How important is the 20 mins of 60% of ftp added on to V02 workouts?

Training
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If there’s any part of the workouts I’m going to cut short or be like 20 % over or 20 % under, it’s when there’s 20 mins of 60% OF FTP endurance on the end of V02 workouts like bashfull +6 I just did. How important is this endurance part of the workout. You can barely feel any intensity at all?

2

It is the least important part of the workout, but if you have the time to do it, do it, for a number of reasons.

Firstly it is just more manageable stress that will bump up your weekly TSS and lead to more adaptations, you will also be glycogen depleted so likely forcing your body to burn fat or at least get used to working in a glycogen deprived state. You have already fried all of your faster twitch muscle fibers and a lot of the slower more aerobic ones too during the workout, so working your slower twitch muscle fibers at the end will top the work out off and make it pretty all encompassing.

Plus you do more work, burn more calories which may be useful for weight management, and it gives you a period of time to slow down after the intervals which I enjoy personally.

I always fInd if I just hop off the bike after an interval I have no appetite, but if I spin it out for 20-30 minutes I have a good appetite and can fuel better after the session, which probably leads to better recovery and a more successful session downstream, that is just an n=1 observation though.

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Done once, it’s the least important aspect. Done hundreds if not thousands of times, it’s one of the single most important aspects of your fitness.

In a workout like that I stretch it to an hour if I have time.

If you search “why short zone 2 workouts” on the forum you’ll get plenty of good input. Or listen to chad discuss in the podcast promoted by that question.

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4

Yes good point. Must try harder…

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5

I find the endurance part a little bit of a struggle after higher intensity VO2 max work. I don’t mean power wise but mentally, I’ve been all-in on the harder aspect of the workout and struggle to be motivated to follow the long straight line.

However, I will do it for a couple of minutes at least or until my heart rate settles from the VO2 max work to something vaguely normal.