Sweet Spot Training: The Complete Guide from the Coach Who Invented It

Sweet spot training is riding at 84 to 97% of your FTP, the balance point between intensity and strain where you get the most fitness for the time you have. I coined the term in January 2005, and for twenty years it has been the foundation of how FasCat builds cycling fitness: raise your FTP, extend your endurance, and build the durability to ride strong in the final hour. This is the complete guide from the coach who invented it, and that coach is me: Frank Overton, founder of FasCat Coaching.

How Sweet Spot Training Was Invented

In January of 2005 I was working with a group of coaches and sports scientists developing a new power based impulse response performance model. While we kept a lid on it publicly, its revelations changed how I coached. Privately, we started calling the intensity that produced the biggest rise in an athlete's fitness for the least physiological cost the "sweet spot", and the name stuck. What began as a private term among colleagues became the worldwide standard for base training with power.

You can hear the full story on our podcast, How I Invented Sweet Spot Training, and go deeper on the underlying science with the co-developer of the power based training model himself in Sweet Spot Training with Dr. Andy Coggan.

Since then, thousands of athletes have followed FasCat sweet spot training plans to raise their FTP, finish their first century, and get on the podium. Other platforms teach sweet spot training. We invented it, and we have spent twenty years refining how to use it.

What Is Sweet Spot Training?

Sweet spot training is a balanced amount of intensity and strain that produces a maximal increase in an athlete's power and endurance. The sweet spot occurs between upper zone 3 (tempo) and lower zone 4 (threshold): 84 to 97% of your threshold power and heart rate.

It is within this range that you build your base the most while simultaneously increasing your power and endurance. Sweet spot training gives you more bang for your buck, and thus the nickname, the "sweet spot".

In the graph above, notice how the training effect increases as intensity rises from zone 2 through tempo toward threshold. At the same time, physiological strain increases with intensity. The sweet spot is the point on those two curves that produces the greatest training effect with less physiological strain. When we say sweet spot training is a balanced amount of intensity and strain, these are the two curves we are referencing.

Sweet spot is also race specific. When was the last time you raced at a zone 2 pace? Sweet spot training addresses the physiological requirements of the majority of your racing. It is not a substitute for VO2 max, anaerobic, or neuromuscular intervals. It builds the aerobic engine that comfortably handles the large majority of the power demands in your races, so you are ready when the smack goes down at the make or break moments.

What Will Happen to Your Cycling If You Sweet Spot Train

Here is what athletes experience over a proper block of sweet spot training, and why we build entire plans around it:

• Your FTP goes up. Sweet spot delivers a large, repeatable aerobic stimulus, and FTP rises with it. Athletes following our sweet spot plans typically raise their FTP by 5 to 20% over a full base.
• You become more durable. Durability is the ability to still produce your best power deep into a long ride, after thousands of kilojoules of work. Accumulating time at sweet spot teaches your body to resist fatigue, so hour four feels like hour one used to.
• Your endurance expands. The same adaptations that raise FTP, more mitochondria, more capillarization, greater fat burning, let you ride longer at every intensity below threshold.
• You unlock the next level of training. A big sweet spot base is what lets you absorb VO2 max and anaerobic intervals later in the season. Intensity without base is a house without a foundation. With base, the intervals stick, and you get faster twice.
• You will just feel faster. Group rides feel easier. Climbs come back to you. That is the compounding effect of consistent sweet spot work.

The physiological reason is simple: sweet spot produces more adaptations per hour than easier riding. In the graph below, you will notice how sweet spot training produces more physiological adaptations than zone 2. For the full breakdown, read the physiological benefits of sweet spot training.

Who Should Do Sweet Spot Training?

Almost every cyclist, at the right time of year. I designed sweet spot for athletes with jobs and families, and twenty years later these are the riders who get the most from it:

• Time crunched cyclists training 6 to 12 hours a week. You do not have the hours for a zone 2 only base, and sweet spot gets you more fitness per hour.
• Masters athletes. Sweet spot delivers a big aerobic stimulus without the recovery cost of repeated threshold and VO2 max work, and that matters more every year past 40.
• Gravel, gran fondo, and marathon MTB riders. These events are hours of sustained sub threshold power, so sweet spot is race specific preparation.
• Road, criterium, and cyclocross racers during base and early season, before race specific intensity takes over.
• Triathletes, who need bike fitness without wrecking the run and the swim.
• First century and first event riders. Sweet spot builds the endurance and durability to finish strong, not just finish.

When should you not sweet spot? When you are deep in your race season and need VO2 max sharpness, during a recovery week, and on days your OTS is high or your Needle Score is low. Read when to, and when not to, sweet spot.

How to Find Your Sweet Spot

Sweet spot is defined by power, so start with your FTP. Perform a 20 minute power based field test to establish it, then take 84 to 97% of that number. That range is your sweet spot.

By power

Multiply your FTP by 0.84 and 0.97. A rider with a 250 watt FTP has a sweet spot of 210 to 243 watts. Start each interval near the bottom of the range and finish it near the top.

By heart rate

No power meter? Use 84 to 97% of your threshold heart rate, the average heart rate from your 20 minute field test. Heart rate lags power by a minute or two and drifts upward on long intervals and hot days, so treat it as a guide rail rather than a target to chase in the first minutes of an interval.

By feel

Sweet spot is a medium hard effort, about a 7 out of 10, that you could sustain for roughly an hour. Breathing is deep and rhythmic, you can speak in short sentences but would rather not, and your legs are working without burning. If you could ride all day, you are in zone 2. If you are counting the seconds, you are at threshold or above.

Or skip the math: CoachCat detects your FTP automatically from your rides and sets your sweet spot zones in the Profile tab. You can also use our sweet spot and training zone calculator.

How Much Sweet Spot Should You Do?

This is the question we get most, and there is a right and a wrong amount. The short version:

• Per workout: a basic session is 3 x 5 minutes, or 15 total minutes of sweet spot, and that is the practical lower limit. Well conditioned athletes build toward 2 to 3 hours of total sweet spot in a single ride.
• Per week: typically 2 to 3 sweet spot days, with endurance and recovery rides around them so the work can be absorbed. Do not sweet spot every day.
• Per season: we recommend roughly 16 weeks of sweet spot during base, progressing the workload week over week before moving to race specific intensity.
• For long events: let the course set the dose. Gravel and marathon MTB athletes start around 60 minutes of total sweet spot and build to 120 minutes or more.

The full prescription, with progressions by ability level and time of year, is in How Much Sweet Spot Training Should You Do? Also read when to, and when not to, sweet spot, and the 8 sweet spot myths, debunked.

How to Do Sweet Spot Workouts

Ride steady intervals at 84 to 97% of FTP, recover briefly, repeat, and progress the total time at sweet spot week over week. A classic base progression looks like this:

Pace them steady. The right way is an even, repeatable power across every interval, not a hero first rep followed by fading ones. There is a right and a wrong way to do sweet spot intervals.

Three sweet spot workouts to start with

1. Beginner, 60 minutes: 3 x 5 minutes. Warm up 15 minutes easy, ride 3 x 5 minutes at sweet spot with 5 minutes easy between, then cool down. Fifteen minutes of sweet spot is the practical minimum dose, and every cyclist can complete it.
2. Intermediate, 90 minutes: 2 x 20 minutes. Warm up 20 minutes, ride 2 x 20 minutes at sweet spot with 5 minutes easy between, then cool down. Forty minutes of sweet spot is the classic base workout and the one our plans build toward in the first month.
3. Advanced, 2 to 3 hours: 3 x 30 minutes or a sweet spot group ride. Warm up, ride 3 x 30 minutes at sweet spot with 10 minutes easy between, or join a spirited group ride and let the pace put you in the zone for 90 to 120 minutes. This is the road to the 2 to 3 hours of total sweet spot that well conditioned athletes accumulate in a long base ride.

Or let the app do it. Paste this prompt into CoachCat and it builds the workout to your exact FTP, current LEVEL, and OTS, then tells you how to pace it:

Sweet spot works anywhere you ride:

• Indoors: the trainer is perfect for sweet spot because there is no coasting. See how to do sweet spot rides indoors and sweet spot on Zwift.
• On group rides: a spirited group ride is a sweet spot session in disguise. Here is how to sweet spot on a group ride and our Sweet Spot Saturday base rides.
• On any bike: road, gravel, MTB, or cross bike, the zone is the zone. Sweet spot on any bike you want.

5 Coaching Tips for Better Sweet Spot Workouts

1. Start at the bottom of the zone and finish at the top. Open each interval at 84 to 88% of FTP and build through it. A hero first interval followed by fading ones is the wrong way to sweet spot.
2. Progress total time, not intensity. The intensity is fixed. Add 5 to 10 minutes of total sweet spot per week, then take a recovery week every third or fourth week so the work is absorbed.
3. Do it on fresh legs. Schedule sweet spot after a rest day or an endurance day, not the day after a hard group ride. If your OTS is high or your Needle Score is low, ride zone 2 instead and come back to it.
4. Fuel the work. Sweet spot burns carbohydrate. Eat carbs before the ride and take them in during anything longer than 90 minutes, so the last interval looks like the first.
5. Pick terrain that lets you ride steady. A long climb, a flat road with few stops, or the trainer. Indoors there is no coasting, so trim the interval time a little compared to outside.

Sweet Spot vs Tempo vs Threshold: What Is the Difference?

Sweet spot straddles the top of tempo (zone 3) and the bottom of threshold (zone 4), which is why cyclists ask whether it is just tempo by another name. It is not. Tempo at 76 to 83% of FTP does not deliver the threshold raising stimulus. Full threshold at 100% delivers it, but costs so much recovery that you can only do it once or twice a week. Sweet spot sits in the band where the stimulus is nearly as big as threshold and the cost is closer to tempo, so you can repeat it two or three times a week and accumulate far more of it.

The zone percentages are Dr. Andy Coggan's power based training levels, the same model sweet spot was born from. Hear him explain the physiology in Sweet Spot Training with Dr. Andy Coggan.

Sweet Spot vs Zone 2

Zone 2 works. It just takes more hours than most athletes have. If you can train 20+ hours a week like a pro, a zone 2 heavy approach will build a huge aerobic engine. If you have 6 to 12 hours, sweet spot produces more adaptations per hour and a faster rise in FTP. That is not opinion, it is the intensity to strain math the sweet spot was named for.

I made the case in the most watched video we have ever produced, and updated it last year with the latest science:

Go deeper: why sweet spot is better than zone 2 and sweet spot versus zone 2 training plan design.

Sweet Spot vs Polarized

The sweet spot versus polarized argument is a false debate. They are tools for different phases, not warring religions. We use sweet spot to build the base, then polarize as racing approaches: easy days easy, hard days very hard. Used together, they produce higher FTPs than either alone.

Read why polarized vs sweet spot is a false debate and how we combine sweet spot and polarized training.

The Proof: 20 Years of Faster Cyclists

Pros have always trained this way, even before it had a name. When you read about riders using a block of racing to "find their legs" or "hone their form", they are accumulating race pace aerobic work, which is sweet spot by another name. We simply turned that into a repeatable method for athletes with jobs and families.

And it is not just journalists. Thousands of FasCat athletes have used sweet spot base training to set FTP personal bests and get on the podium. Read their reviews and stories.

Sweet Spot Training FAQ

The Sweet Spot Training Library

Twenty years of sweet spot training tips, organized by question. Start anywhere:

Ready to Sweet Spot? Follow the Plan That Invented It

Reading about sweet spot raises your knowledge. Following a plan raises your FTP. Our sweet spot training plans, Sweet Spot Part 1 through 4 plus event specific builds for gravel, marathon MTB, cyclocross, and triathlon, live in the CoachCat app, where your FTP, zones, and workouts update automatically as you get faster. First week free.

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