That would do it haha.
I definitely agree with all that:
a) These have been an awesome plateau buster for me two years in a row
b) agreed, those workouts are much too easy at percentages of FTP. Doing shorter blocks with max effort intervals have been much better for me.
c) also agree. Even with the progression levels Iām pretty sure TR would never give me a 6x3m VO2 workout at 140% of my FTP which is about what I need these days for real VO2 stimulus.
the other biggest difference for me (TR to my current coach) is the simple yet progressive workouts. Itās much easier to see and monitor both fitness gains as well as fatigue when the FTP workouts just go 4x10->3x15->3x17->3x20->etc. Instead of constantly throwing in over unders, 30/30s and other things that might be helping but I have no constant way of monitoring improvement.
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It sounds to me like you are describing how improvements to you anaerobic capacity have done more for you to increase FTP than approaching from the other side of the curve.
When you consider 3m @ 140% as a V02 workout it actually draws quite heavily on the anaerobic systems as it really is a short and sweet kind of thing, from what I have seen in TR most of the work on V02 is more purely targeted at the V02 zone (shocker) and does stuff like control of the rest interval to build progression and challenge V02max to improve.
The fact that you are seeing gains from shorter blocks of max effort intervals does tell you a lot about the type of rider that you are. Iām working on an athlete phenotyping framework at the moment based on the idea that different kinds of riders manage lactate through different methods that they fall into using with time and experience with their own bodiesā¦ Kind of like they naturally feel out their individual fiber composition and put it to use. Some being quite good at lowering blood lactate levels quickly while others maintain low blood lactate levels by trapping it within the local musculature and never allowing lactate into the blood in the first place.
It likely depends strongly on the specific makeup of their fibers. In theory you could 3d print a more lactate shuttle efficient muscle by interlacing fast and slow twitch fiber types along capillary beds such that there was no need for lactate to ever leave the local musculature. By contrast if an athlete has large blocks of fast twitch in one muscle and large blocks of slow in another group they likely would need substantial involvement of the circulatory system because there is no longer a strong local network to shuttle lactate between adjacent fibers.
As a final note, I wouldnāt completely rule out the possibility of benefit from more volume of easier intervals especially in improving performance close to V02max in a 5-8 minute effort, a lot of it is delimited by breathing skills, self talk, getting comfortable on the saddle while being uncomfortable, and not necessarily just the raw oxygen exchange.
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Get Xert. The benefit is you can track your FRC / Wā / HIE both in real time on your Garmin head unit and on the phone / desktop. You can do non-steady state type of efforts like over unders or 30/30s that may wind up with less power (or even less normalized power) but still show improvements in anaerobic capacity and/or aerobic fitness.
Ehh I disagree, my AC stays pretty constant. But after a VO2 block I can then ride at FTP but +10-15W for the same HR, breathing rate, and RPE than before the block. And my FTP has just never increased from riding below FTP. Except maybe when I was newer or from a large increase in volume like a training camp it just doesnāt move that needle anymore.
I donāt necessarily disagree but things like riding at a high cadence can reduce the anaerobic contribution and put more load on the cardio aspect of it. And I can tell you that for each of those intervals Iām sucking air for at least the last 90seconds which seems it indicate a pretty large aerobic contribution. Itās definitely a different kind of effort from an all out 1 minuter which is definitely having an anaerobic effect.
This might work for much of the bell curve but for me if I stuck in the 105-120% range for my VO2 intervals I wouldnāt even be struggling till I hit around the last 3 minutes of a 10 minute interval. For whatever reason I just donāt fall into that range as neatly. If I were to do 8-10min intervals at 120% Iād probably get less time at VO2max, be much more fatigued, and not able to complete the VO2 block as intended (8-9 workouts over ~16 days).
Besides, those ranges were meant to be more ādescriptiveā than āprescriptiveā. Itās just a number and a label.
Haha Iām sure it does!
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My main interest is backcountry marathon (and longer) MTB races, and they typically have multiple 20 min - 1 hour climbs. Doing a lot of sweet spot, especially when Iām fatigued, is the most race-specific training that I do.
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Right, that makes sense but itās so easy to forget to control for the other version of you that instead does the most stimulus efficient work on raising āFTPā (kind of like what TR tries to do). That version of you can probably manage 1h at sweet spot on race day but might show up with a higher FTP and just be a better rider in every duration.
I got distracted in my earlier post and removed the small section about this particular phenomenon (of not seeing benefit from fractional utilization) likely indicating a rider that was close to their highest possible V02max genetically (or at least running heavily into a bottleneck that cannot be addressed from traditional training) Iām sure it could still go up a bit from the other pathways however, like erythropoiesis path and altitude camps or the HO1/CO path which is probably one of the breakthrough topics of 2024/25, even if CO direct inhalation is being banned (and with good reason, lol you do not want juniors trying this) the pathway and the signaling role of CO in the so called HO1/CO cycle leaves much to be explored in terms of supplementation, drug based therapy, etc.
Yeah, this is probably part of it. Iām not going to the world tour anytime soon or anything like that but Iāve got a 340FTP at 80kg on ~13hrs/week. So Iām sure that would go up if I could consistently do 18+ hour weeks then Iād see a good little bump but Iām getting to the point where the gains arenāt coming quite as easy and super concentrated VO2 blocks are the only thing thatās caused meaningful change in FTP.
Try 5h z2 rides and z2 overload weeks, Iām about a decade younger than you but managed to punch through the infamous 350w plateau of death by actually doing blocks of 1-2 weeks all z2 and then coming in with a bunch of caffeine and sugar to hit a workout like you described being pretty much all in efforts.
Feeling like weāre twins. Almost exact same numbers and where I am from a training perspective too. Did a 9-workout VO2 Block last month into the beginning of Feb, and then just started the Threshold work that comes after that. Need the snow to melt though before I start pushing more serious volume, making myself do more than 4 hours on the trainer is brutal, and the IF ends up being higher outdoors too. Work weeks now are sitting around 12 hours where Iāve had them build to 16-18 as I build into summer volumeā¦
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