Yep. Now on week 2 of these and I managed to slightly increase my interval durations and total time to 21 mins today compared to last week’s workouts, which were in the 18-20 mins range, and that was after a terrible night’s sleep. So there’s hope for us slow-twitchers yet @jacemano!
Today was 5 mins (new PR), then 4 x 4 mins all with 4 mins RBI. No HR data, not really even looking at the screen much apart from maybe counting down the last 30 seconds. Definitely experienced the ‘gasping like a fish feeling’ today. And not to sound too dramatic, but also kind of feeling a few times near the end of intervals like I might even pass out if I had to go much longer! Interval averages started at 121% and ended at 111% FWIW.
I recently started doing these and I actually think you might be doing too many intervals. Just focus on doing less but giving maximal efforts. I found that I got used to the longer intervals quickly. Try 3.5 x 4 → 4x4 → 4.5 x 4 → 5x4. Unless you are a super high level athlete you probably don’t need more than 20mins time in zone.
When I did hard start + high cadence my HR was about 5bpm lower than I’d hit for a comparable length steady state 120%ish interval - and yet I saw way better gains in 3-5 minute power range. So maybe HR isn’t everything. (I’m sure a certain person will vehemently disagree with that shortly.)
Depends. Are you trying to train your VO2max, or your 3-5 minute power?
They aren’t the same thing, and you can increase your pursuit-duration power dramatically without any change in your ability to generate energy aerobically.
I care more about my performance than what’s driving it, yeah. Don’t win races just by having the best VO2max after all.
I believe it did raise my VO2max significantly though, based on a number of other factors / indicators, but I don’t have the lab tests to back it up so…
Here’s my take: the hard start resulted in a greater O2 deficit at the start of each interval, which led to a larger increase in your anaerobic capacity. That, and not a bigger increase in VO2, explains the greater improvement in 3-5 minute power. In essence this is what @SpareCycles has been getting at in arguing that hard starts shouldn’t be too hard.
As you say, it’s really about performance, so at first blush it may not seem to matter. There are more effecient ways of increasing your anaerobic capacity, though, just as there are more effecient ways of training your VO2max. It is therefore helpful to understand what is going on, so that you can choose appropriately.
I did a 1 minute power test before the VO2max block, and after the recovery week. Small increase but within the margin of error on the power meter. An order of magnitude smaller than my 3.5 minute power at any rate. I know it’s not proof that the underlying physiological change was an increase in VO2max, but to me that makes an increase in anaerobic capacity seem unlikely?
So I will say, I’m trying to train my VO2max here, not my 5 minute power.
I’ve never been an endurance guy. As a kid I would do the 100m pretty quick but I would D R E A D cross country etc. Garmin’s estimates peaked at 65 last year for me but has me at 54 for the moment.
I will come back and target 5 minute power in march / april.
I did hit the OMG where is the oxygen state in my first and second interval. But by the third interval it was my legs failing to get up to the job.
So I’m gonna do bluebell +2 tomorrow and retry again next week. I really think I just need to remind my legs about the pain of working at mad power amounts
Based on what you managed, you’d probably do just fine with one of the Spencer or Kaiser workouts - 3 min intervals @ 118-120%. I’d think that after the hard start workout a steady 3 mins will feel more comfortable than you’d think, and I’d be confident you’d derive more benefit from it than Bluebell.
Lots of carbs, some hardcore punk, and 6x4 minute intervals. Was ready to stop after the 5th, but made myself do the 6th one setting out with a ‘anything’s better than nothing’ mantra and surprised to get through it.
Yeah, good take. I agree. To back up to the acute response of aerobic vs anaerobic systems (handwavy) to a hard-start interval: I’d say if the hard-start is too high intensity, it will deplete too much of your anaerobic capacity and disrupt the metabolic milieu too deeply (handwavy). Therefore impairing aerobic metabolism from actually reaching and sustaining near-max capacity for the remainder of the interval. And possibly eliciting premature task intolerance, which I think is what we’re seeing.
Basically if the anaerobic side of the equation fails first, the aerobic side will be sub-optimally involved. And there is something of a mutual inhibition trade-off between anaerobic and aerobic adaptations (handwavy).
It’s worth remembering the conceptual definition of MAP (max aerobic power) as the highest power output over the shortest duration that will elicit VO2max (not handwavy). ie. any higher constant workrate power output will elicit task intolerance before VO2max can be achieved. I suspect the massive spikey hard-starts and short interval durations we’re seeing are too far beyond that point. And part of why I think hard-starts don’t need to be performed above MAP.
Find a happy middle-ground? Lower hard-start peak power, maybe go longer, maybe that’s not even unnecessary. The ‘OMG give me breath’ moment might be too far gone. But again my opinion is duration above threshold is more important than intensity above Threshold for eliciting performance improvements.
ok, allow me to share my own personal anecdote!:
I’m performing a block of 4x 6-min HIIT right now. Not intentionally hard-start, but they tend to end up that way. I’m performing them standing on rollers (long story, but I have a worse iliac artery than Fabio Aru and this is the only way I can tolerate working above Threshold) so my cadence naturally declines through each interval.
Here’s what intervals.icu looks like for yesterday’s workout
Note VMPro dropped out at the start of the last two intervals, meaning I lost the VO2 onset kinetics.
I don’t know what my precise VO2max is (because of prior artery-related reasons) so I’m only showing 90% of VO2peak for this workout. VO2max will be higher by definition.
HRmax in the past year is 189 bpm, top-5 avg HRpeaks in 2020 was 185 bpm, HRpeak here was 183, so that should give some context for VO2peak vs VO2max.
RPE was a solid 8/10 so not maximal, but not exactly comfortable either. I could have gone harder for this workout, but I don’t think I could go much harder for every workout and maintain consistency & quality.
My first takeaway is my first interval wasn’t hard enough. VO2 barely reached 90% (even though HR was > 90% HRmax). My warm-up wasn’t sufficient and I was having some logistical issues (née excuses) but that would be the first place to improve if time near VO2max is my goal (see top left time > 90% HRmax and time > 90% VO2peak, and remember the missing VO2 data).
If total work > Threshold is my goal, I was able to increase power output slightly during the last two intervals, which tells me I can pace the overall workout better and get even more total work (see top left work > CP).
If work bout duration > Threshold is my goal, I was able to complete 4x 6-min = 24-min of high quality semi-continuous work at a relatively high intensity above Threshold, at “only” 8/10 RPE. Suggesting I could go even longer (eg. progress to 3x 8-min → 3x 10-min → etc.). These sound too long for traditional ‘VO2max intervals’ and there certainly might be diminishing returns to the balance of intensity x duration out there. But considering my individual (pathological) physiology they might still be functionally optimal for me. Individualization will always win.
Hope that gives some insight into decision making around interval programming for your own individual situation!
I’m definitely learning to suffer a lot more than a week ago, so moved on to 5x5 minute intervals (never attempted more than one 5 minute VO2 interval before in any workout).
I tried to reduce the hard start slightly to see how it went. 1st one was too easy compared to what I’d got accustomed to, so only had 4 mins rest, then pushed out to 4.5 mins RBI for the following intervals. Got a bit ill-disciplined and still hit the starts maybe a little too hard, but in the main kept the steady state part around 110%.
Whether it’s improving my VO2 max - who knows, but >FTP power is getting easier to maintain for longer, so I’ll take that as a good sign. At least these workouts got me motivated for some hard work if nothing else! Speaking of which, I feel like I have might a third week in me, but not sure I want to…
