Wednesday, October 15, 2025
After two weeks of building your aerobic base and pushing your VO2max ceiling, it’s time to talk about the training zone that might be the biggest secret weapon in cycling: Sweet Spot. Meet the Sweet Spot Foundation 2×15 workout.
Here’s what makes this interesting: it feels hard enough that you know you’re working, but not so hard that you’re counting down the seconds until it’s over. And despite that “manageable” feeling, you’re triggering the same aerobic adaptations that would normally require hours of Zone 2 riding. For anyone juggling work, family, and trying to stay fast on the bike, that’s the holy grail.
The Best-Kept Secret in Cycling Training
Sweet Spot training sits at 88-94% of your FTP – right in that gray area between tempo and threshold. It’s where professional domestiques live when they’re controlling the front of the peloton hour after hour, race after race. Not quite threshold (which would destroy them), but significantly harder than easy endurance riding.
The brilliance? You’re working hard enough to drive serious physiological change – increasing mitochondrial density, improving oxygen utilization, building muscular endurance – but you can actually repeat this workout multiple times per week without wrecking yourself. Compare that to true threshold work, which leaves most of us needing 48-72 hours to recover, and you start to understand why this zone earns its name.
Your body is getting almost all the benefits of threshold training, but at an intensity you can sustain longer and recover from faster. That’s the sweet spot: maximum adaptation per unit of suffering.
The Workout Breakdown
Total Time: 55 minutes
Intensity: 7/10
Training Stress Score (TSS): 50
Structure:
- 10 minutes Progressive Warmup (45-70% FTP): Properly prepare your body for the work ahead
- 15 minutes Sweet Spot (88-94% FTP): First sustained effort
- 5 minutes Recovery (45-55% FTP): Active recovery between intervals
- 15 minutes Sweet Spot (88-94% FTP): Second sustained effort
- 10 minutes Cool Down (35-50% FTP): Proper recovery to finish strong
Thirty minutes of quality Sweet Spot work in a well-structured hour. This is what time-efficient training looks like when it’s done right.
Why This Works Better Than You’d Think
The traditional path to building aerobic fitness involves endless hours of Zone 2 riding – think 15-20 hours per week to see meaningful adaptations. That works brilliantly if you’re a professional cyclist with nothing else to do. For the rest of us? Not realistic.
Sweet Spot training delivers similar physiological adaptations in a fraction of the time. Those two 15-minute intervals create the same training stimulus you’d get from 2-3 hours of easy riding. Your mitochondria don’t care how long you rode – they respond to the training stress. And Sweet Spot provides plenty of stress without the recovery penalty of harder work.
This makes it perfect for maintaining and building fitness when life gets busy. You’re not choosing between training effectively and having time for everything else – you’re getting real results in the time you actually have available.
Who This Is Perfect For
This workout is a game-changer if you:
- Need every minute of training to count because time is your most limited resource
- Want to build power and endurance without the brutality of repeated threshold intervals
- Are preparing for events where sustained power matters – centuries, gran fondos, climbing challenges, or just keeping pace on the Saturday group ride
- Feel like you’ve plateaued and need a different training stimulus to break through
- Prefer workouts that feel “comfortably hard” rather than “am I going to make it”
- Can only train 4-6 hours per week but still want to see meaningful fitness gains
This is strategic training for riders who understand that smart beats hard every time.
What It Actually Feels Like
Let’s set expectations: “Sweet Spot” doesn’t mean easy. It means optimal. You’ll know you’re working.
At 88-94% FTP, you’re breathing hard enough that conversation would be difficult but not impossible. If you had to, you could explain to someone how your day went, but you’d prefer not to. Your legs will have that persistent burn that says “we’re working here,” but not the screaming pain of threshold efforts.
By Rate of Perceived Exertion, aim for about 7 out of 10. Hard, focused, but sustainable. You should finish each 15-minute interval thinking “I could probably do one more if I had to” rather than “thank god that’s over.”
If you’re sailing through these intervals barely breathing hard, you’re under-shooting the zone. If you’re white-knuckling your handlebars and counting seconds, you’re overshooting it. The sweet spot is right in the middle – genuinely challenging but genuinely sustainable.
The Benefits You’ll Actually Notice
After 3-4 weeks of consistent Sweet Spot work (1-2 sessions per week):
Your FTP climbs. This is the most direct benefit. Sweet Spot work specifically targets the physiological systems that determine your functional threshold power, and you’ll see measurable increases in your hour power.
Sustained efforts become comfortable. Those 20-minute climbs or long pulls at the front of the group? They’ll start feeling significantly more manageable as your body learns to resist fatigue at high power outputs.
Recovery between hard efforts improves. Sweet Spot work enhances your body’s ability to clear lactate and recover, which translates to better performance in everything from interval sessions to criteriums.
Your aerobic engine strengthens across the board. This isn’t just about going harder – it’s about making everything feel easier relative to your capacity. Your endurance rides feel more comfortable, your tempo work becomes sustainable, and your threshold efforts get stronger.
How to Execute It Properly
Don’t skip the warm-up. Those 15 minutes of progressive warm-up are crucial. Your body needs time to transition from rest to working intensity. The longer warm-up in this workout ensures you’re truly ready when that first Sweet Spot interval begins.
Start conservatively on interval one. There’s a temptation to hammer that first 15-minute block. Resist it. These intervals are long enough that pacing matters. Start at the lower end of the Sweet Spot range (88-89% FTP) and settle in. You can always build slightly if you’re feeling strong.
The recovery interval is sacred. Really back off during those 5 minutes between efforts. This isn’t a tempo ride – it’s active recovery designed to clear some lactate and let you hit interval two with quality. Spin easy, drink some water, mentally prepare for round two.
Consistency beats heroics. Better to complete both intervals at 88-91% FTP with solid power than to blow yourself up at 94-96% on interval one and limp through interval two at 82%. The training stimulus comes from sustained time in the zone, not from brief spikes above it.
Power should be steady. Unlike those 30/15 micro-intervals where power is all over the place, Sweet Spot work should look smooth on your power file. Minimize surges and dips. Steady, sustainable, relentless.
Use the full cool-down. That 10-minute cool-down matters. It helps clear metabolic waste, begins the recovery process, and makes a real difference in how you feel later that day and the next morning. Don’t just stop when the last interval ends.
No Power Meter? Here’s Your Guide
Use heart rate as your primary guide. Sweet Spot corresponds to roughly 75-85% of your maximum heart rate. Note that HR takes several minutes to rise to match your effort, so don’t panic if you’re not in the zone immediately – by 5 minutes into each interval, you should be sitting steadily in that range.
The talk test works well here too. You should be able to speak in short sentences but wouldn’t want to carry on a full conversation. If you can chat easily, go harder. If you can barely grunt responses, back off slightly.
RPE is reliable for Sweet Spot. Aim for that 7 out of 10 – “this is work, but I’ve got this” territory. Not casual, not desperate. Purposeful.
Time Variations and Progressions
Time-crunched? Try the Sweet Spot Foundation 2×15 – Short version, which trims the warm-up and cool-down to fit into 39 minutes while keeping the core Sweet Spot work identical.
Shorter intervals: If 15 minutes feels daunting, start with 2×10 or 2×12 minutes and build up. You’ll still get training benefit from the shorter duration.
Longer version: Once you’ve mastered 2×15 minutes, progress to 2×20 minutes, keeping everything else the same. Eventually, you can build to a single 40-minute Sweet Spot effort if you want to really test your sustained power.
Different structure: Some riders prefer 3×10 or 3×12 with shorter recoveries (3 minutes instead of 5). The total Sweet Spot time remains similar, but the psychological break of shorter intervals can make it feel more manageable.
Progressive power: Try starting your first interval at 88% FTP and your second at 91% FTP. Or start each interval at 88% and gradually build to 93% over the 15 minutes. These variations keep your mind engaged and teach you pacing skills.
The Reality About Sweet Spot
Don’t be fooled by the friendly name or the fact that this isn’t a maximum effort. Sweet Spot work is real training that produces real gains. You’re going to finish these intervals having genuinely worked.
But – and this is crucial – you won’t be destroyed afterward. You can do this workout on a Tuesday evening and still train quality on Thursday. You can fit Sweet Spot work into a busy week without sacrificing the rest of your life to recovery. That’s what makes it sustainable.
The pros spend significant time here because it works. Not because it’s easy, but because it’s effective and repeatable. For time-crunched cyclists, that combination is unbeatable.
Getting Started This Week
Find the Sweet Spot Foundation 2×15 at velovostra.com/workouts.
Same deal as always: free to download, input your FTP for personalized zones, take the workout file to whatever platform you prefer. No barriers, no hassles, just training.
This workout is equally effective on the trainer or outdoors. Indoor training gives you perfect control over power, which is ideal for nailing the intensity. Outdoor work is fantastic if you have a steady climb or quiet road where you can maintain consistent effort without interruptions. Either way works – choose based on what fits your schedule and keeps you motivated.
Scheduling tip: Sweet Spot works well mid-week when you need quality training but don’t have hours available. Save your long endurance rides for weekends when you have more time, and slot Sweet Spot sessions into those 45-60 minute windows during the week.
Your goal is steady, sustainable power across both intervals. If your power file looks like you’re riding in traffic (surges and drops everywhere), you’re not getting the full benefit. Smooth and steady wins this one.
Next Week’s Preview
We’ve covered the foundation zones – endurance, VO2max, and sweet spot. Time to explore what happens when you start mixing intensities within a single workout. Get ready for over-unders: the workout that teaches your body to recover while still working hard.
Want Training That Actually Fits Your Life?
These individual workouts are excellent tools for adding specific stimulus to your training week. But if you want consistent, measurable progress toward actual goals, you need more than random workouts – you need a plan.
VeloVostra builds complete training schedules around your real life: your available hours, your specific goals, your current fitness level. Whether you’re preparing for an event or just want to be stronger on every ride, there’s a structured plan designed to get you there systematically.
No guesswork about what to do when. No wondering if you’re doing too much or too little. Just progressive, intelligent training that connects each workout to the next, building the rider you want to become.
How did the Sweet Spot intervals treat you? Did you discover that “comfortably hard” can actually deliver serious training benefit? Drop a comment and let me know – and if you’re hunting for more Sweet Spot variations, the complete workout library has options ranging from 20 minutes to 2+ hours of total Sweet Spot time.
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