So this morning the SYSTM app recommended the On Location - Italian Lakes: San Vitale to Ponte Tresa workout. Cool. A quick workout, only 38 minutes and only 3 sets of 4, 10 second sprints with plenty on recovery between sets. Get in and get out. How hard could that be? Well, let me tell you. The first four went well and the first two of the second set went well then I had trouble. I had trouble holding the cadence on the third and then on the fourth, I couldn’t hold the cadence at all. You know that feeling….your trying to hold the cadence but your legs aren’t having it. Ok, recovery, get my breathing under control then on to the third and final set. The first one on the third set went ok but I was having trouble holding the cadence and I knew it was only going to get worse from there soooo, I dialed down the second and third sprint to just above threshold but maintained the high cadence. After the third one, I dialed the fourth one back up to 100% and gave it everything I had. I was able to hold it at cadence but I was starting to fade towards the end. Whew. Thank goodness that is over. Who’d a thought that only 3 sets of 4, 10 second sprints with plenty of recovery between sets could be so hard 
Sprints can KILL, that’s for sure!
I’d rather have had a SYSTM controlled Sprint workout than what I did 2 days ago. And especially to have the opportunity to easily dial down the power of the intervals as SYSTM allows. That’s a GREAT FEATURE that should be promoted better to all Free Trial Period and New Subscribers. Took me awhile to stumble on that feature when it was mentioned here in the forum.
I’m not subscribing to any app right now, haven’t talked myself back into the payments for anything yet since I still do mostly everything outside. But Friday, I decided to accept the Garmin EDGE 840 suggested workout for the day:
20 minutes warmup, then 2 sets of 20 sprints, 10 seconds long, target of 540W (which is about 280% of my FTP,) with only 20 seconds Recovery between.
I did this on my KICKR Bike V1, which has an ANT+ connection to the EDGE (and I WISH I could figure out how to make it use Bluetooth on the EDGE but I’ve tried in vain to make that happen. It just sticks with ANT+. I can’t be sure it would be better, but the ERG DEATH SPIRALS are certainly far less an issue on SYSTM using Bluetooth than they were using ANT+, at least for me. But I digress.)
So I did the workout, got bit hard by the Death Spiral on the 5th and 6th Sprints of the 1st set, but got control of things by making sure to ramp way up on the cadence in the last 2-3 seconds of the already too scant 20second recoveries. I finished that first set decently well, but I was already TOAST, and I knew the TOASTER was coming back for me again after 5 minutes Recovery at around 105W.
The 2nd set was MURDER IN THE TOASTER OVEN. I did decently well on about 15 of the 20 sprints, never as well as I hoped, but anything avoiding DEATH was a blessing, in my book.
But OH, those DEATH SPIRALS! Even when I had cadence high and started out close to target, if I slacked it enough, I was dead meat. That KICKR Bike just locks up SO TIGHT that I was FOOLISH TO FIGHT IT.
I had hopes of a long outdoor ride on a bonus day in November Saturday, but I was under a serious back pain house-bound lockdown. I had torqued my back so hard trying to fight those spirals that I trashed my recent gains in that ongoing issue of low-back pain. I’ve been a good boy for a day and a half, gently eased back into my Foundation Training Original 12mins w Dr Eric Goodman tonight to try to reestablish some alignment and posture, and have been gently spinning for about 30 minutes now.
I’ve added to my list of “DON’T EVER DO THAT AGAIN” behaviors: NEVER FIGHT THE DEATH SPIRALS ONCE THE BIKE TAKES OVER! You will not win; YOU WILL LOSE.
So I HOPE I will just LET GO, STOP PEDALING OR APPLYING TORQUE IN VAIN, let the bike get the next LOW POWER signal, and gently bring up cadence to prep for the next interval. And when that isn’t working, just abandon till the intervals are done.
IT ISN’T WORTH INJURING MYSELF!
Can you still not disable ERG mode in Garmin head units during workouts ?
I’m not exactly sure about that, but I WANTED ERG mode controlling power demand. I just didn’t want death spirals! 
I generally just use the EDGE in FREE mode when doing workouts controlled by apps, or in ERG mode for doing an actual Garmin workout (which I only do semi-rarely, but a bit more now that I’m not paying for a subscription to anything currently,) or I sometimes follow a course and allow the unit to control the KICKR Bike according to the course elevations.
I’m not positive that I would have had any better experience with the Death Spirals if I had been able to change my connection type to Bluetooth on the EDGE, but since that seemed to be the case with SYSTM, Rouvy, and FulGaz, I had hopes it would also be better with the Garmin unit. I’m still going to try to poke that angle some more, maybe even call Garmin for advice on how to force that option. Garmin’s poor documentation of their products (like almost every mfg company out there) is very frustrating on a regular basis.
First, way to get after it 
. Looks like HIE meets VIOLATOR 
I think you’ve got some great names for new SUF vids.
TOAST
TOASTER
MURDER IN THE TOASTER OVEN
DEATH SPIRALS
DON’T EVER DO THAT AGAIN
YOU WILL LOSE
Edit: since we’re talking sprints, imma try the sprint workout this week and the sprint test next week on Z’s Basecamp.
Thanks, Sir Glen!
Love the idea of titles! I agree! Might be some good inspiration in those!
BTW, not being familiar with all the Acronyms so often tossed around, I don’t remember what HIE might be?
In fact, I did a Google Search for Wahoo SYSTM Acronym workouts, found nothing, so I think I AM INSPIRED to start a thread requesting a list of these that are so frequently tossed around. I’d love to have a fast reference for them and maybe others would too.
We are a simple but hardy people. It’s really just a matter of taking the workout and assigning letters to each word. HIE = Half is Easy. Islagiatt = It seemed like a good idea at the time (it never was, it never is, it was always yours, 
)
Yeah, I get what they come from, but I’m often still scratching my head trying to come up with what is what.
BTW, If anyone can saddle up and hammer down the Sprints, I’m sure it’s you, cowboy! 
We’re counting on your full disclosure report after you knock 'em out! 
@Glen.Coutts Out of those 6, I think - Don’t Ever Do That Again - is the one. JMHTCE.
Paging the acronym translator from flogging station #238 just my humble two cents “something”? Or just my honest thoughts something something?
@Glen.Coutts You are very close Sir….Just My Humble Two Cents Worth.
New one Sir @Glen.Coutts ? INWINIIWAY 
TWAAW
spelling “worth” with an “E” is what caught me out, Sir 
Edit: just remind yourself, next time ISLAGIATT comes up on your schedule
After I saw your post I looked back at the times I’ve done this one. A few thoughts based on my experience: As a “Sprinter” the first 2 sets were okay, but I definitely struggled on the last set. I rode this both times in Level mode instead of Erg because I tend to “spin out” in ERG once I exceed the wattage target on the sprints. Side benefit is that it also gives me a bit more control over gearing/cadence/effort to avoid the death spiral. Glad you survived it! #IWBMATTKYT
Thank you Sir. Had I not backed off the middle two sprints of the last set I would not have survived it.
I haven’t done workouts on Zwift for ages as I found them mind numbing. This one was a little better as they now offer text prompts and tips and even had a little bit of SUF style humour!
Because it was a sprinty session though, I was in and out of ERG and when out of erg I totally blew the lid off the power targets but was also kind of all over the place in gearing so never got the 
thing or only got a ½ . It’ll take some getting used to but I’ll do the test next week. I expect my strength to be sprints and I expect my weakness to be threshold efforts.
Hey y’all just checking back in on Sir @Eric’s hijacked thread.
Did the sprint test on Zwift and guess what? I’m still pretty sprinty.
I did the thing mostly in level mode (even if you are in ERG, Zwift shuts that down for the 3 x 15 second sprint sections anyway).
I had a bit of a challenge in getting the right mix of gear, cadence and effort and had a bit of a wax and wane result for the first 2 of 3 and a little more ramp up to max on the 3rd. I also wasn’t sure if the results would be best 5 seconds of the 15 or best 10 as I hadn’t read that anywhere so wasn’t 100% sure on how to pace the effort. Turns out, in the email you get after completion, that it’s the best 10 seconds of the 15. So, can’t fully compare it to FF and the best 5 seconds of 7 and FF has the gunshot that clearly signals it’s time to give it the beans followed by the bagpipes, whereas Zwift just has the countdown timer and the Arch. I think I do better with the gunshot and bagpipes (but that’s all I’ve known since FF came out).
Results according to Zwift:
10 SEC BEST
888 watts.
Looking at my workout graph in SYSTM’s History Beta afterwards that gives me a 5 sec best of 1097 watts and a 10 sec best of 889 (sorry Zwift, I’ll take the extra watt thank you very much ).
So, pretty much in keeping with my historical sprintiness. No suprises here. Next is the Attack workout and test and the Endurance workout and test. I’m kinda enjoying it.
More info here if anyone is interested:
Oops!