Do you publish any of your data? I suppose your athletes (or you) might not want you to…
Of course, you wouldn’t be able to have “statistically significant” numbers to compare across, but you would likely have much better data, eg, if something is supposed to be at ftp, you’d know if it was, and likely also much better control over outside factors (extra training, rest, nutrition). Instead of comparing across participants, you might be able to compare the same athlete against themselves, maybe even in a multi-year study.
This has been my opinion for a very long time.
My unscientific suggestion would be to do the “steady” intervals at MAP / power at ramp test that elicits vo2max (which I think are pretty much the same thing), vs self-“paced” hard-start intervals of the same length.
How hard and how often you do true VO2max intervals is undoubtedly more important than exactly how you do them.
If you’re going to compare different paradigms, though, shouldn’t it based on what athletes would actually do, i.e., hit it as hard and let the chips fall where they may?
If you’re a coach or somebody worried about recovery for subsequent workouts, the best solution would be to just do such workouts less frequently, vs. dialing the intensity way back, the way this one did. Again, who does "VO2max intervals at only about 100% of FTP?
As for individual differences in the response to training, that’s well-established. Since you can’t re-choose your parents, though, it’s also rather moot. IOW, if increasing your VO2max is key to improving your performance, then you have no choice but to do the hard yards regardless of whether the gain is 5% or 50%.
Makes sense to me. I’d also guess that the difference between interval types with this approach would be smaller vs. some studies that inadvertently constrain the intensity of one or more of the interval types being tested.
Thanks, was late when I wrote that, thanks for catching my mistake. I did mean Stephen, the physiologist in Canada.
Today I was doing a measured but longish vo2max effort without looking at my power meter at all and found my legs weren’t hurting especially bad, but my heart was beating out of my chest.
It occurred to me “oh, that’s what maximal stroke volume feels like…” It had been a while since the sensation in my legs was less unpleasant than that in my chest.
I should probably do more efforts like that if I want to bore my engine out, so to speak.
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@empiricalcycling, I have a question on the Gotshall study (the one that compared riders doing 200 W at 70, 90 and 110 rpm), as this seems to be one of the bases for the higher-cadence recommendation. The article describes the 7 subjects as experienced cyclists with a reported “max” power output (no further details provided) of 320 W; it seems likely that 200 W was well below FTP for at least some of the test subjects. If this is the case, do you have any thoughts on whether the conclusions of the study would remain valid when the workload is at a high intensity? For instance, would a very hard effort elicit much of the skeletal muscle pump even at relatively lower cadence, such that raising the cadence would have a less pronounced effect?
Rather than the subjects or the intensity, I’d be worrying more about the method used to measure SV.
"New methodologies have recently been developed to measure Q during exercise conditions. Although not as popular as the C2H2 and CO2 rebreathe methods, these methods have increasingly gained favour in exercise physiology and sport cardiology settings. The majority of these measures (if performed meticulously), with the exception of impedance cardiography, provide reasonably accurate and reliable determinations of Q. "
@pkwell I had a similar question:
https://www.trainerroad.com/forum/t/kolie-moore-podcast-wisdom/30520/79
Oh thanks. That’s the challenge of having the same topic split over multiple threads!
Basically:
a) during vo2 max start hard 120% percent of the power you think you can hold for lenght of the interval and then pray for survival while pedaling fast
b) don’t
My “hard starts” ended up being around 150%.
150÷ of FTP not 120% of power you can hold during the interval so roughly 180% FTP then.
To clarify, this was 150% of FTP at the start, falling to around 110-120% FTP.
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I really enjoyed that set of videos and found them very informative. I am not knowledgeable enough to comment on the validity of everything but I found them well worth watching.
Some thoughts on Vo2 intervals.
I tried the KM Hard start intervals and got half way though the second one and blew. Session over. There is nothing worse.
Tried again using high cadence but a constant power and had a great session, HR was responsive and accumulated a lot of time above 90% with 5 x 3 mins Reps and 2 mins rec. A good session.
Now, I am new to doing Vo2 intervals like this, especially indoor, and maybe after a few weeks of constant load intervals and adaptation I could try the hard start again, but think I the risk here is the hard start intervals are so hard and/or difficult to pace the danger is sacking Vo2 work off altogether.
If they are “so hard” then you are doing the hard starts too hard. As for pacing, use your HR and breath as a guide — not power. With these types of intervals you will probably have a lower average power than the standard 120%.
It does take some practice but you’ll get it.
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If mostly ignoring power and concentrating at time at a certain HR zone for vo2 max intervals, how do you know you are improving? how do you know when to apply progressive overload (more or longer intervals per session)?
The power that you end up doing during the intervals goes up. You 3-10min power improves. Your FTP improves. Etc.