Zwift Camp: Baseline is now underway, with over 125,000 Zwifters taking part so far in this new style of assessment-oriented training program.
I’m one of those Zwifters, and plan to share my experience in three posts – one for each section of the program:
- Sprinting
- Attacking
- Endurance
As you may or may not know, each of these sections consists of two activities: first a workout, then a test. I cover the sprinting workout and test below.
Sprint Booster Workout
The Sprint Booster workout has you tackle several high-intensity 20-second sprint intervals, with recovery sections in between. The full workout is 55 minutes long with 10 sprint segments, while the lite version is 29 minutes with 6 sprints. Here’s what the workouts look like with my FTP set at 310W:
I went with the full 55-minute workout, and did it as a group workout event. (You can do these as on-demand workouts by yourself as well, but I wanted to try the group workout experience.)
Watch me ride this workout:
Going into the event, I could tell it wouldn’t be terribly hard for me. (That’s not a brag. It’s just that, as an experienced cyclist, I know that sprinting and sub-1-minute efforts are where I’m strongest. My educated guess is that this section of Zwift Camp: Baseline will be the easiest of the three for me.)
After a warmup with three 30-second efforts to get your blood pumping, this workout has you complete 2 matching sets of 5×20-second sprints. The efforts increase each time throughout the set of 5, so for me with my FTP set at 310 each set of 5 was:
- 560W (180% FTP)
- 590W (190% of FTP)
- 620W (200% of FTP)
- 650W (210% of FTP)
- 680W (220% of FTP)
The text popups for the workout did a good job of warning me to increase my cadence before beginning the sprint. This is a crucial tip for ERG workouts, because if your cadence is low (let’s say below 85RPM) heading into a high-powered interval, when that resistance ramps up on your trainer, you may not have the torque in your legs to turn the pedals over, and you’ll enter the dreaded ERG spiral of death.
Power (watts) on a bike are a function of torque (how hard you’re pushing on the pedals, measured in Newton-meters, Nm) and cadence (how quickly you’re spinning the pedals, measured in rotations per minute, RPM). So if you’re trying to hold a particular power number, and you decrease your cadence, you’ll have to increase your torque to compensate. Or if you decrease your torque, you’ll need to increase your cadence to compensate.
Ramping up your cadence to 100+RPM heading into the sprint intervals helps ease the torque requirements, so when the resistance ramps up your legs will still be able to turn the pedals over.
I mixed seated and standing efforts during this sprint workout, because it’s good to be able to do both, and I wanted to compare how they felt. I found the standing efforts to be easier than anticipated, and I found I was comfortable sprinting out of the saddle at 93-100 RPM, while seated was closer to 105-112 RPM.
Overall I found the text instructions to be helpful/inspiring. But I would tweak them a bit, especially the one at the end of the very first sprint that says, “Final push! Empty the tank!” (Because if you’re emptying the tank on the first of 10 sprints, you’re in trouble.)
The group workout used the Tides and Temples route, which was actually a great choice for the event because the workout ended with us near the top of the climb portion. I just had to ride a few more minutes, then it turned me left onto The Grade descent for an easy cooldown.
Takeaways from the Sprint Booster Workout
I received an email from Zwift immediately after finishing the sprint workout, telling me I’d unlocked the Zwift Camp: Baseline kit and inviting me to visit zwift.com/zwift-camp and sign up for more events.
My only takeaway from this workout was that I need to keep working on higher cadence standing sprints. For whatever reason, indoors, I tend to do out-of-the-saddle sprints at a lower cadence than outdoors. But I think if I can get my standing sprint cadence up above 95 I’ll see higher sprint power numbers out of the saddle.
Sprint Test
The sprint test has you complete three all-out 15-second sprint efforts. Your goal is to get your best possible 10-second power in these segments so Zwift can accurately assess your sprinting abilities. Here’s what it looks like with my FTP set at 310W (the power requirements will change depending on your personal FTP):
Two days after my sprint booster workout, I started my Saturday long ride with the sprint test.
This a simple workout in terms of layout: a standard warmup followed by three 15-second all-out efforts. The efforts are separated by 7-minute rest intervals to give your legs time to recharge.
Watch me complete the sprint test:
My first sprint was a standing sprint, but I felt like I was in too hard of a gear (22), sitting right at 80RPM. Strava shows a 1026W peak, 978W 10s average, at 80RPM.
So I went with gear 20 the next time. This was my best interval, with Strava showing a 1055W peak, 1006W 10s average at 92RPM.
I still felt like I was still mashing a bit in gear 20, but I only had one more sprint interval left, and wanted to try it seated. So that’s what I did! But the results weren’t great: 993W peak, 885W average, 117RPM.
Virtual Shifting + ERG Mode Tip
If you use Zwift’s virtual shifting and ERG mode in this workout, here’s an important tip: be sure to turn off ERG mode well before you hit each of the 15s sprints, so you can get your gearing correct before the sprint begins!
With virtual shifting, Zwift will place you in the default gear (8) as soon as you enter a free-ride segment of an ERG workout. That’s not a big deal if the free ride section is a longer one (say, 1 minute+). But if you’re supposed to be holding maximal power for a 15-second free ride section this is a big problem, because you’ll probably end up spending the first several seconds of the interval shifting from 8th gear to whatever gear works best for your sprint!
So you’ll see in my video above that I simply toggled ERG mode off around 30-60 seconds before the sprints began. This gave me time I get into a better gear for sprinting. Then I completed the sprints and re-enabled ERG mode for the 7-minute ramp-up sections.
This is something Zwift needs to fix long term, though, so I’ve shared this feedback directly with them. I’ve pondered various ways they could improve the experience, but one that seems easy and doable (seriously, an intern could do it in one afternoon) would be to add a new 10-20 second free ride section just before any short free ride segments in their existing workouts. Include in that section some text instructions to adjust your gears so you’re ready to hit the upcoming power target. Viola!
Takeaways from the Sprint Test
Immediately after finishing the Sprint Test, I received an email from Zwift:
That 10s power number of 1028 is a new PR for me, at least compared to anything I did in the last two years. But I think if I dialed in my gearing for a fresh out of the saddle effort I could do slightly better! So my big takeaway here is… the same as my takeaway from the sprint workout. (Apparently I’m a slow learner). I need to keep working on higher cadence standing sprints.
One important callout that I want to mention a second time is that Zwift is evaluating your 10-second power in this test… not your 15-second power! This is the right move by Zwift, because they rightly realize that it can take riders a few seconds to ramp up power in a 15-second interval.
Questions or Comments?
I’m really excited about the direction Zwift is going in with Zwift Camp: Baseline, and I hope you are too. Are you taking part in this program? Share your thoughts or questions below!
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