Over-unders are my Kryptonite! I don’t think I’ve finished one as prescribed yet. Give me just about any other type of workout and I’ll get through it.
Oddly, over-unders are my bread and butter. It’s the workout the following day that ends up tearing me to shreds because of the latent fatigue.
Now put me on 2 or 3-minute VO2 intervals and I’ll rarely complete them as prescribed. The intense fluctuations of my heart rate up and down that quickly just crushes me. Feels much more steady with over-unders for me.
I find over under easier than holding threshold or high ssweetspot. I’m mentally weak and like the short segments
Over unders should be NAMED instead PAIN over PAIN.
Did Palisade today after a 7W FTP increase half way though SSBMV1 (Running alternate 3:1 work/rest variant) this week.
Hardest workout I’ve ever done…period! HR constently peaking around 95% of max. Over/Unders are not my strenght. Also, probably not smart increasing your FTP throughout SSBMV1, because the workouts are already getting harder every week.
Not looking foreward to McAdie +1 next week.
You’re a rare breed. I’m the exact opposite. Give me a 9 min interval @ 105%FTP, I’ll nail it. Give me a 9 min over/under interval that fluctuates between 95% and 105%FTP and I’m smashed.
I think it’s a mental thing more than anything - being able to deal with that really uncomfortable “recovery” section. I like to go hard, settle in and when I recover, I just noodle.
Yep, me too!
I don’t mind over and unders, I certainly don’t find them easy but I much prefer them to long intervals at or just above ftp, those are just mind numbing.
You aren’t the only one. I prefer supathreshold efforts over overunders every time.
Actually I’m beginning to wonder if I can just replace my overunder workouts with supathreshold efforts at 105% for the same time.
+1 on the miserable side here 
absolutely botched Palisade today, did 2 full sets of U/O, next 2 were a joke, didn’t even attempt the fifth one… Granted I have been in the sick house for a week but still, U/O are mean 
These are becoming either an achilles heel or just a mental block for me.
A little over 2 weeks ago, I smoked Reinstein. Walk in the park. I even boosted the middle set up 5% and completed them no problem but felt that the third set would be a struggle and moved it back down to 100%.
In the following weeks, I’ve tried McAdie twice and it’s all gone to pot. In fact, I’m getting worse. Last week, I got two sets done at 100% then tried the third at 95% and fell apart. Today, my heart rate was way too high even before the end of the second set of four and I had the shakes and decided discretion was the better part of valour and canned it. Now, are consecutive failures going to be a mental block? I’d wondered about reducing the intensity but had thought that if you backed it down by 5% it became a threshold/under workout.
There are potentially other reasons, I was doing it at midday so it could have been a bit warm, I could be more tired than I thought from the lockdown situation, I could be fatigued even though I had a rest day yesterday I did a hard 100k ride the day before.
Mcadie and Reinstein are very similar workouts with more sets and less rest on Mcadie. So if you flew through Reinstein with no problem then under the same circumstances I would think the Mcadie would be complete-able without too much problem.
The 100K ride could have been a factor depending on how hard it was and how fatigued you were going into it. What was your nutrition like going into and during the workout? if you had a way high HR and got the shakes but felt okay later (you weren’t getting sick) then I’m tempted to think that it was a low blood sugar issue. After two straight failures then I think it could start being a mental block.
One option would be to go back to Reinstein since you know that you can complete it so you have some more confidence going in. And try to nail your nutrition and see if that makes a big difference.
You could also start the workout at 97 or 98% so that you don’t get beat down at 100% before decreasing it.
Could it be cooling related? Weather is warming up and my basement is a decent bit warmer than it is in the winter. Maybe try some hacking your core temp with icy cold water bottles, move the fans closer, etc.
I went into the Workout Creator to look at an over/unders interval under the microscope. Checked out Carpathian Peak +3 (20 minutes, 1min @ 95%, 1min ramp up to 105%, 1min @ 105%, 1min ramp down to 95% - all repeated 5 times).
Officially when you look at that segment only, it says that the Intensity Factor is 1. I’m not so sure about that - I feel certain that I could manage 20 minutes at FTP a lot more easily than I could doing the over-unders.
IF isn’t really useful at that level of granularity, since it doesn’t take context into account. E.g., a five minute interval with IF of 0.95 after a gradual warmup is not the same as a five minute interval with IF of 0.95 immediately after a 30 second sprint.
Quite possibly. It was pretty warm.
I thought I’d fuelled pretty well. Carb focussed cereal first thing, then some toast about 3 hours beforehand and I had a gel after the first interval to keep the fuel up.
Had to google after the first 12min interval today of Tunemah, if its meant to be that damn hard… looks like I am not the only one 
Not looking forward to the over/unders every weekend on SSBI Mid Vol…
Gonna do some cereal an hour before to load up. Had brunch at 10am and did the workout at 14:30 today, RPE was through the rooooooof… I think if I didn’t have anyone else who could view my workout after its done (like if Strava didn’t exist) I would have lowered the intensity the last interval…
Seems like “buddy” accountability (peer pressure) sometimes brings out the last little bit you have in the legs haha
I think I need a hug.
I had a really hard time this morning with Carpathian Peak +2.
I’m new to training. During SSBMV1, I had no problems with over/unders, but I now suspect my FTP was underestimated. Now, at the end of week 3 of base 2, (with my FTP set 23 watts higher than it was in the last block) I’ve failed a workout.
The power and normalized power for the first 16-minute interval corresponds closely with my FTP. So far, so good.
But the power for the 2nd interval is lower, and I suspect that I only managed to finish it fairly strong because I got stuck behind a big truck for 30 seconds, half-way through, and that gave me a breather.
The final interval was a nightmare. My breathing was horrible, I got a cramp in my diaphragm (can’t remember the last time I felt that), and I just couldn’t seem to raise my power no matter how hard I tried. I even tried clicking into a higher gear to shift some load from my CV-system to my muscles, but that didn’t work. I was spent. I ran out of road about a minute before the end of the interval and quit early, but at that point it didn’t really matter because my power output was laughable.
I think I was hydrated and fueled adequately, and the temperature was quite cool and conducive to hard riding.
My TSS for the week is about 100 points higher than called for in the training plan, and that’s a normal thing for me. I wonder if I should try to dial it back a bit?
Or perhaps I should do these sorts of workouts indoors, where I can more closely adhere to the prescribed power range (and avoid the peaks or surges that sap my strength)?
O/U’s are hard.
But it is better to do them with good form and control than to flail and reinforce bad habits.
A few things to try:
1). Try doing only 6 minute intervals. 6 well performed intervals are better than 12 performed poorly. Do 2 minutes under, 1 minute over. Mentally, the 1 minute over will pass quickly. 5 minute rest and repeat at least 3 times.
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Shift weight back for the “easy” part with medium cadence and try to mentally relax, and sit on the nose with high cadence in an aero aggressive body position for the “hard” part.
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When you feel this becomes easier, try 9 minutes, then 12 minutes.
In real world group riding, depending on the group dynamics, a 20 minute climb can become sort of an “over/under” if one stays with the group/surges, etc…so it’s great practice.
The O/U’s are killing me too.
For me, O/U > Threshold > Sweet Spot > VO2 Max.
I’m failing every O/U I try but completing all other workouts so I definitely sympathize with a lot of people on this thread. Did Mary Austin -1 today and got crushed during the last interval. My cadence starts falling off and before I know it, my legs are cooked and I just can’t go on.
It is interesting to hear others thoughts and how different people have different strengths and weaknesses. Makes me think that O/U’s are my weakness that I need to work on to bring it up in line with the other types of workouts. Right now, O/U are physical and psychological agony.