We’ve just released two new sessions in the app – ATTACKER and COBBLER. Attacker was designed by our Sports Science Team and edit was put together by our creative genius Sir Francois Guguen who has done an awesome job on the storyline and, as usual, the music.
If you follow me on Strava, you’ll have seen that I tested this workout a few times over the past few months. It’s a tough one (and the earliest versions were even tougher!) – those one minute recoveries are just sooooooo short! But it’s not too hard – it’s one of those that make you uncomfortable but never really break you. It’s a gem of a session and I think you’ll really Tough Love it. Have at it and let me know what you think here!
Description:
Being able to finish strong comes from properly pacing your efforts, and preparing to finish strong. This session is all about improving those abilities. For just over 50 minutes, you will perform five different 6-minute long progressive efforts that start just below FTP and finish well above it for the final minute. The real challenge of this workout is the limited 1-minute recovery sections between each effort. You’ll want to savour every second of those short recoveries.
This workout will help improve your FTP and improve your ability to recover while pushing just under your threshold for the first half of each effort. You’ll also learn to manage your pacing and put out power above your threshold after holding steady just below that breakpoint.
“Attacker” is quite similar to “Defender”, though the efforts within each interval are 2-minutes shorter and instead of starting harder and backing off slightly like in “Defender”, the efforts in this session start controlled and keep squeezing harder and harder to the end." Riders with sustained weakness will benefit greatly from this workout, as will anyone looking to push up their FTP.
Really good workout. I liked the fun SUF references (until mid-video, after that I probably missed them, too focused on attacking) And that last effort when you find out where you are, you know what’s going to happen, and it’s all about standing (aïe aïe aïe as Jalabert would say) pushing and giving everything
So it took me a couple of days, but today’s outside ride was shelved in favour of staying in the dry and attacking. Great workout - fun story, good music, typical SUF humour. Everything a classic workout should be. Great job
@David.McQuillen.KoS I think that would be a great feature in general. Each workout should have alternative workouts in the ‘coach notes’ box. I would love that.
Did this for the first time last night…boy,. does the nice warm up provide a false sense of comfort. Tough workout with minimal recovery but not tough enough (like Nine Hammers!) to make it virtually impossible.
Did it this morning, only at 90% as I’m rebuilding after an enforced layoff, but enioyed it nonetheless. Loved the suf sports details and ads, great work everyone.
Yes, and as time crunched I am (or the Suf community in general) I really do miss out lots of new but also old workouts because I don’t find the time to screen the workout catalogue! So it would be really, really really great to have alternative workouts prescribed as well
just fiished it, wow what a blast! super enjoyable, am not a fan of standing efforts! arghhh! but wow I really enjoyed it. How about the Harddennes classic? and Painstation, Hamstaland… hehe all those details that make it fun!
Also as per my 4DP am an attacker so for the first time i really feel like it, push it, recover a bit, repeat…
really I felt every ramp almost brought me to the brink, but just, then it dialed back.
Thanks to everyone who make it happen! Keep up the good job
Missed out on my scheduled workout, yesterday, due to family obligations. So today I did Attacker. I had two full days off after big workouts on Fri & Sat, so I could really feel the stiffness in my legs.
This workout was a beast, especially on stiff legs. Loved all the SUF jokes. The intervals wouldn’t ordinarily be too difficult. The big hurt from this workout is the very short recovery in between them.
In the warm up, tho, I had to snicker a bit when the power target went up from 202 to 203 then back to 202. I don’t remember if it went back up to 203 again or not. I’m not sure what the point of that increase was. Maybe if my FTP was over 300 that bump would be more noticeable, but I’m nowhere near there, so it seemed pretty pointless.
At the beginning I was annoyed with all the times I was supposed to stand. I did a few and ignored a few. At first they hurt more than they helped. In the 4th and 5th intervals I did most of them because they started to help more than they hurt, but with a lower cadence than the target. The target was usually 80, but a couple times down to 70. I was usually around 65-70 even when the target was 80 because it felt way better as I was using my whole body weight at that low cadence. But during the MAP sections I almost never stood up and it was easier to just it out. 80rpm is just too high for me to keep up while standing for more than 5 seconds at any power.
Anyway, good new video. I enjoyed it. I like Cobbler better, but they are both awesome new videos and I enjoyed suffering to both of them.
And now after doing Attacker today, I’ll do Defender tomorrow as part of my training schedule. Seems appropriate.
1 watt power switch was a bug in the workout builder and has been fixed so you shouldn’t see it in future.
stand prompts are also being addressed based on the kind of feedback you provided so we will make some changes there (but as you said, cadence and stand are quite personal so they should really always followed at the rider’s discretion based on their own ability/preference).
Just did this workout yesterday, really liked it! again, just like Cobbler, I felt pushed, feeling the demands, but not to the point of nearly breaking. If this is the intention of the workout, then that’s great!
I really liked how they really push you to sprint hard to finish. Making you stand up for close to a minute and then sprinting at +100rpm standing really pushes you to the edge! literally emptied the tank. And it’s cool to finish a workout like that.
