I’m back to doing TR after using a coach last year to prep for an ultra distance race in Sweden last July, and one of the things I noticed in specific was I excelled at VO2 intervals in the 3-8m range (e.g., 4 x 4m or 5 x 4m), and I really don’t feel the needle move much on my VO2 doing 30-30 workouts.
Right now in my TR program it does the 30-30s every week, which I know has a place but I tried browsing alternates in my current plan and didn’t see anything off hand that’s maybe better suited to my power profile I want to work on. I’m wondering if there’s something specific I could swap this out to long term, or another way to approach them (e.g., just hold the power for the first 4-5m of the interval?
For some context the power I’m being asked to hit now for 30s is 390w, and for sure it’s challenging to repeat this over and over again, but my 5m power ranges between 360-410w depending on training status and I’d like to try to improve the consistency and repeatability of that.
30/30s and other short form intervals are different than longer vo2 stuff (6x5 etc).
If you don’t mind suffering 5x5m as hard as you can (reasonably steady power, starting a bit hard but still having about the same power each interval) is an excellent vo2 stimulus.
Right I get that very explosive sprints are also an entirely different thing, but I just can’t seem to find the workouts that match that 5 x 5m profile when I’m searching alternates, am I maybe just looking in the wrong place?
Ahh okay, I’m looking now and if I just do a ‘new’ workout and then look for ‘intervals’ or ‘long suprathreshold’ under the VO2 filter seems to be the ticket I just might need to do some manual management of that.
here’s where you start to run up against some of TR’s limitations. firstly, doing something like 4-6x5min vo2 would be great, but a) you don’t want to do them in erg based on a percentage and b) you also want to give yourself freedom with this type of workout to take longer recovery as needed between intervals, I’ll do twice the length for recovery, generally, but I’ve extended some recoveries to 3x interval length.
I got served quite a few of these “30/30s” (i use airquotes because if I’m doing 30/30s they are maximal efforts for anaerobic capacity building) and they definitely failed to move the needle for me when I did them
Okay definitely useful, yeah I haven’t had ERG mode on in years as I feel like it limits my ability to ‘explore the range’ a bit or go a little easier / harder based on fatigue.
While TR has a huge workout library - the types of workouts you get for your plan only vary by PL level. So if your plan is 30/30s every week the only alternative workouts you will get are of the same type.
It sounds like you know what you want to work on - maybe using train now for individual workouts might be a better option instead of a full training plan?
Getting the intensity right for 30-30s is difficult, as the 1:1 rest ratio is often a bit too long for a reasonably trained individual. Maybe try 30-15s or 40-20s? Something I’ve tried a couple times is to do a custom workout where I do 60sec on rep 1 of each set, then 7-9 x 30-30 immediately after at similar power. The initial 60s gets the HR up in a hurry and makes those 30s recoveries feel pretty short! It may not be as effective as other VO2 workouts, but I like it.
I don’t know how long they’ll go but my plan at the moment has fairly long 2 min VO2max intervals. I guess no further just now as it looks like its got sweetspot stuff in my plan until my event. I think I just chose a general fitness plan this time around.
Several reasons. 1) doing max efforts usually means power will fall off across intervals. Being forced into erg will quickly make these demoralizing 2) using a percentage of vo2 can also make intervals harder for some and easier for others. As an example, my 4min power is around 115% of my ftp but I coach someone whose 4min power was 130% of their ftp. So if a workout were at 120% we’d have different experiences.
So it’s best to not be stuck into that and even better to just do a workout in free ride mode to give you greater freedom with rest intervals
It looks like your current training phase calls for “on/off” VO2 Max workouts – if you’d like to swap those out, we’d recommend using the Workout Library and taking advantage of the search filters to find something closer to what you’re looking for (it seems like you’ve figured that out already ).
On a similar note, Workout Alternates can be a great tool to use if you’d like to swap a workout out for another of the same type (i.e., on/offs for another on/off workout). It wouldn’t work as well, though, for this situation you’re describing here.
Hope that helps – feel free to let us know if you have any additional questions!
Just in case, here is also opposite opinion: for certain mindset (like me) there is need for specific target to stuck teeth into to be able to endure longer intervals and push harder. Certainly, @hubcyclist is right about individual percentages for different durations to achieve VO2max. If you want to use ERG mode, you need to experiment and learn your individual numbers.
I know for myself that I can start 4x5min intervals with 110% and progress until ~118%, each time spending roughly same amount >90% HRmax. Those number have been pretty consistent with various FTPs over time.
Like many, I also don’t feel like I get the right training from 30-30s for VO2 work. Jonathon on the Nero Show mentioned that he doesn’t either. We’re not alone. I know how to find the alternates mentioned in other replies but I sure wish TR had a toggle to suggest these longer VO2 intervals to make it easier. And to make sure there was some sort of logical progression. I mean I can just figure out 3-8m VO2 intervals myself without TR.
In running we would often do “straights & bends” where we would stride out the straights and cruise the turns. 30-30s for me are kinda like those. They’re not meant to stress you like a long VO2 interval but rather get the turnover without the stress.
For a trained cyclist 30/30’s are anaerobic work really; the recovery is way too long.
30/15s, 40/20s and so forth can substitute for longer VO2, but they’re mostly scheduled because people’s adherence to 5x4min is typically rubbish.
There was a thread about this ages ago with quite a few inputs from well-respected coaches and my memory of the conclusion is that the most effective vo2 interval is a hard start (e.g. 15-30s anaerobic) into 3-5minutes, with approximately 1:1 rest and then allowing the volume to scale (either by interval length or multiple) as you get fitter.
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