It was 418 watts. If. If he's.

Yeah, 415. You're right.

For 21 minutes. So, yeah. So anybody who's heavier than him, they're looking at, you know, pocket child weighs 70 kilos, so he's having to ride at 460 watts for 21 minutes to. To keep up. And, you know, a guy like Wout Van Art, who weighs. Maybe, I don't know what he weighs, 75, 76, maybe he's having to ride at 500 watts to keep up for 21 minutes. So. So the numbers are just ridiculous. And. And I was looking at a stat. They've. They've ridden that climb many times in the Tour, and that was the fastest ever. And it was a minute and a half faster than what Poga Cha had ridden the previous time, where he also rode away and won that stage. So it wasn't. It wasn't really that he wasn't writing that badly. It was just that Vinegar was riding out of this world.

Yeah, and that's my exact point. And it's, you know, if you compare to just what's around you, then you can really put yourself in a hole. But he's writing incredibly well, especially coming into the Tour. Relatively underdone when he's. When he broke his wrist eight weeks ago. And then also you look at Jai Hindley and, you know, you could say that he wrote unbelievably to get the yellow jersey, and then the same thing couldn't hang on to them the next day. But you take away them to Pocket out Vinegard because they are absolute freaks. He's winning the Tour. You know, he's the best of the rest, and he's riding out of this world. And same thing. They're just riding the fastest times. They're up some of these climbs. And so, yeah, comparison can be the thief of joy. But it's always great to, you know, try and get an objective view of how you're actually riding. And I hope someone in, you know, I hope Pocket Chow was aware that, you know, the time that went up, that was way faster. So that he wouldn't drop his bundle and go, I'm actually riding really well here. And this can happen in any race to us, where you might not feel like you're riding well because someone that you normally racing well against is just absolutely on a flyer. But they could just have an outstanding day and do a PB and break a record, or they could just be having a good first half of the race, which happened again that next day where on the Tourmaline, Vingard went again. And Poga commented after saying, he said, if he keeps this up, I'm done. This is race over. And that's a hard place to be. You're really on your limit there. And it's like that classic. Can you just hang on for one more second? Can you just hang on over the top? And then turns out in the final climb, he was able to ride away from him. So just all these mental games you have to play with yourself to try and get through these periods. I think it's just fantastic.

Yeah. And look, there's a few things that come into play here because if these two guys are so far ahead of the rest of the field, well, it's really. Now it comes down to tactics. And that was the intriguing part for me was to see the tactics between UAE and Jumbo Visma. And I, I think the day, the day where Pocket got ridden away from, I think the tactics from UAE were pretty ordinary. And, and to be fair, they don't have the same quality of rider in their team or the depth in their team. So they've got some great riders in their team, make no mistake about that. But they don't have eight riders who, who, you know, when you, when you think about what, what Jumbo Visma have, you know, to have, no one has a wout van Aert. And, and that's, that's like your trump card in a poker game. It's just, it's incredible to have him on the team. But, but from the team tactics point of view, I thought Yambo Visma got it really spot on the day that Vinegar rode away. And then they tried the same tactic the next day. And as you mentioned, Poguchar was fearful when they started lining up the next day and they started the same tactic. He was, he was asking himself, can I keep up today? Because they're doing the same thing as they did yesterday. Imagine, you know, you've just climbed the, the Aspen climb, which is, and I was saying to you before we started, I've ridden all three of this, the climbs that were on this stage, Aspen Tourmaline, the Quarter Quarterette I think it's called, and they're all incredibly hard climbs and it was really hot and, and that. That's going to take a lot out of you. So the team tactics for Jumbo Visma were identical to the day before. And why wouldn't you do that? Because you've already broken Pocket Char the day before. So do it again. Whilst he's seemingly in poor form, but as we just mentioned, he really wasn't. It was. It was just that Vinegar was too good on the day. But the tactics that they tried was to, you know, put everybody on the front again and get wout into the break, which I thought was, you know, initially a good tactic. I was questioning it a little bit. But when it panned out that they wanted him to be available after they climbed the Tourmaline to ride through the valley before they got to. To the. The Quarteret last climb. And that's exactly what happened. But, but they used Sepkus to drop everybody on the Tourmaline, which they successfully did. Was only three riders left. They dropped the yellow jersey, dropped Jo Hinley, he was the last rider to fall off. And. And then they attacked with 2k to go at the top of the Tourmalet. And Sepp Kus done a great job again and left it for Vinegar to really launch another attack like he did the day before. And this time Poga could respond and hold onto the wheel. And, and that was. Must have been a great moment for Poga thinking, oh good, I am okay. And so they got to the top of the climb and that should have been the point when Jumbo Visma's next tactic, which was to do the same thing again on the Quarterette climb, try and ride Vinegar off the wheel. They had failed already on the Tourmaline, so why would they continue with that tactic on the next climb? Which is what they did. They should have changed tactics right there and then. They should have waited for Sepp Kuss to catch back up again and even a few. Few more of the numbers from. From Jumbo Visma to get back on so that they could actually let Vinegard attack Poga char rather than leading him out, because all they eventually did was ride on the front all day on every single climb and, and almost led Poga out to a great victory, which, which, which to me it's easy in hindsight, I know that. But. But once the tactic didn't work on the Tourmaline, why would they repeat it on the last climb? That's my question. And, and I think, I think that was easy for Pocket. Not easy, but he was following the wheel. And, And Vinegar, you know, was. After Van up pulled off, Vinegar sat on the front for. I can't remember how long it was in minutes, but it was long enough at that level for Poga chart to get recovery and then counter attack. And. And Vinegar actually wasn't paying attention when he did it. And, And I'm shouting at the telly going, why are you sitting on the front? What are you doing this for? This is, this is dumb. You've already done this on the tourmaline. It didn't work. Now you're doing it again. I'm just going, oh, this is really bad tactics.

He's got confidence in his form, at least. And what I love about Vinegard and Jumbo Visma, and this was evident in the Tour documentary that came out, is they, they want to win the race. They don't want to wait for the race to be won or for something to happen. They want to make it happen themselves. And that's what Vinegar was doing. He was. He was trying his best to just win the race. And, and, yeah, based on hindsight, based on what they knew so far, it looked like Pocket didn't have good legs the day before. They want to bury him. They did the same tactics work last year with, you know, the lead outs, and they got rid of him. And in the Tour de France doco, I loved this specific where it was staged three or four or five, where there was the Roubaix stage, where they went on all the cobbles and in the team bus. Their tactics were actually to get some time that day on a flat stage in a gc. And I just thought that shows a great mindset that they're coming, coming to the Tour saying, now we're here to win. And the stage actually ended up a disaster for them. You know, they all lost. Roglic and Vinegar lost time and Crash and everything. But their mindset for the day was to try and win some time there, which I think that's carried over to this year. So it's really exciting to watch.

No, I just agree. I agree with what you just said. And, and, but, but sometimes, as we've said many times on this podcast, if your actual plan on race day is not working successfully, you need to change before it's too late. And I think, I think they didn't react and didn't think it through because they had time. They had time to think that through from the top of the Tourmaline to the bottom of the. The next climb. And I've done that descent, and it's a long way. You know, they. They really. If they're that confident, they should have allowed almost 10, 15 riders to come back on and have sepkus and. And put the situation like they had exactly the same date the day before where Vinegard could come from behind. And he's not sat in the wind at all because he'd already sat in the wind on the top of the tourmaline from when he attacked to the top.

And.

And now he's doing it again. So there's two sections where he's burnt matches and POG hasn't.

Yeah, exactly. I do wish that Remco was in the Tour. It would just be such a great battle to have three GC teams. Three riders. Yeah, yeah, yeah. True. Yeah. That would be very interesting for Jumbo side. But yeah, I think Poga versus Vingard versus Remco would just be out of this world. It's a race that I think everyone can't wait to see.

Yes. And look, just before we leave this, everybody knows we love wout. That's. That's a given. But his performance on the Tourmalet stage, that was out of this world. He got on the front in the brake and drove the brake and sat on. Sat on the front all the way up the tourmaline, all the way up Aspen in the valley. He was driving it. He pretty much rode on the front from the time the stage started. And then he waited it. He got over the top of the Tourmaline, waited for POG to join, for Vinegar and Pog to join, and then drove it back to catch the breakaway up the road and rode straight past the breakaway and then rode to the base of the climb for the. For the last climb, and stayed on the front until 4k to go. He literally rode 160k on the front at a pace that no one else could keep up with. Like, there's not too many bike riders in the world who could do that in the history of cycling. It is an amazing. He's a special rider and that got no result that day. So, you know, it would be frustrating for him to be sitting on the massage table at night thinking, well, I just rode the hardest day of my life and we got rolled today.

Yeah. Yeah. I was thinking about the little kind of, you know, the rivalry that almost the fake rivalry that got sparked up from the Tour de France doco, where there's a rift between inside Jumbo, which they've just come out and said, and I think everyone knows this is completely untrue, but there has to be a small part of where that does sit there at the end of the day and go, well if I wasn't burning myself here, I could probably win a fair few more stages. And that's kind of just fact. He's just that good that if he wasn't sacrificing himself and I guess that cycling is in order for him to win the days he wants to, where he gets to be the number one rider at Flanders and at Roubaix, guys have to sacrifice for him. And so to be part of this team, maybe that's, this is his sacrifice that yeah, he'd like, he'd like to win more Tour de France stages.

But it begs the question, does a Vanard and a Sepkos go to another team to get, to get their opportunities? And you know, it's great that Jumbo have got such a depth in their team, but how long can they keep guys like Rogic Van Aert, Kuss Vinegar? I mean they're the top four riders and the top 10 riders in the world at the moment.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah. It's interesting. On the women's side, the Giro Don just finished and Annemiek van Vleuten won her record breaking 6th Grand Tour in a row. Which just has to be said that that is just a ridiculous effort. In last six Tours she's won three vouchers, two Duros and one Tour de France. The first Tour de France firm that was last year. I think that is just absolutely outstanding and one of the reasons she's one of, if not the greatest cyclist ever. So I just think it was. That kind of goes underdone when the Girodom is on the same time as the Tour de France. But that is just the most outstanding performance and if, um, yeah, any rider was able to repeat that, you know, it'd be out of this world. So it has to be said.

And she can do it all, can't she? She can, she can climb the hill, she can time trial, she can, she can ride one day stages. Yeah, she's, she's a talent.

Yeah, yeah. Last thing I want to mention, which is, you know, we have been asking this form question, but the world athletics champs are in a month and then a lot of the national champs were held over the last weekend or two with the US British national champs making a lot of headlines. And it's interesting to see a lot of athletes forms coming from Diamond League into these national champs because you have to perform well, at least to actually get to the world and. Or people have already started qualifying for the Olympics, but you've got a peak and then you've got a month again till the world comes around. So it's going to be really interesting to see how these athletes peaked this race, potentially. You qualified and then can they hold that form or can they have a break and then get back into form in a month's time? It's going to be really fascinating to see.

Yeah, we do talk about this a lot because it is a hard gig, isn't it? It's no different to cyclists who are doing, say, tours and then they're going to have to line up for the World Championships. So, you know, how do you. How do you double dip with your form? And, you know, some people do it really well. And that was one of the things that they were mentioning very early on with POG was saying, you know, remember he won Liege Baston, he won Flanders. And we were talking about on this podcast, how will he do when he comes the Tour? And of course he broke his wrist in, in the meantime. And so, you know, he's possibly underdone because of the, because of the injury. And it could actually help him, you know, freshen up for, you know, two weeks into the Tour. He could actually get better, which is quite scary.

And as we know, nothing motivates you more than when you're injured. And for him, who's someone who just froth cycling more than anyone, for him to be injured, maybe that mental break was a real good spark for him to just come into your next training block, his final training block, and then the Tour just absolutely firing, you know, he's got no mental fatigue, he's ready to go. So on that note, I think everyone would like a little quick update on your, your injury update and your mindset at the moment. You're in week 10 now, so what's your key takeaways at the moment? Where you're at on the journey?

Yeah, and it's probably no surprise, but I'll. I'm full of complaints about my progress. And I suppose the number one takeaway is that I just got to keep reminding myself that it is a slow journey, it's a long journey, and you've got to be in that mindset to keep yourself sane, because it can get quite frustrating that you're not progressing as quickly as you like. And to say it's excruciatingly slow is an understatement. And I'm really Getting my head around that a bit more as each training session. And all of a sudden I can ride now at 180 watts for half an hour and nearly 200 watts. And we have a Thursday night Trivello handicap race. And I jumped in that and started at the front of the race, which is quite ironic. Three years ago I was off scratch in A grade and now I'm off limit in B grade. So what's the saying? My. The great have fallen or something? How the mighty have fallen. So it's kind of humbling a little bit, but I just have to remind myself all the time that I've just got to be patient and not get ahead of myself. Yeah, sure, it's week 10, but I've really only been writing a little bit for four weeks and. And I had that calf injury, so I couldn't walk. So I'm a little bit behind where I wanted to be. But that's okay. I've just got to keep my head focused on each day and seeing what I can get done. And I've had some really great help from Dr. Jordan Moncrief, who's really given me some really specific stuff to work on getting my back muscles to function again because that's. Even though my back is now healed, as in terms of the surgery from. From the great Mr. Wang, the bus, the back muscles aren't functioning because they've had so much inactivity. So I've really, I've really had to start to teach them how to. How to. How the body has, you know, the body. The body runs better when everything's aligned and, and functioning as one. Where at the moment each muscles on. On their own journey and they're. They're not. They're not participating the way I want them to. So I concentrate on that aspect even more so than the riding of the bike. So I've got to get that right first before I can actually progress better on the bike. And that's been a tough lesson, one that I know, one that I tell other athletes that I coach all the time. But I've actually had to take my own advice here and pull back on the riding so that I can. The back is sore walking around still because the muscles are being used when they're not actually ready to be used and I need to strengthen them first and so a little bit ahead of myself there.

It's a probably. It's not probably. It is a good example of. Yeah, anytime something's new and uncomfortable, we tend to go back to what we're comfortable with. And for you, that's, you know, cycling, it's like, easy. Well, that's an easy thing to fall back on because that's what I've always done. And so the challenge is to have to really get yourself up to do the things that you're not used to. And, yeah, that's. That's such a metaphor for anyone starting out a new program. It's going to be a whole lot of things that you're not used to, but once you do them consistently enough, you do get used to them. So I think it's also another good example to turn up to the Zwift races on Thursday night. Completely out of form, completely 120 watts off what you can normally ride, but still enjoy the process of putting a number on. And I know that you want to jump in because it gives you a bit of variety compared just to the really boring, easy slow rides you have to do all week. So, yeah, it's a good example of turning up. A lot of people avoid racing when they're out of form, avoid it when they're just not where they want to be. And so, yeah, I think it is a good mindset shift to have to go. No, I'm willing to do it even if I'm at the front, compared at the back, and look at it in a different light. And not expect yourself to be anywhere near where you want to be, but still enjoy the process.

Yeah, it just reminds me that I definitely love results. There's no doubt in my mind that I love winning, but I also love the journey equally as much as I is. I love if I actually get to win something. So I'm not defined by whether I win or lose. I'm defined by that whole process of getting to that point where I've put myself in a position to have a crack at winning or losing. So as long as I've done the best on the day, and that may not be or may be good enough, I'm absolutely happy with that. If I come. If I come 50th and I've done a PB, I'm happy as Larry with that. But I really enjoy the process and the structure of getting myself up each day to get myself to that point. So doing a Zwift crit race that's run by our own coaching business, I could say that I'm not going to do that because my competitiveness won't let me come last in that. But I'm not thinking like that. I'm thinking like every opportunity I have to put myself into a training situation that's going to improve me, that's where I should be. And not have the ego that I used to have, where I'm only going to race when I'm in peak form. And if that was the case now, I'd never race ever again because my form is so far away from peak, it's literally a year away. So I'm just not going to have that approach. I'm going to put myself in positions where. And you think about some of the pros when they're going to races that are part of their journey for maybe the Tour or the Welter or the Giro, they're putting themselves in a lot of these quality races that are really meaningful, but they might be coming, you know, as a GC contender, they might be not going well at all. They don't avoid them. They go in there because they know it's part of the process to get them to the form that they need to be when it counts. And I think that's, that's what I'm taking into this journey is to keep putting myself out there, no matter what, what the outcome is, as long as I'm improving each week. And already I've done three weeks of it of these Thursday night races. I did the time trial, I did race one, I did race two, and my power has gone from 140 to 180 to 200 in three weeks. So that's a great chemical release to your brain of success. And that's what I'm doing and that makes me feel good. And it doesn't have to be a win to make me feel good.

Yeah, that's a great update. I think it's good to follow the journey and we'll see when you're back at 300 watts, because I have no doubt it'll get there eventually. But let's look at today's case study example to finish off. We just thought this is a really good case study to highlight and we just wanted to highlight some differences and really talk about this concept because this is a lot of talk about that athletes should just be smashing zone two training and that's the key to everyone's success. And, um, yeah, it's just not as simple as that. And yeah, this, this is, this example is just really interesting where both athletes has to be said that they, these are both experienced athletes. So the form that was starting in just happened to be. They were out of form. So they hadn't, these weren't all pb, you know, they had ridden much higher watts before they were just, yeah, out of form and, and starting at a lower point than normal. But yeah, both improved 50 or 60 or so watts over a three to four month journey and which ended up being coincidentally 0.9 watts per kilo for both athletes. So athlete A went from 4.1 to 5 and athlete B went from 3.9 to 4.8. But yeah, quite different training styles. There are definitely some commonalities and there are definitely some differences and that's what we wanted to highlight. And the basic, the reason behind the training program differences was one athlete had a lot more time to train than the other. So that was what dictated the training program. So athlete A did a lot of Zone 2 work and obviously hit the key high intensity sessions in there as well as well as some race specific sessions and athlete B had less time to train so they just did basically pure high intensity sessions and that was it. So yeah, talk us through your thoughts as a coach looking at these two athletes and the insane results that happened from two very different approaches.

Yeah, and let's be specific here, we're only talking about one metric and that is how much improvement over 20 minutes. And so if we looked at other metrics such as the best five minute power, the best one minute power, best 30 seconds, best one hour and their capabilities to cope with a two or three hour ride and you would see huge variations in the data. But so everybody listening needs to understand we're just measuring it against FTP for 20 minutes. And so it's kind of important that message because if we gave the option, the rider B, a two and a half hour ride, he would perform absolutely woefully. He's got no endurance, he's basically just done short high intensity sessions and he's good for 30, 30 minutes maximum 35 maybe, but he's great for 20. And Rider A has done, you know, a fair volume of zone two, so he would be probably great up to two hours, three hours and it's been proven. And he has done a lot of those events that have been distance up to four hours and performed unbelievably well. So, so there's a vast contrast even though their data is showing exactly the same progress in terms of, you know, going up 0.9, I think you said 0.9 watts per kilo, even evenly at both compare, comparing both athletes. So, so my, my take is that yes, this is, this is one metric. So that's the key point I'm trying to get across. It's one metric and and yes, they both ended up with exactly the same outcome, but they're both very different fitness based riders at the moment. They're chalk and cheese between the two. And that's not to say that they're not both having fun doing it, but one has to understand his limitations and he's good for events that are 35 minutes and the other one has way more opportunities to do a lot more variation in his day to day, week to week, month to month, aspirations, operational goals. So yeah, so that's my first point.

Yeah, and it comes down to that. Yeah. First question is what were they, what were they training for? And athlete A was training for endurance events that were two to two and a half to three hours and athlete B just wanted to get their fitness back and just wanted to have fun racing on Zwift and, and doing 30 minute efforts and, and was interested in more than that. So yeah, that does highlight that first difference.

I was just going to say, I might add that had athlete B been able to do a bit more endurance, I reckon his FTP would have gone up slightly higher. And that's something we have said many times from a lot of the scientific research that we've done on our own athletes and some of the data that's been done by the men in the white coats in the lab. It does you want to really, I'd love to have found out, had we been able to do some endurance training, had that person, you know, not just done three high intensity sessions each week and done some endurance, would it have been a bigger improvement for that particular person? But anyway, that's just a something we never know.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And that's always the case with these case studies and these examples and the fact that they're anecdotal and not pure, purely scientifically measured tests and protocols where every variable is kind of measured. There's just so many unknowns and there's so many if, if this or if that and even the nature of a lot of sports science studies just has this problem as it's like it comes down to how do you test something? What metric are you using to test? The very first point you brought up. Often we're trying to test intervention improvements, but then the actual result can be influenced by how the test subject performs in that test. They might get to the 20 minute FTP test at the end of the intervention, at the end of 12 weeks and execute really horribly and then the whole test becomes void because they went out too hard and then they've just kind of butchered what the result would show. And so that's just an example. So. So yeah, there is a lot of complicated factors here, but we're just trying to give an anecdotal perspective on things that could influence your decision making around your training. And I think we do want to highlight some consistencies in the training protocols. And that is the fact that the high intensity sessions themselves were quite similar in nature. Not exactly the same, but they are mostly VO2 based, very high intensity, really that upper threshold work. And the other thing is that both athletes were really consistent in their program even though they were training a different amount of, of frequency per week. So different amount of times, different volume, very different volume. Star contrast in the volume intensity was similar in the high intensity sessions, but obviously athlete A was doing a lot more Zone 2 work outside of that. But regardless, both were consistent across that three to four month period in what they had to do. And so that is a really important factor is that most of the time if you are consistent, you're just going to see some really good improvement.

Yeah, you couldn't have hit the nail on the head any better because you know, despite doing just three similar sessions, that person improved incredibly because they didn't really miss that. And they were really, you know, we really pushed the VO2 threshold type of training sessions. And it's because we know the outcomes are so, so vastly more beneficial than just doing long, easy, slow riding. And you know, if you want to step up and improve your performance from week to week and have some progression, you actually have to ride or train or run or swim at some point harder than you're going to do in a 20 minute test. So if you just trained your say you started at 220 watts and you just trained at 220 watts at threshold for 16 weeks, you're probably going to come to that 20 minute test in six weeks time and ride really well at 220 watts. And so we could easily do that as a test, but there's no point because we know that's what's going to happen. You need to be giving some overload. So this is where those high intensity sessions are going to get the outcome you want. And by stressing the body to a load that has to actually adapt to is where you get that improvement. And of course you have to have the recovery in between but to allow that load to be absorbed. But at the end of the day, unless you're doing these sessions, you're not going to progress.

So the question that we're trying to answer for the episode is do you need to be doing ZO2 training? Because someone would look at this and go, well, far out. Athlete B didn't bother with any of that, didn't waste any time with any of that. And they got the same kind of percentage of improvement. And yeah, there's almost no way to answer it clearly. But we do want to finish off with some thoughts about the answer to that question. And yeah, like you said, they were doing three high intensity sessions a week and they were really getting on and flogging themselves for 20, 30 or 40 minutes, whatever they had time for really hard work. It's a hard thing to do to get on, get on the session and flog yourself like that three times a week. And a lot of people actually find that harder than the Zone two work because you just, you're really putting yourself in that red zone. And this athlete could handle it and a lot of athletes can handle it. But you know, you look at the Joe Friel example and the reason we don't just do that as a training program all the time is because most age group athletes won't be able to handle that. And they'll break down, they'll probably get injured, something will happen. And you really, you want to spread out those high intensity sessions so that you can actually handle it week on week, month on month basis. And as I said, Joe Friel's example is he'll do max two high intensity sessions a week, very spread out Tuesday on Saturday or something. And so that's kind of the extreme end of the scales of what you're looking at here in a training program.

There's a whole lot to really delve into here. And if you strip it back a little bit, doing three hard sessions and then doing very little in between is almost like doing the 8020 rule, except in the 80, you're not doing anything.

You're just recovering 3% hard. 80% nothing.

That's right. And the other person's doing 20% hard with some zone two, which is perfect. And that's why that other person has come out of the 16 weeks a far more well rounded athlete than person B who's just done. But if we looked at the data, it doesn't read like that because we're looking at one metric. And that's the point I want to get across. What is the difference between the two and what does it mean? It really means that I would not be advising athletes to do this. This is something that's short term and it's unsustainable. It's totally unsustainable. And you will have vast improvements over 8 weeks, 12 weeks, 16 weeks. And then it will stop, it will stop improving, you will stay the same, and then you'll actually start to progress worse because you don't have that aerobic fitness that we talk about. There's no base. And it's like your house has been standing, it's got a really poor foundation. It's been standing and people say, ah, it's been going for two years, no problem. All of a sudden that big wind comes and blows it over. And this is what the analogy is here. You're going well, and you're laughing at everybody else saying, who needs to train 12 hours a week? I'm just doing three. And I'm still matching the FTP improvement that you are, but you can't keep that up. And if you did it for 28 weeks or 36 weeks, your actual FTP would start to go down because you don't have the aerobic fitness to sustain this week in, week out, three sessions a week. And that's the thing that you need to understand. And there's plenty of cyclists or triathletes or swimmers or runners out there who are doing that style of program where they're riding in their bunch or they're running with their running group and they're just flogging themselves week after week and doing very little in between. And all of a sudden they're getting better and better and they're thinking, how good is this? And it gets to a point where they've done huge pbs, which is, which is brilliant, and that's a very satisfying thing to have happen, but that is unsustainable. At some point they will start to plateau because they don't have the endurance base to sustain it. They get very tired of those sessions and they're not able to ride hard enough to have that progressive overload. If they've averaged 260 watts one week and they're, you know, all of a sudden they, they are struggling to average 258 the next week, or 260 is, you know, out of their reach. All of a sudden it's because their body is really reached its plateau with the aerobic fitness that it has. And it's like the money's run out the bank. The money you put in the bank, the fitness you have in your body is got to a certain level and you've drained it all and there's no more money left in the bank. There's no more fitness left over to do that next hard training session or race or effort. And so therefore you will start to plateau and the plateau all of a sudden then will be a decline and then you've got that mental issue of geez, I'm writing crap, I'm running crap at the moment, I don't know what's wrong with me. And if you just step back and said, well, all I'm doing is the same hard sessions week in, week out, month in month out, year in, year out. And that's okay if that's what you want to do. But most people aren't okay with plateauing or going backwards. They actually want to improve. And the expectation is even when they're 70, they still want to improve, which I love. But, but at the end of the day that is unsustainable. And that is the key point about highlighting. Is zone two training worthwhile? Yes. It gives you that bank that's getting full of money week in, week out because you're working every week and your fitness bank's getting full of aerobic capacity fitness because you are training properly. And in 16 weeks time. If we measured any other parameter other than the 20 minutes, the person B would, would be a long way behind person A. Yeah, I guess that's a.

That'S a great conclusion is we really don't want to undersell the fact that athlete B got a really, really good improvement and in the 20 minute test that is, and that you don't want to leave that on the table. Ignore that. But the general conclusion is you're going to be much better off in the long term being a more well rounded athlete and you're going to have more options to you available about what kind of races you want to be and what you can actually do and more tools in your basket rather than just performing well in a 20 minute FTP test.

And also you should be in this for the long term if you love being healthy and fit. You don't want to just have a 16 week period where you're on fire. You want to have that 16 week period in your own mind, go for 16 years. And we know from a lot of the athletes who've been on our program, their biggest improvement comes 15 months, 20 months into the program, not 16 weeks. You know, it's 50 weeks or 75 weeks into the program when they've got that huge jump. And we've shown so many examples of people going from 150 watts to 230 watts over 16 weeks. And then all of a sudden you know they improve 5 watts and then 3 watts over the next six months. And then they take the next step because they've filling that aerobic bank up with all that zone two and endurance type of riding and strength work. That's not all hard riding or hard running as a runner. And so eventually they're able to give more and progress better because they're coming from a bigger base so they can almost put their feet in the water from a higher point than they were a year ago. And, and that's what you need to remember is that as you, as you progress through a two year or, or even a four year program, you are just adding layer upon layer and you, you have the ability to improve. And some people get to 16 week program and they've almost reached their ceiling and they have because their aerobic fitness level won't let them go any further until they fix that up. It's like me expecting to ride well without me doing the strength and conditioning exercises after a back injury. If I don't do that, I'm not actually going to, my muscles are going to actually be breaking down before I can actually use them properly. So I think it's really a message that needs to be heard that you will get more progression, you will improve. And we've had so many older age group athletes who are in their 50s, early 50s and then ended up in their 60s who are still riding better than they were in their 50s because they're doing this exact method. And you know, that should be proof enough. But you would expect that from younger athletes who are in their 20s and 30s to continually improve regardless almost of what training they're doing. But being more specific is going to give you more improvement in a better way. But as an older athlete that expectation is not there. As everybody keeps telling me over the years, don't be too frustrated if you're not improving because you're getting older. And my response to that is just not true. And I've got so many examples of athletes that I coach, they're still improving as they're getting older.

Yeah, I think the last point I want to make is we haven't even talked about any of the more complicated topics like efficiency and economy, you know, how well you're moving, which comes, we know, comes from volume and we can, comes from that consistency in training and that repeatability, really getting your body as efficient as possible in the sport you're doing. And so that's a whole other can of worms. But it's definitely a clear benefit to the more. Well rounded athlete and someone that's doing that Zone two training is. There's a whole lot of factors there. But I just wanted to come to one straight away where you go, we haven't even touched that. But that's where athlete B is really missing out on. So. Anything you want to say in conclusion?

No, just I hope that, you know, there are, I know there are lots of people out there who want to, who want to be a better athlete in their chosen sport. And doing the shortcut is great for the short term. That's my conclusion, is that, you know, it is unsustainable. And as we know, unless you put a balanced sort of plan in place, you will be found out eventually. And you don't want to be that athlete. You want to be the athlete who's actually doing all the right things and then going to reap the benefits for years rather than be a flash in the pan.

Great way to finish. That's another good end to an episode. That's it for this one. We're really looking forward to some of the guests that are coming on over the next few weeks. We've got some great returning guests who we love having on, including one of the most revered guests we've had, one of the most loved episodes of last year, and that's Professor Louise Burke. She'll be coming on very soon, which we're really excited about to have that episode, as well as some other great guests. So stay tuned for them. Thanks, as always, for listening and we'll see you on the next one. Thanks, Sam.