Tackling TriDot Workouts: 30-30s, 30-90s, Power Builders, Power Intervals, & Stamina

TriDot Podcast Episode 317

Tackling TriDot Workouts: 30-30s, 30-90s, Power Builders, Power Intervals, & Stamina

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Andrew Harley: Hey, everybody. Welcome to the TriDot Podcast. We are in a series of episodes where we're breaking down all of the different workouts an athlete will see in TriDot and having a coach explain the workout a little bit deeper. What is this workout doing for our fitness, and how do we do each of these workouts to the best of our ability? Today, I am joined by Coach Matt Sommer, who works as the fitness director at Alamance Country Club and has a master's degree in exercise physiology. Coach Matt and I will be talking about five specific TriDot bike workouts. We're going to cover 30-30s, 30-90s, Power Intervals, Power Builders, and those sweet, sweet Stamina bike sessions. I'm Andrew the Average Triathlete, Voice of the People and Captain of the Middle of the Pack. We treat the show like any good workout. We'll start with a warm-up question, settle into our main set conversation, and then wind things down by having Coach Matt answer an audience question on the cool down. Lots of good stuff. Let's get to it.

Announcer: This is the TriDot Podcast, the triathlon show that brings you world class coaching with every conversation. Let's get started with today's warm-up.

Andrew Harley: Alright, Coach Matt Sommer, so excited to have you on this episode to help us learn more about these five bike sessions. But let's start off with our warm-up question. And what I want to know today, Matt, is of all the races you've done, there's a lot of races you've done, but there's also a lot of races out there that you haven't done. You haven't done every race under the sun. So what is a race that you feel like you probably should have done by now, but you just, for one reason or another, haven't gotten around to?

Matt Sommer: Yeah, definitely. First and foremost, Andrew, thanks for having me on. Super excited to discuss this topic. I know when you reached out to me about it, I got very giddy. I woke up excited this morning. I know texted you first thing, and said, “Let's go. I'm bringing my A-game.” I'm just going to encourage our listeners, sit back, buckle down, because this is going to be one of the best episodes yet, I promise. God, that's a great question, Andrew. There's so many races out there, and I'm one that can really just get overwhelmed, and start to pack a schedule, and then got to narrow it down. In my heart, what's one race I haven't done yet but I should have, come on, you're not competing if you don't say Kona. Alright. I have not been able to qualify for Kona.

Andrew Harley: Has that been a big goal for you?

Matt Sommer: It has been. 2022 really was a hard year for me; I did three fulls. It was by default because of COVID transfers. And it really hit me hard. It really shot my long game down and damaged me. And I've had a little bird on my shoulder saying it's time to get back to the long game.

Andrew Harley: Interesting.

Matt Sommer: So we'll see what happens in the next year or two. I'm 48 now. It could be my 50-year-old birthday goal to race Kona. Maybe. But honestly, obviously Kona, that's the elusive one for me, as a triathlete. But I'll be honest, there are a lot of great races out there, and two races that I always am like, God, why haven't I done those yet? And they're running races, if you want the honest truth. I've done a lot of tri’s. New York Marathon and Chicago Marathon, they're right here. They're the majors. I just haven't done them. I've done Boston, this will be my 11th consecutive. I've checked that box. And a goal I've made recently is to do all the majors. I want to do all seven, so I need to start checking this off. It's a lot cheaper, and a lot easier to travel with a pair of running shoes, than it is with swim, bike, run gear. Plus you're not as-- it's a great way to see the world, and have a little bit of fun, and get some exercise. So I think I need to start in the US, with Chicago and New York, but, God, I want to do London, I want to do Tokyo, I want to do Berlin, and I want to do Sydney, now that they've added it. So those are the ones.

Andrew Harley: Yeah. It's funny-- I love that answer, Matt. I love just that you're a big dreamer, and I hope you qualify for all those and get to do all of those. It's funny, you talk about just how much easier it is to travel for a run race instead of a triathlon. And you don't think about it when you're a runner first and then a triathlete. But when you've done triathlon a little while, and you go back to a run only event, it's like this is so easy.

Matt Sommer: All I got to do is run.

Andrew Harley: I had breakfast, I showed up in my shoes, and I went for a run. It's incredible. This answer for me, Matt, my aspirations are not as big as yours. I'm not trying to make Kona, or anything like that, at this stage in my triathlon journey. I've got two races that are just so close to home, I can't believe I haven't done them yet. So the first one, there's a local sprint, Matt, it is six minutes from my house. Local sprint triathlon, pool swim, 12-mile bike, 5K run. It's called the Caveman Tri in Flower Mound, Texas. And I have not done it in the six years I lived in Flower Mound, 12 years I've lived in the Metroplex, Dallas Metroplex, as a triathlete. I don't know why it's called the Caveman Triathlon. It's every single April in Flower Mound, Texas. And yeah, it might be a 2026, you know, comeback race for me, to just get back to a local event down the road.

Matt Sommer: I love it.

Andrew Harley: I should do this event every year, Matt. It's six minutes away. What am I doing? What am I doing?

Matt Sommer: They should rename it the Andrew-Man. They should. I mean, I love that you're supporting local. I think that's a big thing, too. And I'll be honest, there's so many local races that I have not taken part in. And you got to remind the listeners, the grassroots of all triathlon is local. If you don't support local, I mean, they're going to go away. That's an entry point for so many triathletes, is supporting local. So I love that, Andrew, that you said that. I would challenge all our listeners, get out there, do a local race, because without them, we just don't have as much opportunities out there. And you never know, the next World Champion might be sitting on the couch and starting at a local race.

Andrew Harley: Plus they're fun. Yeah, plus they're fun.

Matt Sommer: And they're a lot cheaper.

Andrew Harley: Yeah, we're going to throw this question out to our listeners. I'm curious to hear what is just a race, when you look at the races you've done and the races around you, what's the one that you can't believe you haven't done? Find this question thrown out on all of our social medias. Find this question. You can answer in YouTube, in the comment box, you can answer on Spotify, in the comment box. I monitor both those places and try to shoot back to people. So let us know what's one race that you just haven't done yet?

Announcer: Let’s go.

Andrew Harley: Alright, Coach Matt, on to our main set. You and I can chit-chat about races all day long, that's for sure. But let's move along into what we promised the people. And that is a breakdown of these five bike workouts. And Matt, I'm just curious, as a coach, in this series we're doing, Vanessa and I are bringing on a different coach every single week for this. Any of our coaches can talk about all of the TriDot workouts and do the coaching here. But I want to get a little flavor on all of them. So for you, in your rhythm with your athletes, as you are coaching them, and as they are in their workout week, having these workouts pop up in their calendar, how much are you talking with them about, hey, here's the workout you have today. Let's approach it this way. Let's think about this. Let's focus on that. Do you do a lot of that day to day, or does it vary on the athlete? Or is it when someone's new, newer, on your roster, you're spending more time talking about that, and once they're experienced, you spend less time? What's the interaction like between you and your athletes, when it comes to making sure they're doing these workouts correctly?

Matt Sommer: That's a great question. So I meet with all my athletes weekly. We do a weekly call. FaceTime, Facebook messenger, video, WhatsApp. I want the face-to-face, the trust, the rapport, develop that. But to answer that question, constantly. Every week when we sit down, we first talk about the week that just happened. The wins, the losses, learning opportunities, opportunities for growth. And then we talk about the week ahead. It looks great on paper, but we all know that life happens, so we have to maneuver things around. I go through every workout with my athletes. I don't care if they're novice, I don't care if they're brand new, I don't care if they've been with me five years. I remind them, and I use the word intentionally, because it's my tagline. Passion, purpose, progress. You got to understand the purpose of the workout. What are we looking to gain from it? Why are we doing it? Where does it fit into our short-term goals, long-term goals? What skillset are we looking to develop as a result of that workout? What training stress are we looking to absorb? When should we finish the workout? When should we say, “Alright, I've had enough?” There's so many questions. I always tell my athletes it's the opportunity to do up to what the workout's asking. We need to know—yeah. It's important for us to recognize when form and technique are gone, and that we're now risking injury or just slugging through something. We have to be able to absorb the stress that we're taking from the workout, so our body can then translate it to skill acquisition and racing. So it's important to understand why we're doing it. And I always give them, hey, this is going to be a sign or a signal that I've hit enough of it. Maybe it's time to pull the plug. Or, do you keep working through it and know what your limits are? Because there's the point of diminishing returns in some of these, that we're just sloshing through it versus executing it. And it's important to understand and discern between the difference of I'm checking the box or I'm executing it accordingly with passion and purpose. So I hope that answers the question.

Andrew Harley: It's so good.

Matt Sommer: I always make sure to emphasize if there is a cadence manipulation, if there is a power target, and remind them, “Hey, listen, in power intervals, you really want to be at a cadence of 70. If you can't sustain that, you need to drop the power target I've given you, so you can execute it at the appropriate cadence.” It's not just about the power, it's about the cadence. Or maybe it's a different workout, where there's another metric that we're trying to focus on. If we're losing the focus, losing the purpose, it might be time to pull the plug or dial back the power just a little.

Andrew Harley: I love it, Matt. Thanks for that. And just what a nice glimpse for athletes that don't have one-to-one coach, on just the value of it. Just know that's happening. And a very good time for me to remind our listeners, if you have the budget and you are interested in a one-to-one coach, if Matt Sommer is your coach, that's what you're getting every single week with him. What he's going to do with all of us today is what his athletes get every single week. So absolutely love it, Matt. Alright, we've got five bike workouts we're going to rip through today, and just see what we can learn from you about how to do these, why we're doing these as an athlete. And the first one, Coach Matt, that we're going to talk about is 30-30s. And I am, in just a second, Matt, I'm going to pop an example of what 30-30s look like on the screen. And I want the people watching -- if you're just listening to the podcast, obviously just listen. If you are watching us on YouTube or Spotify, you're going to see a workout on the screen right now. And this is an example of what 30-30s can be for somebody. And obviously, the beauty of TriDot is it's going to give everybody the session that their body needs on the day. And so this might be my 30-30s. Your 30-30s might only have one quality interval like this. Your 30-30s might have more quality intervals than this. It's just totally variable. When you get 30-30s prescribed to you, it could look exactly like this. It could look a little bit different. It could look a lot-a-bit different. But the intent of the workout, TriDot's going to stress your system the correct way for the amount of time it wants to stress your system. So just want to throw that disclaimer out. All five workouts we talk about today, I'm going to throw an example on the screen just like this. And it might look just like yours, might look a little bit different from yours. You get the point. I'm rambling. Coach Matt, what do we see on the screen here? Just in the interval pattern of 30-30s, what is this workout I see?

Matt Sommer: I see art to start with, because that's just such a beautiful picture. I say that intentionally, because I get really giddy when I see pictures like this, because I remind my athletes that's what your power distribution graph should look like when it's done. You should be able to hold up a Picasso and compare it to your drawing, when it's all said and done. We're making art. And I always challenge my athletes, paint a beautiful picture. Let's see it. I geek out when I can look at my athlete's power distribution charts and see where it matches. So that's what we're looking to do. You're painting that picture during the workout, and Andrew, you brought up a great point. Not every athlete's going to get served the same meal. When we look at this, we see this is five rounds of five 30-30s. I have athletes that get two rounds. I, personally, get six rounds of five. To me, that is true 30-30s, you have 30 repetitions, and that's why I always say that's the real 30-30s, because it's 30 of them. Now, you may be wondering, why do some athletes get this, and why do some athletes get others? Let's unpack that real quick. There's that one great feature of TriDot, called the Training Stress Score. And I want to jump on that real quick. Your Training Stress Score takes a look at your ability for your body to absorb, digest, and translate the stress of the workouts. So on the app, you can go in there, not a lot of people look at this or understand it. We have Zone 2 stress, which is the aerobic system, Zone 4, which is threshold, Zone 5, which is muscular, and Zone 6, which is neural stress. Every workout is stressing a different Zone, and that is why we get served up different workouts to train the different areas, because we're trying to absorb different types of stress to make you a better racer. Based upon your age, your training history, physiogenomics, if you got that connected, it makes a prediction, and basically, through the algorithm of what your body can absorb. It's not a question of can you do six rounds of five, it's a question of can your body absorb it, and then translate it, and then rebound for the next workout the next day? That is why some athletes get harder sets than others. I have some athletes that are much more talented swimmers than I, and I look at their workouts, and I’m like, thank God I don't get that, because I would drown.

Andrew Harley: You and me both, brother.

Matt Sommer: Yeah, I know. But it’s lot of diversity to it. And as your thresholds go up, as your experience goes up, and you demonstrate the ability to absorb the training, you do get served bigger dishes. And I always like to stress that to my athletes. But when I do look at this one, I mean, this is such a great workout. It can range anywhere from three to six rounds of three to five 30-second Zone 5, immediately followed by a 30-second Zone 3 effort. Now, why do we do this? Well, this workout is all about learning how to surge and recover. And it really translates well to the racecourse, where you might have to surge by somebody, and then recover quickly, and then surge and recover. So those are the physical adaptations. It helps you to learn how to clear the lactate out of your muscles and get back to racing. So hence the 30-second Zone 5 immediately followed by a 30-second Zone 3 for repetitions. And then they're very kind. They give you a generous 2-minute Zone 2 recovery in between each round. I love this workout. When I see this one on my schedule, I honestly get excited. I love it. I love to paint a pretty picture. There are several different ways to execute this workout. You could also see, at the very beginning on this one, that Andrew's illustrated here, you have four 15-second Zone 5 primers at the beginning, followed by 45-second Zone 2s, and then you only have two 1-minute Zone 4s. That's just to get the legs moving, build up a little lactate, get you ready for the workout. So those are really important. If you're not doing those, you're not preparing your body adequately to go in. It's just shock to the system by skipping those on that first round of 30-30. So definitely encourage you to make sure you do the workout as written, because it does prepare your body to go into the 30-30s. This is a great workout, and a lot of people always say ERG mode or non-ERG mode. I'm a big non-ERG mode guy. I love painting this picture. I mean, I can execute these on my Wahoo KICKR and get a 100. I've learned, because it teaches me how to gear efficiently, as well, which translates to outside riding. Those Zone 5 efforts really should be done at a cadence of about 70 to 75, and then the Zone 3 efforts should be about a cadence of 80 to 85. I've discovered, in my riding, with the gearing that I have on my bike, that that's one shift of my cassette, along with the manipulation of cadence, and I can go straight from Zone 5 to Zone 3. So I've dialed it in, from an execution side, on a non-ERG way, that I can execute this perfectly. I think the important thing to keep on this one, also, is riding posture. I encourage athletes, you don't really ride in aero in Zone 5. It's okay to come up to the drops for that 30-second surge and then drop back down to aero for the 30-second Zone 3. So I also do a lot of up-downs when I'm executing this workout. I feel confident, I feel strong, I feel powerful. And in the opening, I did talk about when form goes, it gives you -- and I look at this. I present this workout, the one that's illustrated on screen, as you have the opportunity to do up to five rounds. But if you start to lose it, and you just can't maintain it, pull the plug. Pull the plug. Default back to Zone 2. You can always go back and start up again, but give yourself the recovery, so that the efforts you are putting in are purposeful and meaningful. But this is one of my most favorite workouts. I feel like there's so much return on investment. And again, when executed properly, it's one of the most rewarding. And I always get done, have puddles of sweat under the bike, and I just give myself a big pat on the back, and I'm just like, you crushed it. But I absolutely love 30-30s. I used to get intimidated by it when I see it show up on the workout, but it's definitely one of the ones I've learned to embrace, because I know there's so much return on investment. You guys all know I'm a big fan of quotes. I always have a strong quote game, and this workout is definitely worthy of a quote. This is the type of workout, and I tell my athletes, because it is intimidating. When you look at that, they're like, “Oh, no, I got 30-30s this week.” I always say to them, maybe the magic you're looking for is in the work you're avoiding. This is one of those workouts that you’re just like, “Oh, I don't want to do.” But they're also saying, “God, I want to be stronger on the bike.” Well, here's your opportunity. Opportunity is presenting itself. The magic you're looking for is the work you're avoiding. So let's get down and dirty and get after it, and leverage that mindset, and let's go in there and crush it together.

Andrew Harley: Yeah, I like this one a lot. It's just a really fun one. It goes by really quick, because you are changing intensity so often. What's so interesting to me, whenever I do this one is, and Matt, I'm you. I get six sets, so I have a true 30-30. I don't think it's because I'm a Kona-ability athlete. I just think I'm 37, and so I'm young enough, and fit enough, that TriDot gives me the full Monty. But in sets 1, 2, 3, 4, that 30 seconds of Zone 3 feels so easy. And it's such, it's so restful. It's like, yes, I feel better. I'm ready to pump it up again. And then when I get to that fifth and sixth set, all of a sudden, those 30 seconds at Zone-- because it's not at Zone 2, it's not at easy-- and Zone 3 for 30 seconds, like, “Oh, yeah, that's easy. But by the time you get deep in this workout, those are a sludge, too. Those become harder, and harder, and harder as the workout gets on. So it's so interesting to see in my body, how my body is having to recover in Zone 3. And that's easy at first, and it gets harder as you go deeper and deeper in the workout. So, Matt, just as we look at the system of the body, you talk about this is helping us build power, but it's also helping us learn how to recover, without going all the way down to Zone 1, Zone 2 to recover. Correct?

Matt Sommer: Absolutely. This one's going to be a blend of muscular and threshold, if you really think about it. It's such a great workout. And I really do employ that paint a picture mentality with my athletes. When you're riding, paint that picture. Think about the Zone 5, Zone 3s. You should have very intentional, deliberate spikes. And I'm also a firm believer of progressive. Your last set should be your strongest, so conserve in reserve so you can thrive and survive at the end. Always start a little lower in the first round. Like you said, the first and second round, most people are like, man, this isn't too bad. By set number three, they're thinking some nasty thoughts about me. By set number four and five, they're questioning our relationship and my affinity for them. But it's also one of those workouts, when they're done, they really are so proud of themselves for getting through and executing. So, yeah, this I will say, it's funny, it's the first one, this is my all-time favorite bike workout--

Andrew Harley: Oh, great.

Matt Sommer: --on the TriDot platform. Absolutely love this one.

Andrew Harley: Great to hear. And there's a couple execution items you pointed out that I want to call attention to. The use of ERG mode is really interesting. I, personally, do use ERG mode for this one, frankly just because it's, to me, it's easier at the flip of a switch to try jump from this intensity to that intensity, to this, to that. I absolutely hear and understand why you encourage your athletes to do this not on ERG mode. I'm sure I could play around with my shifting and figure out, okay, yes, this works to get me from 3 to 5, 3 to 5, 3 to 5. I just, because I'm a little lazier than you, I just like to just have my smart bike automate that for me. But I do agree with you. I do sit up out of the saddle for this. I do not try to hold aero for this. Because when you're holding aero on race day, when are you holding aero in Zone 5?

Matt Sommer: You’re not.

Andrew Harley: You're not. That's not a position where you're having to hold in aero. When you're holding aero, you're maybe in Zone 4 at a short course, and Zone 2, 3 long course. There's not really a benefit in being in aero trying to produce those kind of watts. So free yourself from that burden, sit up out of the saddle and really push those watts. Lean into the power. Build the power. Now, Matt, our next bike workout we're going to talk about is very similar to 30-30s. I do not use ERG mode for this one, because in 30-90s, those 30 seconds are not capped at Zone 5. Those 30 seconds are as hard as you can push the pedals. And I don't want ERG mode to hold me back on that. I want to just be free to push what I end up being able to push for that. Here is a 30-90 on the screen. Matt, as much as I like 30-30s, I equally dislike 30-90s. I do not like this workout at all. I get excited for 30-30s. I cringe when I see 30-90s. It's probably because I just have weak, little, runner, chicken legs. But talk to us about this one. When you look at this interval pattern on the screen, what do you see, in this example of 30-90s?

Matt Sommer: This is another favorite workout. I love these. I really do. 30-90s, again, I, personally, don't execute this one on ERG mode either. Definitely, there is some reason to, but this is one in particular that there is no ceiling on the Zone 6 efforts. I mean, if you put it on ERG mode, you're giving yourself a ceiling. And again, I also stress on this one, when we look at this breakdown, I see eight repeats of 30 seconds at all out Zone 6, followed by a 90-second recovery. Again, we have a very intentional and deliberate warm-up. Again, you see those four 15-second Zone 5 efforts, followed by 45-second recoveries, and the two 1-minute Zone 4s. Again, that is preparing your body. So make sure you do those. Too many people I know skip those warm-ups, and then they go in, and they feel lethargic. That's why the warm-up's there. It starts to accumulate some lactate, gets the body ready, gets the sweat, the heart rate going. I promise you, if you do those warm-ups accordingly, those 90-second efforts seem a lot easier. And the first one's not just a shock to the system. But again, I look at this workout, and the thing that I really stress to my athletes is you're going to work hard. This is a Zone 6 workout. So if we take a step back to the training stress scores, this is about neural stress. This is creating neuromuscular adaptations. In the grand scheme of things, if you look at this workout, you have four minutes of hard work in the whole hour. Four minutes, that's it. And I always remind my athletes of that. That's four minutes of work. And then how much Zone 1 do you have? You have more Zone 1 in the first three recoveries than you do in the whole workout. So it really is a good workout. Now, I stress to them, you're going to work hard, but you got to recover harder. And that's the key to these, is really embracing that 90-second. I also don't put a cap on their Zone 1. As long as the pedals are turning, you're in Zone 1. You've got to remember that. It needs to be a full recovery in Zone 1. So again, it's not necessarily a top of Zone 1. Don't be in Zone 2. I'm fine with the pedals, as long as they're moving. It's like a walking recovery on a run workout, you're in Zone 1. The harder you recover, the harder you work in Zone 6. Again, on this one, a lot of people always say, “Coach, can I stand up?” Standing up may not be ideal. I'm not going to say don't do it. In this one, ideally, I do prefer my athletes stay seated. Maybe by the fifth, sixth, seventh round, eighth round, I'll get 9 or 10 occasionally, yeah, you might have to stand up to get those legs going. At the end of the day, you're looking to elicit a Zone 6 power at the highest possible power output you can sustain for 30 seconds. The biggest thing I say on this one is, again, painting a picture. We don't want to see a downhill slope on the 30-second effort. I would rather see it be a nice, level peak, like the top of a building. So try to be consistent. Don't spike and then fall apart over the 30 seconds. If anything, I like to see them, maybe, build an upward slope across that 30 seconds. Very challenging to do. I'm not perfect at it. I try hard, but I can bring the effort, and I can bring the intensity every workout. It's about consistency, not perfection. But this is such a great workout. And what I love about this one, when it's all said and done, it is a little bittersweet, is that long stretch of Zone 2 when it's all said and done. That long stretch of Zone 2 is a lonely Zone 2, because after that four minutes of high intensity work, all of a sudden that Zone 2 seems a lot harder. So the one thing I really like to remind my athletes, like, “Listen, get that cadence back up to 85 to 90 for that Zone 2 effort. Spin the legs out, find a happy place, put on the TriDot Podcast, listen to some happy music, and just really enjoy that long stretch on the back end, because the hard work was done on the front end.” It's only four minutes of hard work in this case. But that four minutes, that's a long day at the office. That was working overtime, in my opinion.

Andrew Harley: Yep. And that's thar neuromuscular fatigue. And you, earlier, brought up the training stress profile, and every athlete listening that's on TriDot, there's nothing for you to do with your training stress profile. Your training stress profile just is what it is. But just like Coach Matt said, based on your body, your age, a lot of factors, but you can go look at it, and there's little metrics and little bars that show you, your body can only take X amount of neuromuscular stress, and this stress, and that stress. And this Zone 6 is neuromuscular. And Matt, I love how you pointed out the Zone 1 here, where it doesn't matter. There's not a wattage we're looking for. There's not a-- you don't get bonus points for flirting with the top end of your Zone 1 wattage. The point of that 90 seconds is for your body to rest as much as possible, because the point of this workout is to crush those red intervals.

Matt Sommer: Exactly.

Andrew Harley: And I made a mistake for a year or two in my TriDot career, and a couple weeks ago on the show, Coach Ryan Tibball and Vanessa Ronksley talked about a few run workouts, and there's a run workout called Intervals, that I know you're very familiar with. In the Interval workout, it's Zone 5 efforts. And so for me, I usually get five sets of four minutes at Zone 5. And I used to, before I read the full description, I used to do the Zone 5 intervals and in between, in the rest, I would flirt with that Zone, basically, was a low Zone 2. I was still jogging. And one day, I just happened to read the description, and the workout description literally says, hey, for the rests, make it a full rest. Stop running. Walk. And then when the time's up, start running again. And I used to struggle to hold Zone 5 through all of the intervals, because I was running in Zone 2 for that rest. And as soon as I stopped and walked during those rests, I could do Zone 5 throughout the whole intervals. And that's the same case here. TriDot wants you to just barely keep the legs moving on those 90-second recoveries, so that when those 30 seconds come around, you can just hammer, and like Coach Matt said, hopefully hammer all of your intervals really well, and not fall off toward the end. Really good stuff there, Matt. Go ahead.

Matt Sommer: The only other piece I would add on to this is if you take a look at that last effort, that eighth effort, I know it's not written this way, but I will encourage my athletes take the 90 seconds after that last one. That last one's probably the hardest one. I know it defaults right back to Zone 2. There is no shame. And do not hold your head low for having to recover back into Zone 1 for 30 seconds, 45, 90 seconds, if necessary. You might not get an A on the paper, but if that's what the body needs to comfortably, and I say comfortably, get back to Zone 2 at a cadence of 85 to 90, there's nothing wrong with that. That's calling an audible, and sometimes an audible leads to a touchdown. So just keep that in mind.

Andrew Harley: Yeah it’s just practical. It’s just practical.

Matt Sommer: Exactly. Yeah. And I mean, this is another one of these workouts, I remind my athletes, and again, here's another quote for you, you didn't wake up to be mediocre. Those eight efforts bring your A-game. And that's why it's so important that you take those recoveries, because you don't want to go at this in a mediocre fashion. I want 100% effort. Empty the tank and then refill it during those 90 seconds.

Andrew Harley: Yep. Absolutely love it. That's 30-90s. And again, Matt, I hate this one. But to something you said earlier, it's probably because this is what my body needs. I'm not a strong cyclist, and doing things like this is how you become a stronger cyclist, unfortunately for me. So moving on to the third bike workout we're going to talk about today. We're going from 30-30s and 30-90s into a couple power workouts. The first one, Power Intervals. I've got the progression on the screen, here. Not short and spiky. These are some longer intervals. There's definitely some very specific cadence recommendations here, which not every bike workout has that. So definitely something to pay attention to. Coach Matt, what do you see here on the screen?

Matt Sommer: Oh, I see another beautiful picture. I'm going to be honest, when I see this workout, and you can ask all my athletes, this is one I do not enjoy. It’s not the--

Andrew Harley: It's a grinder. It's a grinder.

Matt Sommer: It's that third round. It's that third round that just kicks my butt. When we look at this one, again, traditional TriDot warm-up. You got your, obviously, 10-minute warmup, which incorporates three 1-minute Zone 4 primers with 60 seconds of Zone 2 recovery. But then, you go into anywhere from 1 to 2 sets of Zone 4 at a cadence of 70 rpms with a nontraditional 3-minute Zone 2 recovery. It's important, I always point that out. It's three minutes of recovery, not the traditional two, on this workout. That's an important thing for all our listeners to remember when they're doing this. Give yourself that extra minute of recovery. But the biggest thing Andrew already alluded to is the cadence manipulation. The first round or the second round, depending on what dish you're served up, it's at a cadence of 70. And if you're riding on ERG mode, again, you can manipulate your cadence, you can hold it at 70. The power will not fluctuate. That's a very big positive there. For myself, no ERG mode, and I try to encourage a lot of people not to. It's managing that power on the undulations, or whatever course I ride on Zwift, that's the platform of choice for me. I really prefer to do this on the alp. The alp for me is one of the most easiest ways, because it's a steady-state slope. So really, it's just shifting and adjusting cadence to get me in the power I want to be at, because it's a steady slope right up. My goal is not necessarily to make it up the alp the whole way, but I definitely take advantage of the gradient to let me just focus on power and cadence only and not have to worry about the undulations of going up and down, and up and down, because that does get a little bit harder to do this one. But why are we doing this? Let's go back to purpose. I mean, this one is all about developing strength in the glutes, the quads, and muscle recruitment. It's to teach you to generate more power, because there are going to be times, if you're on a hilly course, that that cadence may drop, and you're going to have to grind through it. So that's what those two first rounds are about at that cadence of 70. You will feel the muscles burning. It's very much a muscle recruitment workout. Now, if you have the ability to survive those first two rounds, I always tell my athletes, you get the opportunity to do that last round, which is usually longer, but the cadence needs to stay above 90. That is just not a natural cadence for me. Zone 4 at a cadence of 90 is not a natural thing.

Andrew Harley: That's very natural for me. That's right at high 80s and 90s. And so for me, it's like returning back home. It’s like, “Oh, I can finally ride how I like to ride.” But then you're doing that riding with your legs pretty well shot. And so it's a wonky feeling.

Matt Sommer: They're spent. I'm definitely baby giraffe legs when this workout's over. I feel like I get off the bike, I'm a little wobbly. But that last 12-minute effort at a cadence of 90, as illustrated on here, that's a sludge-fest for me. I mean, that's the hardest one for me to get through. I will find my cadence starting to drop a little. I do give my athletes a plus or minus five cadence allowance, meaning that, listen, depending on the gearing of your bike, you might not be able to get into Zone 4 at a cadence of 90. If you need to drop it a little, just because of the gear ratios you're working within, 87 is okay. You're not going to explode because you weren't at 90.

Andrew Harley: Follow the intent of the workout. You got to be in the ballpark for your situation.

Matt Sommer: And I always joke, “I'm like, you're not going to explode. The world's not going to come to an end because you're at 86.” If 86 is your sweet spot, 87 is your sweet spot, that's fine. We just don't want you down at 70 again. So it's teaching those legs to turn over more rapidly and build the strength in them, as well. So very purposeful. You just got to be very intentional on this one. Again, if you're on ERG mode, it's a little bit easier, in my opinion, to keep that cadence up above 90, just because you're not having to worry about the power output. You just got to spin the legs. But again, this is one of those workouts that I, personally, I loathe when I see it on my schedule. It's not a favorite of mine. People might be surprised. They might think I love every workout, but this is my kryptonite. This one. In particular, that third round. But it's such a rewarding workout, again. And I think it's important to really understand it's the cadence is the most important component of this workout. Resist the urge, because you're not doing yourself any favors, as well as building bike strength, when you just fall back when it's supposed to be 70 and you're going in the 80s and 90s. That would just be a basic threshold interval workout. There's a reason there's difference between them. This one is to build a little bit more muscular strength, as well as teaching you for muscle recruitment.

Andrew Harley: And Matt, to that point, we talk a lot about there's a reason why the intervals are exactly how they are. And you like to point out to your athletes, your recovery here is three minutes and not two. This is our first episode in this series about bike workouts, but when we start talking about more of the bike workouts, there's a lot of bike workouts that are just different variations of Zone 4, Zone 2, Zone 4, Zone 2. And a lot of them, you have two minutes at Zone 2 and not three minutes at Zone 2. Now, at a glance, that doesn't seem like a big difference, but with the data driving the training, Jeff Booher, our CEO, always emphasizes when you look at how long your rests are-- we know this in the pool. All of us are so bad in the pool at taking 10, 15 seconds longer on the wall than we're supposed to.

Matt Sommer: Right.

Andrew Harley: Your rest interval in every TriDot workout is extremely purposeful. And so when you see this go from two minutes to three minutes, that's a signal that that 2 x 10 minutes at Zone 4, that should be so much harder than a regular interval, that TriDot's going to give you 50% more recovery time at Zone 2.

Matt Sommer: I love how you put that. Yep, 100%. And this is the type of workout, I need motivation on this one. I'm going to continue down the quote road. The one that I really deliver on this one, and this one is for me, personally, and I have to remind myself, if it scares you and excites you at the same time, it might be a good idea to try. And this is one that just scares the bejesus out of me, but I know at the end of the day, it's good medicine. I need to take it, because the return on investment and the results of it make me a stronger cyclist. So on race day, I can really celebrate the gains that I achieved from this workout and how it's translated to me being a better bike split in my competitions.

Andrew Harley: Anytime a TriDot workout gives me lower cadence work, so in this case, 70 rpms, it doesn't scare me and excite me. It just scares me and scares me, because I don't want to live there. But again, that's why it's giving me more recovery, and that's why I need to do this workout, is because my legs need to push that power. It's the Power Interval. Power intervals, called that for a reason. The fourth bike workout we're focusing on today is another power one. This one is Power Intervals, and now Matt and I are going into Power Builders. So Matt, let's put this on the screen and see what the difference is between a Power Interval and a Power Builder. They all build your power in some way, just in different ways. This is the interval progression for Power Builder. Again, based on who you are, what your age is, what kind of stress your body can take, your exact interval pattern could look different than this. This is just a really good example of a Power Builder workout. Coach Matt, walk us through this workout.

Matt Sommer: Oh, God. This is a great one. To me, this is one of the most beneficial workouts out there. It's a combination of Zone 5 efforts followed by Zone 2 efforts. In this case, it's a one-to-one work-to-rest ratio. And I really make sure my athletes understand that. So it's a one-to-one ratio, so for every minute of work you do, you get a full minute of recovery. What we're looking at here, in this situation for power builders, again, you're going to get served up different meals for different people. We have three rounds. The first round is four repeats of 1-minute Zone 5, followed by 1-minute of Zone 1 – that should be Zone 2. I think that’s an error on the description there, but it’s a Zone 2 recovery. The second round is five 1-minute repeats, followed by 1-minute of Zone 2. And the third round, again, another round of four. If you're fortunate enough, I've even seen this served up to where the first round is five 1-minute repeats, the third round is five 1-minute repeats, the middle round is a steady state 5-minute effort. So if you ever get served that up, you're at a level 10 workout on power builders, and you are a stud or studdess, because that is the real deal. I've been given that one a few times. And that middle 5-minute is a grind, I will tell you. But again, you got your traditional warm-up. You're looking at the three 1-minute Zone 4s, just to get the legs primed, ready to roll. And then it's go time. Again, this is one where I typically am on the hoods for the 1-minute Zone 5 effort, and then I try to drop back down to aero for that Zone 2 recovery. This workout is all about muscular development. It's so important. This is a Zone 5 workout. We're looking at training stress. And again, basically, you want to just develop a broader base of fitness. This is great for rolling hill courses, where, again, cadence will fluctuate, as well. Those Zone 5 efforts are going to be done at a cadence of 70, followed by a cadence of 85 to 90 for the Zone 2. You have very long recoveries in between these. And again, that's purposeful. It's 10-minute Zone 2 recoveries. It gives you the opportunity to really, I won't say fully recover, but get that heart rate back down, spin the legs out, clear the lactate out, before you approach that second round. This could be anywhere from one round to three rounds, depending on who the athlete is. But this one doesn't scare me too much. I always tell my athletes, you can do anything for 60 seconds. You just got to put your mind to it. That first round, again, very similar to 30-30s, you'll breeze through, you're going to be like, “Wow, that wasn't too bad.” That second round can start to get a little rude. And by the third round, it's a grind. And, yeah, the legs are burning, the lactate's there. And specifically, that third, fourth, and sometimes the fifth effort in that third round, that's where really you got to dig deep mentally and leverage that mindset. Another quote, I'm going to throw out there, mental toughness is finding fuel in an empty tank. And that's what that third round is all about. It's finding fuel and really digging deep. And I talk about this all the time with athletes is it's not always inherent for everybody, but building grit, building tenacity, and just building that foundation of mental toughness. And this is one of those workouts that this does that. That second and third round really help you develop the mental side, as well as the physical side. And I really try to leverage that component of all the training sessions of mental toughness. And, reminding yourself, “I can do this. I can get through it.”

Andrew Harley: Yeah. And just to call attention, for our viewers, training theory is the wrong way to put this, but to call our attention to Zones, what different Zones mean and are supposed to mean. Zone 4, which is the one we were just talking about, Power Intervals, those are Zone 4 intervals, right, that you're just holding at a grind-ier cadence. Zone 4, by default, for your body, is close to your threshold, and your threshold is the amount of power your body, in theory, could hold for an hour without filling with lactate and your legs shutting down. And so Zone 4, sometimes Zone 4 intervals on our bike sessions get up to 14, 16, 18 minutes that you're grinding in Zone 4. Zone 4 is tough, but you can live there for a while. Zone 5, you bump the power up to Zone 5, where we are right here, and you see in this example, it's 1-minute, 1-minute, 1-minute, 1-minute. Matt was talking about there's some scenarios, there's some versions of this, where some athletes might see up to five minutes, but you can't camp out there nearly as long as you can for a Zone 4 interval, because your body is working above its threshold by quite a bit. And your legs will shut down after a while. So that's exactly where, Matt, where you're saying when you first start this, the intervals aren't that long, and so it doesn't feel tough at first, but this will wear your legs out way faster than being at Zone 4 for a while. So it's interesting. It's Power Builders. You're building your power. It's a chance to really tap into-- you're rarely on Zone 5 on race day, unless you're maybe climbing a hill or something. So it's letting you push some more watts than you would in a normal scenario, thus building your power.

Matt Sommer: And that's a great point. Yeah, you just brought up a great point. You're rarely in Zone 5 on race day. So why do we train there? Why do we do this workout? Why do we spend time in Zone 5? It makes Zone 3 more tolerable. It makes Zone 2 more tolerable for a longer period of time. So if we have the ability to sustain efforts in Zone 5, it makes sustaining other efforts in Zone 2 and Zone 3 perceived, and physiologically, much more accomplishable. Obviously, duration goes up, intensity goes down. I'm going to bring up another workout. Some people might see those longer Zone 5 efforts in the Step-up workout, where it could be 2, 3 minutes, 4 minutes, or even 5 minutes. And that's teaching your body to sustain those efforts over a period of time. But at the end of the day, the Zone 4, the Zone 5 work, it just makes race day easier, because it allows us to settle in in our sweet spot of Zone 3, Zone 2, for a much longer period of time with less effort. So it's getting the engine down the track, so that you can ride in a car closer to the engine more comfortably.

Andrew Harley: Very good. The last thing I'll call attention here to, Matt, and we'll move on to our final workout for the day. There's some pretty beefy recovery intervals, here. And regardless of how many sets you have, regardless of how many rounds of the Zone 5 you have, most athletes will see 10 minutes at Zone 2 in between those big efforts. That's quite a bit of time in Zone 2 to let your body unwind a little bit before gearing up for the next round. Is there anything you tell your athletes to be thinking about, or focusing on, in those longer recovery bits?

Matt Sommer: Absolutely. I think that's an opportunity just to spin the legs out, reset, refocus, restart. It all starts in the head. You mentally have to prepare yourself for what you're getting ready to go into. Take the opportunity to recover, spin the legs out, clear the lactate, and get yourself ready, especially in that last two minutes of the recovery, to go back to work. You clocked out for 10 minutes. You're clocking right back in. It's time to get back up, and giddy up, and go. One other thing I would say, and this is a trend that I use with my athletes for every workout, you want to build across each round. Don't shoot it all, and spend it all, in the first round. You build confidence when you can get stronger on subsequent rounds. So I'll tell them, maybe aim for a lower power target in Zone 5 on the first round. Then, the second round, try to achieve a higher, N plus 1, and by the third round, make it your strongest round. Because what happens mentally when you start to see your power numbers drop as the workout goes on? It doesn't put you in a good headspace. You don't feel warm and fuzzy. You don't feel great. Now, let's talk about race day. What happens when you're on the racecourse, and you start too hard for an FTP assessment, and you start to see power numbers drop? We start doing mental math, our head starts going to bad places. But when we can build and get stronger as the workout goes on, we feel better. Our headspace is better, we're stronger. And again, it's just a much better positive situation. It teaches you how to build across the workout and gain strength. Conserve and reserve so you can thrive and survive at the end. I emphasize that all the time to my athletes is don't swing for the fences on the first pitch. Get a single. The second round, get a double. The third round, get a triple. You want to get stronger in each subsequent round, because it won't make the workout seem like a slug-fest, also, by the third round, because you're bringing your A-game for the last round. You've put yourself in a position of success by setting lower power targets and building across the rounds. So if a lot of our listeners out there struggle because they shoot too hard on the first round, dial it back a little. It's okay. Dial it back, because this is about translating to racing, and on race day, if you come out the gate too hard, we've all done it. Think 5k. If you gas it--

Andrew Harley: It's a practicable skill.

Matt Sommer: Absolutely. It's called pacing. It's a very fundamental part of racing. And again, I go back to that, and they’re like, “Wow, that really makes sense.” And so I always tell them, I don't care if it's a run workout, a swim workout, or a bike workout, build through the Zone across all the efforts. If it's 2 x 16, your first one should be lower than your second one. Be stronger on the last set. You will, mentality-wise, you will appreciate it, because you finish feeling strong and confident, and that translates then to better racing and perceived, just, perception of the whole training program in general.

Andrew Harley: Alright, Matt, one more workout on tap for today. And it is Stamina. A TriDot athlete will not see a Stamina workout until they get into the race-prep phase, where TriDot has to actually start building your stamina to exist on course long enough to reach the finish line. So in developmental phase, you will not even see this workout. It's when you sign up for a middle- or long-distance event, and you start getting closer to that event, your Stamina workouts will get longer, and longer, and longer, and longer. For example, for an IRONMAN, my Stamina bike workouts might start at two and a half hours, and before the big show, they're going to get up to five and a half to six. So a lot of variation in how long your stamina efforts might get. Matt, there's actually two different examples I'm going to put on the screen. I'll start with one, and we'll switch to the other, because TriDot does have a couple different interval patterns for a Stamina workout, but they're all different variations of trying to build our stamina. So the first one is this monster right here, where you're biking for a very long time, and you've got a couple, typically three, maybe three, depending on the athlete, Zone 4 intervals, followed by some recovery, and then just Zone 3, Zone 3, Zone 3, Zone 3, Zone 3 until you're finally off the bike. Coach Matt, talk to us about the Stamina workouts.

Matt Sommer: Oh, I love these workouts. These are such a great opportunity to really dial in race day pacing, and that is the whole purpose of these workouts. The first thing I'm going to say is, and I'm going to throw my quote out on this one to start with, it's not about perfect, it's about effort, and when you bring that effort every single day, that's where transformation happens. That's how change occurs. And you got to remind yourself on this workout, it's not going to be perfect, but you got to bring the effort every single day for this workout. So I can't stress that enough. This situation right here, you can tell by looking at it, this is definitely a 140.6 stamina bike ride. What we see here is we definitely have traditional warm-up on the front end, and then you got a long, 90-minute stretch of Zone 2. And then the fun starts, then the party starts. So you showed up early for that 90 minutes, but you got three 10-minute Zone 4s, with good 5-minute Zone 2 recoveries. I do make sure I point that out, and my athletes understand, those are 5-minute recoveries in between there, not two. And then you get a nice, generous 10-minute effort of Zone 2, before you lead into what I'll call your sweet spot efforts. In this situation, it's eight 8-minute Zone 3 efforts, with 2-minute recoveries. That's really going to mimic race day now, because that's Zone 3. In this one, you might wonder, because other people will see it, where the efforts are all on the front end. Well, why do we have 90 minutes of Zone 2 before we go into efforts? Well, it's easy. It teaches you that you better be on your fueling and your hydration game. Because once you get through those first 90 minutes, you've had enough time that, if there are loopholes in your nutrition, and your hydration, and your electrolytes, it's going to get exposed. It's not going to be easy on the back end, if you have not been proactive about staying on top of what I call those three controllables: nutrition, electrolytes, and hydration. Very quickly will you see how hard you fall apart, and that's one of the biggest mistakes people make on these workouts is not fueling, hydrating, or getting enough electrolytes. So this is a great workout for really dialing in. Am I getting enough carbs? Is my fueling game on point? Am I hydrating enough? Are my electrolytes where they need to be? Because otherwise, you will not get through these efforts on the back end. In this situation, being that it's a 140.6, couple execution tips here, I do those Zone 4 efforts, and I encourage my athletes as well, at the basement of Zone 4. These are not top-end Zone 4 workouts. This is not a development workout. Don't try to push top-end watts, because it will deplete the tank. You should be just barely getting into Zone 4. It should be the ceiling of Zone 3, the basement of Zone 4. You're in between floors. So it's a very low-end Zone 4 effort. Again, the Zone 3 efforts. In this situation being a 140.6, again, intensity goes up, duration goes down. The longer the bike, my 140.6 athletes, I have them do their Zone 3 efforts, execute them at the basement of Zone 3, the ceiling of Zone 2, for a 140.6. They're not going to be top-end Zone 3. That's not where you're going to be on race day. You're going to be right at the cusp of Zone 2, Zone 3. Now, if this was a 70.3 Stamina bike, again, basement of Zone 4, and then, I typically have my athletes start around the middle of Zone 3--

Andrew Harley: Interesting.

Matt Sommer: We start around the middle of Zone 3, for the Zone 3 efforts, and then depending on the athlete and their ability, I may have them actually rotate through three different powers to find that sweet spot. We may do a tier of power outputs, starting lower for the first round, maybe five watts higher for the second, five watts higher for the third, and that's to help them identify, where do they feel strongest, the most consistent, and the most steady? Because it's about their body and helping them to identify where they're comfortable. It's not necessarily a number that's a cookie cutter approach. It may not be the middle of Zone 3 for everybody. We got to find where can they go for eight minutes, where can they recover for two, and comfortably repeat that effort? So it really helps them do some self-exploration and help me help them decide what hand we're going to play on race day. That's what these workouts are about. That's why this one's so important, because you got to jump around the different power Zones in Zone 3 to see, where am I most efficient? Where can I get to, that my heart rate can come back down, comfortably, over those two minutes, and I'm not already behind the eight-ball going into the next round. So I would definitely encourage you guys to maybe try a couple different powers, rotate through three different ones. If you're on ERG mode, you might go 170, 175, 180, and you might discover that 180 was just too much, eliminate it. And that's why we train, that's why we do these workouts, so we can dial in race day pacing. You don't know your limits unless you trial. It's better to find out in a training session that you overspent than discover that you had more money left to spend, if you get my drift. And then we got to take the wisdom that we gained from this training session and carry it to the next one, and repeat, and see. Wash, rinse, repeat. See if it works again, and that really helps you dial in what might be your race day pace, if you get my drift. But I absolutely love this workout. It could be anywhere from one to three, 10- to 12-minute Zone 4 efforts on the front end, and I've seen up to ten 10-minute Zone 3 on the back end. So it really depends, again, based on your training stress score, what your body can absorb. You're not going to come in under-prepared because you have less. You're not going to come in better prepared because you have more. It's what your body can absorb, digest, and then translate onto the racecourse. So I think it's important to remember that more is not always better. Ultimately, this workout's getting your body ready for race day. It's getting the muscles and the brain ready for what it's going to take to do the bike split, whether it's 56 miles or whether it's 112, at a sustained power output for race day. Those 2-minute recoveries, 5-minute recoveries, so intentional. Focus on fueling, stretching, and refocusing. One other tip that I really like to have my athletes do is hit that lap button on every effort. Look for steady, consistent power. You're not looking to have peaks and valleys. You want to be steady and consistent across the efforts the best you can. But yeah, this is absolutely one of my favorites. I mean, I love doing this workout outside. To me, this is one that's very transferable to outside riding, because where do you race on race day? Outside. Now, if you do live in an environment where you can't get outside, or maybe you've got to do it early because of family obligations, there's nothing wrong with the trainer. But to me, this is such a good one to get outside, because it gives you an opportunity to also test your race day apparel, to make sure you've got enough pockets to carry all your fueling, or any other needs that you might need on race day, and also to make sure that it's going to be comfortable on race day, from a chafing perspective. From a temperature – are you too hot? Are you too cold? It's just such a great workout. This is one of the most important ones, in the build, that I think a lot of people, when they see, they loathe. But when they do execute it, it really does give them the confidence and the wisdom to make changes or to stay the course for that race day execution. Andrew, you did bring up a great point. I wanted to echo this. You will not see a stamina workout if you are only doing sprints and olympics. You just won't have one. So don't feel like, if you're a listener and all you're doing is sprints and olympics--

Andrew Harley: You don’t need stamina. You don't need stamina at that distance.

Matt Sommer: And the development phase, actually, is ideal for preparing you for sprints and olympics, because it's all strong before long, It's all threshold red line, which is where most of us are going to be, power output-wise, for sprints and olympics, or should be. But this workout, it's a beautiful workout. There are days when I've looked at this, and my build's going into 70.3s, and I'm like, “Oh Lord, I've got 3 x 12s and 10 x 10s.” And once you get going, it really is dependent on your fueling and your hydration. Your ability to execute is dictated by how well are you fueling. You got to put gas in the tank. And this is a great workout that really helps me help my athletes dial in their nutrition. Because if you start falling apart on the back end, was it muscular, or was it psychological, or what was the cause? If you haven't been doing the training, yeah, this is going to be a hard one to get through. But typically, this one is 100% dependent on adequate fueling, hydration, and electrolytes.

Andrew Harley: Yeah, if you sign up for a long race, you got to do some long training sessions along the way. And Matt, I just used to, as an athlete, I used to picture this as, “Oh, it's just making me go a little longer every week to make sure I can go long enough on race day.” But hearing you really encourage, like, approach each interval as if you're in the race, as if you're putting forth race day effort, really interesting. So thanks for that. The last thing we'll do here, I do want to show another variation, because as an athlete's getting ready for race day, there's a couple things TriDot will do with your weekly long bike workout. It's often a Stamina. Sometimes it's Over-Unders, which we'll cover on a different episode. But there's a few different variations of stamina. And one of them is the pattern we just saw in different forms. And one of them is this pattern, which to me, when you look at it, it's not as scary as seeing 10 x 10. You see that, you're like, “I have to hold Zone 3 for how long?” But this one hurts way worse, in practice. What's different? They're both Stamina workouts in TriDot. They both serve the same purpose. You're going to get-- over the course of three, four months, getting ready for a long course event, you're going to see each of them a few times. Anything different here, you prep your athletes for, as opposed to the pattern we just saw?

Matt Sommer: Absolutely. This is what we call Stamina Up-Downs. That's the technical name of this workout. And again, can be anywhere from one to three rounds. It's always going to be a combination of Zone 4, Zone 3, Zone 4. Occasionally, you'll see Zone 3, Zone 4, Zone 3, depending on how it's served up for you and what level you're at. In this situation, you can see that it's 10 minutes of Zone 4, immediately followed by 10 minutes of Zone 3, immediately followed by 5 minutes of Zone 4. This is, in my opinion, a much tougher Stamina workout than the other one. The other one just seems like a long dragged out, because you have those eight 8-minute Zone 3s. In this one, it's a little bit more Zone 4 peppered in there. Again, I cannot stress enough, those are not top-end Zone 4 efforts. Those are going to be low Zone 4, barely outside of Zone 3. So again, you might be doing, if 185 is the cap of Zone 3, you might be at 188 for those Zone 4 efforts, and then drop them back down to about 170, 165 for the Zone 3. So it's not a big fluctuation between the two, it's just that you're barely touching into Zone 4. Again, this one, for me, is a cadence manipulation. I try to hold those Zone 4s around a cadence, for me, 75 to 80. That's a sweet spot with the gearing that I have on my bike. I think TriDot specifies probably around 80, but again, like I said, you're not going to blow up if you're in the high 70s. I think that's probably perfectly acceptable. And then the Zone 3 efforts, about 80 to 85. So it's not much of a slugfest. I look at those Zone 3s, honestly, as a recovery from the Zone 4 efforts. I look at those as an opportunity just to dial in that race pace. I always tell myself, I'm climbing a hill in the 10-minute Zone 4 effort. It's a long 3-mile mountain that I'm going up, and then I'm just kind of grinding it out, barely into Zone 4, going up those. And again, if you're capable of holding aero, I definitely would recommend it. 10 minutes is a long time in Zone 4, but being that you're in the lower end of Zone 4, some athletes, it's much more manageable. But then always get back to Zone 3, get back in that race, tucked position, dial it in, get your mind centered around what you're doing. And then again, embrace those 10-minute recoveries in between. You may come up onto the drops for the first couple minutes, just to recover. There's nothing wrong with that. Take two minutes to reset, refocus, restart. Fuel, hydrate, stretch. Clear your mind of ‘can't’, and then let's get back at it. And again, I look at this workout, I tell my athletes, presented in this exact manner, you can ask, you have the opportunity to do three rounds. As long as the form is there, as long as the strength is there, bring the effort. But if in the middle of something, if things start falling apart, take a break. Reset, refocus, restart. It's okay to give yourself the grace, okay? And I think that's the important thing to remember, on all these workouts, is give yourself grace if you need it, but mentally, go into it strong. If you've been doing the workouts, you're just playing the song you've been practicing for the past several weeks. It's well within your skill sets, but I would encourage you to make sure that you set your Zone 4 and Zone 3 targets at what are realistic achievable efforts. And again, for 140.6, that's going to be low Zone 3, very low Zone 3, and very low Zone 4. For 70.3, it's again, very low Zone 4, and middle, top third of Zone 3 is where I would encourage most people to start. I think if you make some adjustments and really try to be realistic with your power outputs, and not be top end, this is a much more manageable workout that's definitely going to command you being on your fueling and hydration game, though.

Andrew Harley: Yeah, Matt, for all of my Stamina sessions in TriDot, it took me a while to land at this place, but when you talk about giving yourself grace, a different form of that is I actually, usually, I'm doing these sessions on Zwift, or FulGaz, in my pain cave, on the trainer. It's just easier, more practical. Wake up at 4am, hop up there, and get it done. Every two hours, at the 2-hour mark, the 4-hour mark, I will let myself actually get off the bike, go pee, get on a fresh shirt, get on maybe fresh shorts. Just kind of freshen the situation up. It's kind of like a little Formula One pit stop. That pit stop takes 90 seconds to two minutes.

Matt Sommer: Yep.

Andrew Harley: So you're not really-- don't do it in between your intervals, but once you're around the 2-hour mark, either before all the interval work starts or after all the interval work's over. That just, for me, it was such a mental reset in getting these done effectively. You're not going to hurt your performance on race day. On race day you're outside, there's a lot of distractions, a lot going on. You don't need those pit stops. But inside, stuck in one place on the saddle with no wind, I do so much better lasting on these workouts with that reset every, roughly, two hours. Matt, one question I wanted to ask, you did reference, on that particular pattern, when to maybe be in aero versus not. Since these are race practices, in general, do you like for athletes to do aero a certain percentage of it, all of it, none of it, the intervals only? Any recommendation there?

Matt Sommer: Definitely in the Zone 3 efforts. I think that's important, because race day, that's where you're going to be. And then also in the balances Zone 2. I think you just got to be comfortable in aero in Zone 2, Zone 3. Zone 4 efforts, try to hold it the best you can coming up and down. Again, it's hard. Some people just don't have the ability to generate the power. And again, that's one of those things where you might come up for 30 seconds. I'm not talking 5 minutes, but if you need to come up for a 30-second break, just because of low back, neck tension. The other thing is, that could be also indicative of a poor bike fit. Okay. So that is something, also, to maybe take into consideration is, if I'm having upper back pain, neck pain, low back pain, is my bike fit correct? That could be a whisper that you need to listen to, when it comes to your bike fit. But there's nothing wrong, if it's a really flat course and you're just down, I got to come up and stretch periodically. A matter of fact, every 15 minutes, regardless of the course I'm on, I come up and stretch. Stand out of the saddle, stretch my low back. I go into spinal extension. No, I'm not aero when I'm doing that, but God, it feels good, and it allows me to reset and get back to work. So I do think, if you need to take those micro breaks, keep them minimal, be very intentional and purposeful in what you're doing, and get back to work, because you do need to be comfortable in the saddle.

[Transition Sound Effect]

Andrew Harley: On to the cool down of our show, where we just have a quick audience question for Coach Matt to answer. And this one came from Michelle. She posed this to the I AM TRIDOT group on Facebook, and I thought it was a really fun question. So it's almost like a podcast warm-up-esque type question. I think she was just looking for some good fodder, here. But I'm curious to hear if there's a coaching angle, here. But anyway, Michelle wants to know, “When you're putting your socks and shoes on during transition, do you go sock, sock, shoe, shoe, or do you go sock, shoe, sock, shoe?” And again, I think she was just posting this for fodder, just to kind of see what people were going to say, but it made me curious, Matt, from your coaching perspective, does it matter? Is there a faster, or more efficient approach, between the two ways we can put our footwear on? What do you think?

Matt Sommer: I think at the end of the day, it's all personal comfort. I think the fastest and the quickest way is sockless, ultimately, just go straight to the shoes. Now, I don't race that way. I do not want to get blisters. To me, comfort is king. I'm personally a sock, sock, shoe, shoe kind of guy. I had to sit there when I saw this question. I was like, what do I do?

Andrew Harley: I had to think about it. What do I do?

Matt Sommer: Yeah, because it's so intuitive. Now, the only tip I would give people, when it does come to socks and shoes, two things that I always do is I always Bodyglide my entire foot and my ankle, regardless of what I'm doing. And I also spray Tri Slide on my feet and on my ankles. Why? It's not just for the swim. It's not just because the wetsuit goes on easier. It's that when I do get out of the water, it stays on. It doesn't disappear because you're swimming. It lets the socks slide on easier. So that is one way to make sure. Because if you've got wet feet and you're putting dry socks on, sometimes they get bunched up. So one strategy is I Bodyglide all over my feet, sock slides on much easier. So I go sock, sock, shoe, shoe, and I stay in the same socks, then, when I also get onto the run, one other strategy that I like to employ is I put a couple puffs of baby powder in each sock. I just think that's something easy. I roll the socks down, so they're easy to pull on. They've got the baby powder in them. I've got the Bodyglide/Tri Slide already on the feet, and I just go. I mean, I even thought about it. I usually go left, right, left, right. That's just how I work. I don't know why. It's not like my right foot's loved any less, but that's just, I had to sit there and think about it, and it was funny. I saw this question. I raced this past weekend, up at Tri Cities, and I had to laugh, because guess what I was thinking about when I came in off the swim. Michelle's question came straight to my mind. I was sitting there in transition, and I've got people yelling, and with everything going on, all the pandemonium of me racing, I kind of chuckled to myself and smiled. I caught myself smiling as I was sitting there, and I'm like, left, right, left, right. So I had to laugh about that one. But yeah. And that works for me.

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