Sweet Spot with VO2; “Kickers”

It’s early in the season yet, but I’m making plans for workouts on commutes. One of the best ways to build fitness without building excessive fatigue is through Sweet Spot Intervals. Here’s the sweet spot (the gold star), measured by training intensity and volume:

Training volume and intensity lead to positive changes in fitness and performance, however, it’s no bottomless well. The more training you put in, the more negative effects of training begin to hamper performance. At the extreme levels of training you see professional athletes achieving, a massive effort is devoted toward recovery in order to manage the negative effects of training (the top right of the chart, where Fatigue spikes). Positive effects of training, or fitness, are a bell curve. As fatigue hinders performance, it becomes harder and harder to train at a level which will promote further positive adaptation.

The Sweet Spot is training at an intensity level and volume which results in an increase in fitness without significantly increasing fatigue. The best way to do that is to manage intensity and volume such that week over week increases do not exceed 10%. There’s also a specific intensity many cyclists targets (80-90% of FTP), which tends to allow pretty significant training volume without accumulating negative fatigue. These workouts, commonly referred to as SST, are intervals held for fairly long 10 to 15 minute period with a brief 5 to 10-minute recovery and repeated 4-6 times. That’s a lot of time on the gas, and the results are typically very positive, especially early in the season.

I like to put a twist on Sweet Spot training, with a workout I call Kickers. I find a long flat road which leads into a 3 minute climb. I spend 10 minutes in sweet spot, below threshold, and then hit the hill for an interval at VO2 effort (115-125% FTP). At the top of the hill, I try to settle back into SST for a minute before recovering for 5 to 10 minutes.

Kickers mimic my experience in road racing and with breakaways. It’s very difficult to find efforts that are repeatable for training, but which mimic the scream of legs during an attack in a road race. VO2 intervals, although intense, are typically only long enough to experience one minute of pain. Kickers hurt from the getgo on the hill and managing that pain while still putting the power down through an entire three minutes is great for mental toughness. One drawback, they tend to require more rest than normal SST workouts, so give yourself ample rest, as if you did SST and VO2s (since you, in effect, did!).

One of my favorite hills for this workout is A (202) Zeek, which start in Morris Plains, New Jersey. The segment is 2.9 miles, and rises 518ft, for an average grade of 3%. The thing about the climb is that it steadily increases throughout, with no downhill sections which require no power to the pedals. Find a hill like that, and do it again and again, for great results during road racing.