What is sweet spot training?

In cycling, sweet spot is generally defined as riding at around 88–94% of FTP, just below threshold. You can accumulate a meaningful amount of work at a relatively high aerobic intensity without the same demands as repeated threshold or VO2Max intervals. For cyclists with limited training time, that can make it a very useful tool. You can build sustained power without needing to turn every endurance ride into a five-hour day. But there is a catch.

Sweet spot can be sneaky tiring

Sweet spot feels controlled enough that it is easy to underestimate how much fatigue it creates. One workout might be perfectly manageable. The problem starts when moderate-to-hard work becomes the default intensity for most of your training. You are riding too hard for those sessions to provide the low recovery cost of easy endurance training, while also not reaching the intensities targeted by harder VO2Max work. Do that too often and fatigue can quietly accumulate. The problem, then, is not necessarily sweet spot itself. It is too much sweet spot without enough easy training and recovery around it.

Where polarized training comes in

A polarized training model takes a different approach. Most training is performed at low intensity, with a much smaller amount at very high intensity and relatively little time in between. There is good evidence supporting this approach, particularly in well-trained endurance athletes.

In a 2014 study, Stöggl and Sperlich compared polarized, threshold-focused, high-volume and HIIT-focused training over nine weeks in 48 well-trained endurance athletes. The polarized group produced the greatest improvements across several important performance measures, including VO2peak, time to exhaustion and peak power or velocity. The threshold-focused group showed little improvement in most of the measured performance variables.

A later systematic review and meta-analysis also concluded that polarized training may produce greater endurance-performance improvements than training that places a heavier emphasis around threshold. So if you are already a highly trained cyclist, simply filling your week with sweet spot sessions is probably not the answer. But that still does not mean sweet spot is dead.

Polarized is not the only way to train

This is where the debate often becomes too simplistic. Sweet spot is an intensity, while polarized and pyramidal describe how your training intensity is distributed across an entire program. They are not exactly the same thing.

In a pyramidal model, you still spend most of your training time riding easily. But unlike a polarized approach, there is more moderate-intensity training and less very-high-intensity work as you move up the pyramid. That creates a natural place for sustained tempo and near-threshold efforts. And for recreational cyclists, that can work very well.

A 2024 study from Portugal by Magalhães et al., followed 14 recreational male cyclists through 16 weeks of pyramidal training. Their sustainable power at a blood-lactate concentration of 4 mmol/L improved significantly, and the researchers found that time spent in their moderate-intensity Zone 2 had the strongest relationship with the improvement in power. Importantly, the study’s physiological Zone 2 was defined using blood lactate and should not be treated as exactly the same thing as the commonly used 88–94% FTP sweet-spot zone. But it does show that moderate-intensity work can have a valuable place within a well-balanced programme.

More recent evidence also points towards the answer depending on who is training. A 2025 systematic review and meta-analysis by Rosenblat suggested that competitive athletes may see greater VO2max improvements from polarized training, while recreational athletes may respond particularly well to a pyramidal distribution.

So, should you train sweet spot?

If you only have a few hours each week to train, sustained moderate-to-hard efforts can be an efficient way to create a useful training stimulus. If you are preparing for long climbs, time trials or events where you need to hold a strong power for extended periods, this type of training can also be highly specific to what you are trying to achieve.
But if every ride becomes a sweet spot ride, the equation changes. You lose the benefits of genuinely easy training, accumulate more fatigue and may leave too little room for the harder sessions that target other parts of your fitness. Sweet spot should be a tool in the toolbox, not the entire toolbox.

Your training history matters

There is another reason there cannot be one universal answer: two cyclists can respond very differently to the same workout. A beginner training four hours per week does not have the same needs as an experienced cyclist training twelve. Someone preparing for a long gran fondo does not have the same demands as someone racing criteriums. And a cyclist carrying significant fatigue should not necessarily do the same session as someone who is fresh and ready for more load.
Your goal, fitness, training history, available time and ability to recover all influence whether sweet spot belongs in your week. That is why asking whether sweet spot is “good” or “bad” misses the point. The better question is: does it make sense for you right now?

Sweet spot is not dead

Sweet spot is neither the holy grail nor the training graveyard the internet sometimes makes it out to be. Used too often, it can create unnecessary fatigue. Used at the right moment, it can be an efficient and effective part of a structured training plan. The important part is how it fits alongside your endurance work, harder sessions and recovery.
That is exactly what JOIN takes into account when building your training. Instead of committing you to one training philosophy, your plan is based on your goal, fitness, training history and the time you actually have available. So, sweet spot is dead? Not really. You just need to know when to use it.

References:

Magalhães, P. M., Cipriano, F., Morais, J. E., & Bragada, J. A. (2024). “Effects of a 16-Week Training Program with a Pyramidal Intensity Distribution on Recreational Male Cyclists.” Sports, 12(1), 17. DOI: 10.3390/sports12010017.

Rosenblat, M. A. et al. (2025). “Which Training Intensity Distribution Intervention will Produce the Greatest Improvements in Maximal Oxygen Uptake and Time-Trial Performance in Endurance Athletes? A Systematic Review and Network Meta-analysis of Individual Participant Data.” Sports Medicine, 55, 655–673. DOI: 10.1007/s40279-024-02149-3.

Stöggl, T., & Sperlich, B. (2014). “Polarized training has greater impact on key endurance variables than threshold, high intensity, or high volume training.” Frontiers in Physiology, 5, 33.https://doi.org/10.3389/fphys.2014.00033