Im new to ICU and would like to follow the recommended “time in zones”
Do you build your own workouts for ZWIFT with time in zones or?
TIA,
Henrik
Welcome!
What you do mean ‘recommended’ time in zones?
I got a recommendation by using this fft.tips/tiz
Time in Zone per week
| Active Recovery: less than 55% FTP | 3 hrs 45 mins 00 secs |
|---|---|
| Endurance: 55-75% FTP | 1 hrs 30 mins 00 secs |
| Tempo: 76-90% FTP | 1 hrs 12 mins 00 secs |
| Threshold: 91-105% FTP | 0 hrs 40 mins 30 secs |
| VO2Max, 106-120% FTP | 0 hrs 18 mins 00 secs |
| Neuromuscular, 121% FTP or more | 0 hrs 04 mins 30 secs |
| Sweet Spot: 88-95% FTP | 0 hrs 00 mins 00 secs |
time per day
0 hrs 45 mins 00 secs
0 hrs 18 mins 00 secs
0 hrs 14 mins 24 secs
0 hrs 08 mins 06 secs
0 hrs 03 mins 36 secs
0 hrs 00 mins 54 secs
0 hrs 00 mins 00 secs
Thanks.
To answer your question - yes, you can build workouts that can be exported to Zwift which can represent desired time in zone as per your ‘recommendations’
In terms of how you get to this desired time in zone (eg. type of intervals within a workout) is a different matter and raises a more important question of what you are trying to achieve and when…how does all of this align to your goals, training history, available time, etc.
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How are others optimizing their training, using ZWIFT and ICU?
By steadily increased load each week and then recovering and doing it again.
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Those are technologies which help enable the outcomes you are looking to achieve.
You need to define on your goals in the first instance and then underpin this with some training principles and then in turn use the technology (and data) to facilitate and guide your training.
When someone asks a broad question like this, I always point them towards the WKO5 Education YouTube series on Annual Training Concepts:
- Part 1: Early Base Extensive Aerobic Development
- Part 2: Mid to Late Base Intensive Aerobic Development
- Part 3: Late Base to Peak Power and Speed
It’s a great starting resource to understand (one school of thought) on training principles and will help you I am sure. There are many other webinars which also will be of use once you have reviewed the initial series.
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Great question. I primarily use Zwift for my training. Initially, I was just signing up for events, races, robopacer riders and monitoring my training load with intervals.icu. I tried to keep my form in the green zone and then update my FTP when intervals suggested I should. This worked really well when I was starting up as I was in the “easy gains” phase of initial training.
When things plateaued I began doing some interval training. I build intervals that target the zones I want to train. Primarily, I’ve done 3 types of intervals. Over Unders, where you do sets alternating between just over and just under 100% of ftp. A typical set might be 4x (1m over, 2m under) for a total of 12min and then repeat that 3 times to get 36 minutes at Zone 4. I do VO2 max intervals (5x5, 4x6, 3x8, etc). I double check my power curve on Intervals to make sure the target power % is reasonable based on my personal bests. Then I also do all out intervals like 30/30s where you go all out for 30s followed by 30s of rest and repeat maybe 8x followed by a longer rest before another set.
These are good for sharpening up but I usually only do 2 hard sessions a week. So that could be an interval workout and a race, 2 races, or 2 workouts. The rest of the time I fill up with z2. I use the workout function with this too so that I can use ERG mode on my trainer to keep me exclusively in z2. Every 4th week I take for recovery and only do z2 rides, no hard stuff.
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