My girlfriend experienced this with some frequency over the past year—struggling to breathe during vo2 max which then lead to a mild panic resulting in this positive feedback loop that forces her to bail from the interval early. We had both suspected it was related to her propensity for mild panic attacks (she had two about a decade ago) until we dove into the issue a bit further. Internet suggested she might have exercised induced asthma, so we got her prescribed an inhaler which she takes before every bike ride now and voila, problem fixed! She has had no issues since. Vo2 max intervals are still hell, but airways don’t restrict at all which gives her the peace of mind knowing she can continue to stay relaxed and push it.
Maybe you could be experiencing something similar? I get the sense from what I have read that some people always experience some airway restriction when working at maximal efforts and just assume that it is normal and what everyone experiences. I know for myself and presumably others that that does not happen. Breathing is totally fine no matter the intensity for me
I’ve got Albuterol and listing the most common side effects explains why I hate using inhalers: tremors (no), anxiety (yes), headache (no), muscle cramps (no), dry mouth (yes), and palpitations (yes).
Somewhat surprisingly, and counter-intuitive, things improved starting a year ago when I switched to a more pyramidal approach of doing roughly 5-7 hours/week of zone2 (and ~3 hours of intervals). That approach has helped improve my ability to do any hard effort under 5 minutes.
Do you use a spacer that also gets you to breath in slow? The spacer removes larger droplets of the drug so less gets deposited before it reaches your lungs. The drugs aerosolized reaching your lungs is good, the rest is a waste and since its large drops that can be a good amount of the drug and cause more side effects.
Do you take it when your heart rate is up? Or let your heart rate come down before you take?
Just did Taylor-2 (SSB MV) so 3/30 and it felt very easy. Just did a ramp last week that I think was good. At the end raised the intensity to 130% and did the last 6 again and that was hard by the end. Am I weird? Maybe skynet will make the workouts harder for me. Beech-1 (endurance) felt much harder.
According to my sister I’m doing everything wrong. Allergic to cats, grass, and trees. Instead of avoiding life, I use an indoor cat and outdoor exercise as my daily “allergy shots” which has actually worked out better than allergy shots or the various drugs I’ve been handed over the years. Only use the Albuterol (with spacer) once or maybe a handful of times a year now. More aerobic endurance (zone2), better at short/powerful aerobic efforts. More frequent exposure to allergens, better at tolerating them. Excuse me while I sneeze LOL after leaving the windows open this afternoon.
Taylor -2 has nothing to do with vo2 max. It is rather leg primer that has to accustom you with harder efforts over FTP. Basically everyone thinks its easy. You are not wierd, this workout is wierd and if it is not first year of training it is also pretty useless in terms of adaptations. In my opinion proper vo2 max starts with Spencer +2.
For me (particularly beyond the first set) with 2min VO2s (e.g. Dade -1), it’ll feel fine for about the first minute, but then almost suddenly it feels like my legs are starting to burn more and more. Then time slows down in the last 30 seconds.
I’ll definitely have thoughts of wanting to turn down the intensity for the rest of the workout during set recovery, but then the workout notes pop up basically saying if my output, cadence, and form were on point, then don’t touch a thing (or increase intensity). At which point, I’m like “Darn it, I guess I’ll keep going.” I do appreciate that since it’s usually a reminder for me that even though my mental game may be off, I should be able to stay the course and survive.
I completely disagree with pretty much all of that. 30 sec at 120% is definitely VO2max work, particularly with such short rest in between intervals. It may not be at the upper end of difficulty, but so what, it’s definitely VO2max. I think it’s also odd to say that it’s useless in terms of adaptations. I’m sure I’m not alone (as a person relatively new to structured interval training) in thinking it has been very useful. And more to that point, I doubt Chad et al. would keep it in one of the marquee training plans if it didn’t have any benefit.
There’s many ways to skin a cat. It is listed as a vo2max workout in TRs workout listing. I’m also pretty sure Veronique Billat would second that. Actually any workout that gets your hr up over 90 or so percent of your max hr is training your vo2max. Helgerud and Hoff recommends training at a hr between 90 and 95 %. The heart and lungs don’t care much what your legs are doing.
The problem with short on/off intervals is that there will be a large anaerobic contribution unless the rest period is very short and doesn’t let the anaerobic system recover.
At only 120% FTP this it’s not exactly a massive stimulus given the short work periods. Just read everyones’ experience - people are surprised how easy it is, and lots of people turn the intensity up. Proper VO2 max workouts are not easy!
Personally would do 30/15 or 40/20s if I wanted to do this type of workout. Or better yet, proper 3-5 minute intervals.
Show me a workout analysis for Taylor -2 with a decent amount of time above 90% HR peak. Otherwise I’ll maintain it’s not a good VO2 max stimulus. Confidence building maybe, but that’s about it.
VO2max isn’t a specific power percentage, it’s a biological state. I’ve never felt Taylor -2 has ever even close to put me in that state. I don’t get that from bluebell at 120% either. Those workouts may be better at 140 or higher, but I don’t think they are very good at simulating vo2max.
30/30 is not a short rest and 120% with 30s is low power target. You have mentioned you are new to structured training, that is why I excluded this from my opinion - there were definitely some benefits for you.
I agree. I failed miserably on Spencer+2 today, because even dropping the intensity 4% I still couldn’t hold the watts for more than 1 minute. I was stupid to try this one ,as I went into it very tired.
I remember doing this on the road many years ago with a Powertap ,and the watts always dropped from what my coach prescribed.
I am going to attempt it again when I’m recovered.
My thoughts are ,if a person can complete this successfully (assuming FTP is right) he/she/they are really race fit. But as I experienced , you have to be well rested mentally and physically to cope with the pain
Hard start vo2 max intervals, with declining power let me drown for longer, without failing due to muscle fatigue. Breathing stays absolutely maxed out for longer than any other interval format I’ve tried.
Here was a 4-min hard-start VO2max interval from today. This was done as a benchmark effort that will give me an idea of how hard to go for my upcoming VO2max block.
My max-HR this season is 196, so the average for this interval was 93% of my max. This was a painful 4-minutes. It sucked. Not sure I could do this 3 or 4 more times. But 400w would likely be repeatable.
LOL after leaving the windows open this afternoon.