I’m currently in the middle of this year’s SSB. I tend to do the low volume as it fits in around work and family and then I add extra sessions as I can. I will generally do about 400TSS per week.
My question is - what would be the extra benefit of getting up early on an extra day to do an extra Sweet Spot session? I wouldn’t imagine it does anything to lift my FTP, but is there an additional benefit to my endurance or overall bike fitness or is it purely a workout for the sake of a workout?
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The benefit of more time in sweet spot, and thus more training volume is that it is increasing your overall base fitness. Certainly it is hard to trace an FTP gain back to a single extra workout - but more volume during base phase will help make your base stronger and thus theoretically give you the ability to build a taller fitness pyramid later in your training.
So while you likely cannot trace these single additions to improved performance you also should take advantage of the time and your body’s ability to handle additional stress because it will make you stronger for longer during your events this coming season
Well, it’s more training load…so if you’re contemplating adding more training load there is probably a reason for that, correct? For me the only reason to add additional training load is if progress has stalled & I need some additional training stress to progress further OR if the specific demands of a target event warrant adapting to a higher stress load.
On the other hand, if you’re satisfied with the progress you’re making with your current training load there probably isn’t much point in it.
I guess another reason to do extra morning rides is just to aid recovery. That type of ride wouldn’t be SS, though.
If you’re just moving from 3 sweet spot sessions on the Low volume Plan sessions a week to 4 I’d see no issue in that.
That’s essentially similar to just following the Mid Volume Plan I would imagine and as long as you can cope with that more is generally better.