This is why I struggle with what is meant by “all out”. It always depends on how motivated you are and what the situation is.
Furthermore, is it necessary or even possible to replicate that Cheq race kind of effort in training?
I agree, the TR VO2 workouts seem well-calibrated. I complete them consistently, even at max effort, and I’ve never had an ERG “spiral of death” (perhaps due to my Wahoo’s power ramp).
ERG’s pacing cap is useful for me as a newer rider, and self-pacing isn’t a skill I need for my non-racing goals. My profile (53, new to riding, 332W 1m max) also means my VO2 numbers aren’t huge, so my experience may differ from others.
Despite this, I’m in the 60-70th percentile of TR’s 2025 Power Rankings. This suggests that for the average user, ERG is fine. While resistance mode might be preferable to some, and better for elite athletes, it just seems to me that ERG mode VO2 workouts are a suitable approach for most riders.
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Yes, the dread…but after a few workouts, you get the feel for what you need to do, and how to regroup at the 2 minute mark, to get this interval completed, and then you get to the last couple intervals and that gel you ate after the 2nd interval kicks in… suddenly you can finish the interval with a 30 second kick. That’s what it’s all about.
**Neil_Partridge “**Just to note again that my OP was incorrect - the intervals were in fact 2 mins long, which I am led to believe is more typical.”
Neil, I think when you’re working in those upper reaches near your VO2max, you’re generally working toward 4 to 6 minute intervals to increase the stroke volume, or you’re doing 15 second to 1 minute intervals like 30/30s (as Derailleur was discussing above). When I’ve been slacking and haven’t done targeted VO2max intervals in a while, I usually do a workout of 2 minute intervals, then 1 or 2 weeks at 3 minutes, then I can do the 4 minute…but I’m older and a LSD grinder, so YMMV.
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First off… this is awesome and I can almost feel the pain.
That said, in my experience you only have a few of these efforts every season before you are cooked. You simply cannot, and should not, be going to the well every workout like this. Doing these workouts as a way to increase grit can have their place but generally, the goal should be to finish like you have one left in the tank.
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Wouldn’t it be the opposite?
1- If you max your heart rate easily, you need to improve stroke volume and make your heart work better => central. High breathing to improve the lungs, high HR to improve stroke volume.
2- If your heart rate stays “low”, the heart is already efficient enough, work on peripheral.
And wouldn’t peripheral be better served by threshold or sweetspot, and even zone 2 if you can have enough volume ?
It definitely is, I’m energized and in a good mood after a VO2 workout I call it the VO2 buzz. Next day I get a mild hangover I call it the VO2 blues.
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Possibly. If you’re breathing like a fish on a boat for the second half of most of your intervals, then you’re getting the right sort of stimulus.
If not, you’re probably leaving gains on the table.
If anyone is in the second scenario and wants to stick with erg, just consider upping your cadence. That’ll shunt the workload off your legs and on to your heart and might get you there.
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I do my Vo2 workouts in Erg also. If I fail an interval, I regroup and drop the intensity 5-10% depending on how I feel.
I’ve been able to complete some workouts at 95% intensity.
Those I’ll will mark as Max Effort on the survey.
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Oh yes, and I absolutely don’t need to do these type of efforts for the riding/racing I do but I think it’s about the ability to be able to not only survive it but feel like I thrived at it. Big confidence booster. Definitely not something you want to be doing workout after workout week after week as the leg fatigue and neuromuscular exhaustion will come for you quick.
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If you do enough VO2max workouts, in different variants, you’ll figure out the “right” way to do them. Basically - in any VO2max workout - regardless of the variant - the result should be similar - you’re breathing very hard, and you think about bailing, especially in the later intervals.
I’ve done all sorts of VO2-style work outs over the years - from Wingates*, to 20-10 Tabatas, to 30-30s, 2 min intervals, 5 min intervals, hard starts, and the list goes on.
We like to split hairs a lot on what the “best” VO2 workout is - and while there are differences, the most important thing is that you do the work and do them in the “right” way
Note: * these are brutal. I wouldn’t recommend them.
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…and if you don’t reach this level in one workout, the workout will feel like sweet spot or threshold, as they did to me for one or two workouts. Answering that they were “moderate” efforts prompted TR to up the difficulty quickly, and I was answering with “very hard” and/or “max effort” in no time.
A drawback is that these workouts were arguably not doing what was intended until that happened.
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To provide the other side of this coin: my FTP is 350 W and my all-time 3m max is 490 W. I do my 3m VO2s somewhere between 400 and 420 W (115-120%).
I think the other issue with the TR “VO2” workouts is the recovery duration is often too short. This is athlete dependent. 1:1 work:rest is not sufficient for me, I need at least 1:1.5 and usually do 1:2 or at the very least extend my recovery duration as the workout progresses so I can adequately complete the work reps.
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Interesting, and you find that’s hard enough to get to that oxygen debt state? I think if I did similar it would be hard but not as hard as it needs to be.
Totally agree with this too. I extend the recoveries out as well to 1:2 at a minimum
This is one of the instances where I really wish there was a way while in the workout to extend a recovery interval when doing it. Some days I’m fine with 1:1 but others I need longer, and it’s hard to know ahead of time and wish I could easily adjust the workout in the workout player (there are workarounds, but they’re not “clean”).
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Yup. I don’t aim for this power, it’s what I autoregulate to to get the desired effect. What’s your 3m max effort? I wonder if our ratio of 3m max power to 3m VO2 rep power is similar.
Before someone tries to tell me my FTP is set too high based on a 3m power: I do longform FTP tests.
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My max 3m is from a VO2 workout at 475W. And that was actually from the 8th VO2 workout in 2 weeks during a VO2 block. tbh I don’t do too many 3min all out efforts outside of those blocks though.
I’ll note that usually the first VO2 interval of a workout is higher than the rest so it might go like 475 - 460 - 455 - 452 - 450 - 450 or something.
If I’m feeling hesitant to take on the prescribed load, I’ll manually decrease it. Example. If there are 5 blocks of 2 minutes at 300 watts, I’ll decrease by 10% for the first one so I am at 90%. Then I increase it by 2% every block. Working my way back up to 100% or whatever I can manage.
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What worked for me:
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Learn how to do basic hard start VO2s. There’s a particular Empirical Cycling podcast episode that gets referenced. Like this user, I listened to it 5x to get all the pieces. It’s not the most organized in presentation, so it took several listens for me to develop a good mental model about what makes a quality VO2Max workout. I’ll dump some notes below.
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Do the workouts. Focus on the markers RR and HR. According to Kolie, breathing (“gasping like a fish”) should be the primary indicator that you’re at the intensity you need to be, followed by heart rate. I found that these flipped in priority for me sometime last season. I can no longer get to the point of gasping, so I lean on HR a lot more. (I want it > 90% max.)
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Try out a different interval lengths (2, 3, 4, 5, 6 min) and see what works best. Leverage any psychological tricks you can. (Eg, when I do two-a-days I always make sure my second session has one less interval, even if they are longer. Feels easier.)
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Sustainability and consistency is key. Compliance with hard-start VO2s is probably the lowest of all the different interval formats. So you really need to focus on what you can sustainably do each week/season. Gotta manage the mental fatigue as much as physical.
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[Optional] During/after each workout focus on the subjective experience. How do you feel after a successful workout? What variables make you feel better/worse? What symptoms are correlated with gains in the data? I get a particular slightly sick feeling after a good VO2 workout. My “sitting on a couch” HR is elevated by 20-30 bpm for hours afterward. My sleep is a tad more restless. My nighttime RHR will be ~5bpm higher. Stuff like that.
The goal is to learn what quality VO2 training stimulus feels like. Once you learn what quality stimulus feels like you can start deviating from the rules of thumb given for the average rider to maximize gains for your individual physiology. (Eg, for me, a lower cadence, 90-100rpm, gets a better response.) I’ve personally found that calibrating subjective experience to the objective gains is a powerful way to train. I did this with lifting many years back and can get bigger gains with less hours than my younger self. But “vibes training” only works if your experience is well-calibrated and you’re not the sort that will use the freedom to cheat the work.
Oh, and I guess I’d mention that these hard-start VO2s are not very compatible with ERG. Some people have tried to make custom ERG workouts but I don’t see the point. I can say from the experience the power targets for an all-out effort can easily be +/- 5% on any given day. Just seems like you have more to lose from ERG and not much to gain. Either ERG with be too hard, leading to failed workouts, or you’ll undersell yourself stimulus-wise. You can grab VO2’s from TR, just turn off the ERG.
VO2 Cliffnotes
1. Focus on Maximum Effort (Ignore Power)
- Go Max Effort: Do not constrain yourself to specific power targets (e.g., a percentage of FTP); instead, push yourself to a truly maximal effort. Assigning power targets is often considered one of the biggest mistakes made with VO2 max work.
- Pacing Strategy: Start the interval hard, approximately 20 to 30% harder than you think you can maintain for the full duration. Do not, however, begin with a full-on sprint. As your power output fades, keep pushing with maximum perceived exertion.
- Check Your Breathing (Rate of Perceived Exertion): The session should feel deeply uncomfortable. You should be breathing hard enough to feel like you are gasping like a fish in a boat. Paying attention to your breathing is a useful way to gauge if you are in the right zone.
2. Maximize Cardiac Stimulus with High Cadence
- Increase Cadence: Adopt a high cadence, such as 110 RPM, during the work intervals. If you struggle at 110 RPM, aim for 10 to 15 RPM above your normal preferred cadence.
- Prioritize Cadence over Power: Even if using a higher cadence results in slightly lower power output, continue with the high cadence, as the stroke volume improvements are worth the temporary power drop.
- Mechanism: High cadence helps the “muscle pump” mechanism increase the return of blood to the heart, maximizing diastolic filling volume and cardiac output, which is the key mechanism for long-term VO2 max improvement (eccentric hypertrophy of the heart).
3. Structure Your Intervals Appropriately
- Minimum Interval Duration: The shortest effective duration for a VO2 max interval is typically two minutes.
- Total Work Time: Work up to a total interval time in the range of 15 to 20 minutes per session. A common bread & butter structure is 5x5 minutes.
- Recovery: Ensure the recovery interval between efforts is sufficient to maintain high quality in the subsequent interval. A basic guide suggests making the recovery interval around two and a half times as long as the preceding work interval (e.g., 2 minutes work followed by 5 minutes recovery). You can start with shorter rest periods and add more time if you feel you need it to go hard enough for the next interval.
4. Training Frequency and Recovery
- Initial Frequency: If you are fairly new to VO2 max work, you can start by incorporating these intervals into your training once a week.
- Recovery is Crucial: When executing maximal efforts, the session requires careful consideration of recovery. Full recovery from an intense VO2 max block can take weeks or months to see the full benefits.
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Focusing specifically on true beginners – those new to both TR and structured training – if I were TR I’d basically ignore forum sentiment and use the huge amount of data they have on workout completion rates to guide the ERG vs. not-ERG recommendation.
Based on a few comments on the TR podcast, I remember Jonathan saying that he personally prefers resistance mode but their data shows much better adherence to the workout goals for people using ERG. That benefit, I would think, is pretty huge for beginners.
I thought I’d point out that TR has a few knobs that can be used to make ERG mode workouts temporarily easier. One does not need to resort to resistance mode for this. This page uses backpedalling on VO2 workouts as an example: https://support.trainerroad.com/hc/en-us/articles/201954934-Workout-Bailouts
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I’m not new to structured training in general, and have been on TR for about a year now. So when my new plan first introduces vo2 in a few weeks, this workout has 30sec bursts at 115%. The durations will grow over the phase, and the power targets. Is it better to follow that progression on erg or use resistance mode and give it all out (subjective) efforts for those 30sec? Basically ignore the power targets and grow the duration over the phase?