Any thoughts from trainer road in this so start the intervals hard and then make them easier as time progresses?
Was listening to:
(the section “Cardiorespiratory Responses to Constant and Varied-Load
Interval Training Sessions”)
Though going the first few aren’t the hardest as I feel I warm up to the effort during them so would fail if too hard at the start
I do this when I do hard-start VO2 intervals. First 15-20 seconds are a high-cadence full gas effort and then I settle into the target power for the remainder of the interval. However, it will naturally decline in power while heart rate and respiratory rate are still very much elevated.
This is what it looks like:
Here is the same duration interval at the same power target (390-400w), but w/o the hard start.
Notice anything drastically different? Look at how quickly my heart rate elevates with the inclusion of the hard start. It took only 44 seconds to achieve 92% of max whereas without a hard start it took over 2 minutes to achieve 92% of max.
For maximum time at or really close to VO2max gimme the hard starts.
There’s a whole series of VO2max workouts with hard starts. There’s a Team dedicated to them: https://www.trainerroad.com/app/teams/14144-hard-start-vo2-max-intervals and here’s a typical workout:
https://www.trainerroad.com/app/cycling/workouts/780125-6x3-5-hs-vo2max
But if they are custom workouts adaptive training won’t assign them.
Also those look like hard starts which isn’t what the study was about. They were talking about the whole interval power targets. Though this may have the same effect
Which is precisely why I’m not using adaptive training.
What is your actual question? I responded above with my thoughts.
If there was demand for tr to look into how the do vo2 workouts so that if this is the better way to setup intervals they could change how they do them
There are some but mostly on/off type of intervals:
I’m sure there are more, just hard to find. Or more are coming, workout filtering seems to support searching for them but currently it returns no workouts:
Those are the categories I’ve seen in the filter. I see Steps under anerobic but those all seem to be in the opposite direction.
Any thoughts on this @SeanHurley ? I know the custom workouts from the team do that but I was more thinking in terms of getting Skynet to recommend them for adaptive training so I can still follow a TR plan. Thanks
In terms of “official” TR hard start then declining power VO2Max workouts, I would add:
Agassiz
Angora
Mills
Mist+1
Rattlesnake
Stop thinking about power with vo2, and just go max.
I did that for 2 weeks a few weeks ago. And now I’m making new 5 minute power records with my hr being lower than it ever is for 5 minute power
And it is so much easier to execute:) No thinking, just put your head down and suffer for chosen duration, and repeat.
It depends on VO2max experience. I’m mostly focused on LSD and threshold type of plans, doing only occasional out-of-plan VO2max week to spice things up. Because of that, I’m really bad pacing such efforts i.e. if I go for max, I’ll likely do not finish whole workout. For that reason, I prefer to go with prescribed power and just scale it up to my abilities. Even then I used to blow up before the end. That’s why I like decreasing stepped workouts: while HR still keeps going higher, it is actually getting easier.
Here’s sample Bashful workout:
I like having a target power as this keeps me focused. Eventually, you learn what “full gas” feels like for a given duration.
I did a few 4-minuters yesterday with hard starts. The power just ended up being what it was, regardless of my “target” (which was 390-400). Average power for the three as % of FTP was: 126%, 119% and 111%. So, not on target, but full gas, and not a fail because…
You can see that in all of them my average heart rate is high, like 91-92% of max, and my breathing-rate was also high. Definitely in VO2 zone, regardless of power. Again, VO2 is not a power-target, but having a target is not wrong.
