The breathing is the worst part of Vo2Max workouts for me! I often remind myself that “if you’re not gasping for breathe, you aren’t working vo2max”. It gives me a little solace knowing that I’m getting better by panting through this pain and struggle.
One interesting new metric is the 95% vo2max that is found in WKO4. It shows how you aren’t reaping the benefits of intervals if you aren’t going hard enough. So I fully agree that lowering the % is feasible, there are also other well respected coaches that don’t even give wattage targets to their athletes (I’m not one of them but I find this interesting) but rather say: go out and vo2max. After a while, you know what that means.
The interesting thing is that it shows you how much of the good stuff you’re getting.
Here’s a 3m interval I did. It looks pretty good:
Here’s the analysis showing that I really only get 95% of the WKO4 metric, which Tim Cusick says is the good stuff that you really want to elicit adaptation:
(see percentages in bottom right of screen: Time above 95% = 2m7s)
So, I think circling back, make sure you’re going hard enough, and maybe even reduce the time sometimes as opposed to the intensity.
Someone else mentioned this above, change up the types of intervals. I’d look and see from 3-8m where you are the weakest, and look at race/event demands if you are doing any, and pick some new durations from there. Don’t just do the same thing over and over and over again.
Good luck!!