Alternatives to over/unders

I think that typically the workouts that you hate the most are the ones that will benefit you the most. If only because you tend to avoid doing them.

Try using the workout editor or the minus versions to progressively ease into them.

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Feel the same about VO2 Max workouts. Starting to dread them, no bueno.

Ah, I see. I meant in general that I don’t think there is a substitute for O/U work — it pretty much has to be done over and under your threshold. Doesn’t matter how you get there — ramp or step — just as long as you get there. :+1:

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I just don’t do them but tell people I did.

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I think that if there was a comparable alternative to over-unders not a lot of people would be doing them. (I mean, I like them, but I think I’m a very small minority :stuck_out_tongue: )
Unfortunately I think it just boils down to whether you’re prepared to forego the potential gains for the sake of your overall training mindset- and that’s absolutely a valid concern.
On that note, in the case of over/unders and longer suprathreshold efforts, I find my experience is dependent on how I mentally approach each interval moreso than other types of workouts. You kind of have to take each interval as it comes, and not think about the next :sweat_smile:

This is the very foundation of my entire training.

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It’s basically a threshold workout so you could do that instead. Probably a little adjusted in time (instead of 4x12 better 4x10?).
If you’re not doing anything it’s better to do that, Maybe not with all the shiny lactate benefits, but still many.

Then again, the 5% reduction, even at a cost of your ego, probably give you a similar/ better training effect.

Are you sure this assumption holds true?

I just did carpathian peak today, yeah, definitely hard, but never felt like quitting. I actually think the hardest part of it is just the 12-min blocks ~ftp, so endurance fatigue. Mentally I break the interval into the 2 minute parts below threshold, and the 1 minute part above. So I’m kind of rolling the down-slide 30s of the last peak, 1 minute, and the net 30s of the upswing into “recovery”. Mentally. Then I think of the work portion as only the 1 minute above, which is actually getting easier for the last 30s.

No it is not. The average power is similar to threshold, but main purpoise of O/U is to build during overs, and process lactate in unders. Due riding over FTP you also improve FTP and muscle endurance.

The other matter is that 10 minutes at threshold is not enough time to see all benefits of threshold riding - 10 minutes is great when you start your progression of threshold.

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Yup, but to be fair, he did include this detail in his reasoning:

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True. My mistake. Thank you for pointing this out.

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One trick I think might help a lot is by building yourself an over/under progression that starts with relatively short duration blocks and grows them per week

Start with a 4 minute or 6 minute set one week, then 8 minutes the next, go all the way up to 12 or 15 minutes.

If you can’t get through something like Avalanche Spire you may have an ambitiously high FTP setting

what % are you referring to? sounds like there’s a gap there right around 100%…possibly hit some pure threshold work. how long are the 110% successes that you have?

See Rule #5. Sometimes the simplest answer is the best answer.

I don’t think I have good data for around 110%; that just seems to be roughly the dividing line in TR workouts for “suprathreshold” vs. “VO2max”.

Crushing workouts from Sustained Power Build were intervals of ~8 min @ 102% and ~6 min at 108%, both of which got ugly after a handful of them.

On the other hand, 90/60s at 122% and intervals of 3 min at 120% were not bad (hard, but not bad).

I could entirely believe that I have a weakness starting somewhere above 95% and stopping somewhere before 120%.

This. O/u‘s call your bluff. Some blessed souls can muscle through short supra intervals, but o/u‘s exose our metabolical weaknesses. Try doing them at 95% intensity and then report back.

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Hmm. Along these same lines I have a question. I’ve actually been getting better at over unders. Used to be I dreaded them, had problems from the first or second interval.

Now…I generally make it through the first 2 intervals totally unscathed. Hard, challenging to say the least, but I hold power the whole time, and cadence stays steady.

Things start to fall apart a bit in the latter half of workouts. Have issues keeping cadence up, and power starts to fall, though I can usually force it back up.

I am thinking this is a muscle endurance problem…I’m generally not breathing overly hard…just in a constant, pitched war with my legs the second half of these workouts :weary:

When I was doing the O/U workouts in SSBLV2 my FTP was too low - I wasn’t going over FTP at all or at least only just, i.e 101%. I’d suspected this doing other workouts so eventually manually bumped my FTP but 2 or 3% and then things fell into place.

So your FTP needs to be quite accurate and might take a little working out but you’ll know when you’ve got it right - basically the burn in your legs should fade around halfway to two thirds the way through the unders.

:rofl:

You optimists kill me!

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Lol I know what you mean…but I do think there is actually a distinction.

I’ve noticed about halfway through the unders…the searing, hot lactate burn does subside. What is left over after is the soul crushing feeling of fatigue and weakness, combined with the knowledge that the next over will be even harder than the last :grimacing:

Oh, and of course a diminished belief that Chad is not a psychopath trying to inflict misery on me. That definitely lives on throughout the interval…

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