Sweet Spot Training, Ranges, Workouts
1. What is Sweet Spot Training?
2. Sweet Spot Ranges (time, watts, heart rate, repeats)
3. Sweet Spot Workouts and Improvement
1. What is Sweet Spot Training?
Sweet Spot is the zone right under your Functional Threshold Power, the ranges are from 91% to 97% of your FTP. Sweet Spot intervals start at 5 min. and goes even to hours for best professional cyclists. For amateur cyclist we wouldn’t recommend longer then 120 min total time, it means for example 4 x 30 min or 2 x 60 min in Sweet Spot zone. Length on intervals should be base on your goals and main races you are doing during the season.
Total Time in Sweet Spot Zone
per workout by the level of advancement and period of the season
| Road Cycling | Base | Build | Race |
|---|---|---|---|
| Beginner | 15 | 30 | 45 |
| Cat 4 | 30 | 45 | 60 |
| Cat 3 | 45 | 60 | 80 |
| Cat 2 | 60 | 75 | 100 |
| Cat 1 | 60 | 90 | 120 |
| Cyclocross | Base | Build | Race |
| Beginner | 15 | 30 | 30 |
| Cat 4 | 30 | 45 | 30 |
| Cat 3 | 45 | 60 | 45 |
| Cat 2 | 60 | 90 | 60 |
| Cat 1 | 60 | 120 | 60 |
2. Sweet Spot Ranges
Intervals for Sweet Spot zone starts from 5 min and getting to even more than 120 min for professional athletes.
Base on your goal race you can adjust the length of your intervals to your needs. If you are beginner cyclist, starting your adventure with more professional training plan we would recommend to start with 3 x 5 min intervals in the range of 91% – 97% of your Functional Threshold Power or 94% – 97% of your Functional Threshold Heart Rate.
Many kinds of research are saying about 93% like the best place to stay to improve your FTP. It is not possible to keep 93% all the time, that is why you should be trying to stay in those ranges. If 3 x 5 min intervals workout is not a challenge for you anymore try to increase the time of every interval by 3-5 min, you can do 3 x 8 min, 3 x 12 min and so on. You should be doing 1-2 Sweet Spot training during the week, always consider specification of your races and the actual level of endurance.
More advanced cyclist we would recommend to start with 4 x 10 min intervals and adjust them to the length on the races you are preparing for. For example, the longest Cyclocross races are 1 hour, so your total time in the Sweet Spot zone should be getting to 60 min, 4 x 15 min = 60 min. With time you can decrease the number of intervals and increase the time, for example, 2 x 30 min.
Power and heart rate zones for Sweet Spot workouts are:
• 91% – 97% of Functional Threshold Power.
• 94% – 97% of Functional Threshold Heart Rate.
If you don’t know your FTP or FTHR go to this article to set up one for you.
Time range of interval is:
• 5 – 120 minutes.
Number of intervals in one workout:
• 2 – 4 intervals.
3. Sweet Spot Workouts and Improvement
Examples of Sweet Spot workouts, to improve your Functional Threshold Power. Below you can find 2 workouts for beginners and more advanced cyclists, both of them are available to download, base on power and heart rate zones.
Beginner workout:
• Start with easy 10 min warm-up
• 3 x 1 min – cadence 120
• 10 min active ride – 70% of FTP
• 3 x 7 min – 91% – 97% of FTP with 3 min easy between
• 15 min recovery
Advance workout:
• Start with easy 10 min warm-up
• 3 x 1 min – cadence 120
• 10 min active ride – 70% of FTP
• 4 x 15 min – 91% – 97% of FTP with 3 min easy between
• 15 min recovery
Leave a comment below if you have any questions.
