I’ve had a few requests to share some hard start VO2max workouts I created.
I created the following team that has four workouts to start with.
https://www.trainerroad.com/app/teams/14144-hard-start-vo2-max-intervals
The workouts are a variant on the one below - with 6 x 2.5 minute, 3.0 minute , 3.5 minute and 4.0 minute VO2max intervals.
The goal of these workouts is to get your heart rate up quickly to ~90% of maximum early in the interval, and then maintain it for the remainder of the interval at 90%+.
The first interval has the highest power target, and the power target declines slightly in subsequent intervals. The goal of this is to try keep RPE similar across the intervals, vs. having the first feel too easy and the last feel to hard (which can happen with a workout like Kaiser where all intervals have the same power target).
You can play around with the power targets for the initial spike during the first portion of each interval, as well as the steady power target during the second portion of each interval.
I used Kaiser as the base workout to modify - so don’t pay attention to the workout text as it doesn’t match these modified workouts.
Enjoy!