So I specifically asked Steve this question re: time in to step. Meaning if I rode 45 seconds in into the step why would my MAP be lower than if I held on longer. He had a great answer and that was that your MAP is still XX but you can tolerate slightly longer intervals at that MAP. If you can’t hold the power for at least a minute at the higher wattage your MAP isn’t that wattage. Makes a ton of sense to me. I also think this is another reason to generally use 3 minute steps. When you’re doing the TR test once you start getting to the hard part your anaerobic stores are contributing more and more to the effort. Because the steps are so short people like me are able to hold on for 1-3 minutes longer while we are blowing through our stores. If you’re doing 3 minute steps you are truly letting your aerobic system settle into the wattage to ensure you actually can perform the interval before you step to the next one. For people with minimal anaerobic stores this may not be as much of an issue because that contribution is so limited it doesn’t affect their ability to hold on in 1 minute intervals as much. The 2.5 - 3 minute step seems to be more accurate across the board to evaluate aerobic fitness not anaerobic fitness. This is the way I think about it but I encourage folks to sign up and ask Steve questions. He is an awesome guy.
So if you’re doing Vo2 efforts just do them at slightly longer intervals at the wattage you were able to attain for 1 minute. Once you step up to the next wattage and you can hold on for only 60 seconds you would be doing them at the lower end of the timeframe and working your way up to longer efforts.
as I found it well written. As tshortt and I were discussing, pick a protocol and stick with it. MAP is a performance marker, the exact values aren’t as important as being able to use it to evaluate the effectiveness of training over time.
Yes my understanding is you record the peak power for “a stage.” So MAP is suppose to be best 1-minute for 1-minute stages, and best 2.5-minute power for 2.5-minute stages, etc.
Yep. Which is why the TR ramp test overestimates for some people. My plan for start of next year training is to reduce the TR ramp test number by about 5% and start with that.
From the Canadian PDF linked above, it seems that they record the last completed interval as ‘max 3 minute power’:
f. record last completed actual 3 minute workload (from SRM file) as maximal 3 minute
power output
g. record length of time in last incomplete stage
The document doesn’t say (at least I didn’t see it from skimming it) how these values are used, although just from the above it sounds like the duration of the last incomplete stage is not a main result of the test. The paper doesn’t go into the justification of the process, nor the analysis of the results, just the methodology of running the test.
Yeah, I think you are right here - the ‘3 minute workload’ likely refers to the fine 3 minutes of effort, not a 3 minute step. The phrase “completed actual 3 minute workload” made me think it was referring to a step.
yeah, makes sense now. At first I figured it was “belt and suspenders” to keep intensity down, as so many (including myself) get caught up in pushing harder and harder. After looking at his blog on cycling gym site it dawned on me that something else was going on.
Ok, start with a 3-min MAP test, then 5-min ramp for lactate testing. Find lactate balance point and train that. I’ll file that away in my “interesting ideas I’ll likely never try” cabinet because I’m not a fan of getting poked so its MLSS field testing for me
(aside: wonder if the lactate dynamics can offer some insight into the negative aerobic decoupling I see on longer intervals?)
I would even start with a 7% to 8% reduction and start there. I’ve learned over these past 6 months that over-training and/or chronic over-reaching is the biggest detriment to aerobic progress.
Remember: cycling isn’t an anaerobic sport (unless you’re a track sprinter) it is an aerobic sport.
It is soooo hard to internalize this and understand how to apply it. I still don’t fully get it — but it’s why I work with Steve.
Unless you can hold your FTP number for a minimum of 45 minutes, you’re likely over doing every workout.
I believe this is especially true if you’re a masters athlete, where recovery matters more…
Hey there are two ends to a bell curve - maybe not so smart if you are at the other end of the bell curve!
Smart is making sure you do enough aerobic endurance and tempo training of slow twitch muscles - because at higher intensities the slow twitch muscles will ‘eat’ lactate produced by the fast twitch muscles. And that will raise your threshold power and make you faster!
Today I rode outside and did 4 SS intervals of about 18 mins each. I set a pace based on RPE that I felt was comfortable enough for multiple repeats at that pace, and without putting me in a hole for the next interval. Interestingly, my avg HR for the 4 intervals was 83% of max.
This level of intensity for SS intervals is a lot less fatiguing than typical TR intervals that are set according to the ramp test.
I’ll be starting next seasons training plan in a few weeks. Each year I learn something new to try. This year it will be reducing the intensity for SS intervals. And doing only one VO2 max or threshold workout a week. This will mean tweaking the TR plans, but that’s OK.
can you cite any sources for slow twitch muscle fibers being able to directly utilize lactate for energy? I want to send some journal articles to my biochem professor to try to convince him to incorporate that into his lectures because he still tells all his students that all lactate produced by muscles must be shuttled back to the liver, where the liver converts it back to glucose and then the new glucose can be sent back to muscles. (the cori cycle)
I don’t have a biology or physiology background, but here is what I’ve learned. Start with the wikipedia article on aerobic respiration and these are the steps:
glycosis converts carbs into pyruvate
at sub-threshold efforts the pyruvate takes one of two paths: aerobic or anaerobic
anaerobic the pyruvate becomes lactate acid
aerobic the pyruvate is used as fuel by mitochondria (Oxidative decarboxylation of pyruvate and Krebs cycle)
mitochondria are primarily found in type 1 (slow twitch), and also present in type IIa (intermediate fast/slow twitch) muscle fibers
In summary, lactate plays a key role in two types of energy production:
output of anaerobic system
fuel source for aerobic system
There is a ton of info out there. Hope that helps.
GLADDEN, L. B., Muscle as a consumer of lactate. Med. Sci. Sports Exerc., Vol. 32, No. 4, pp. 764–771, 2000. Historically, muscle has been viewed primarily as a producer of lactate but is now considered also to be a primary consumer of lactate.
I shot an e-mail to my prof and got an immediate reply.
haha thank goodness he was perfectly aware of all this. He was just simplifying it down a lot so as not to confuse the class with too much information/detail.
@redlude97 Thanks for posting that, and the picture is exactly what I wrote down in my own notes! Its why training lactate clearance requires training both fast-twitch, and somewhat non-intuitively slow-twitch via long z2 rides.
since this podcast came out, I do generally think about 83% MHR…I like to think about it as a tipping point between less taxing and more taxing workouts. but i don’t drop my prescribed power in response to hitting this ceiling… mainly I’ve been looking at it and thinking… hmm ok that’s fine but I will just remember that this means i’m making my overall workout a lot more depleting and i’ll try to remember to be extra lazy, sleep more, eat healthier and all around try harder to recover so that i’m ready to do it again. Since getting on the LV plan this winter, I generally always do have the time required to get completely recovered.
on the theory side of things…
all this talk lately has me wondering if “fatmax” is just another term for the aerobic engine that chad talked about in yesterday’s podcast. He talked about how a bigger aerobic engine is absolutely critical to being able to recover from the sprint type efforts where you suddenly deplete your FRC (functional reserve capacity aka ATP and creatine phosphate pools). and @batwood14 was saying how happy he has been with his ability to rapidly recover from the 3’ climbing repeats which are also basically going to drain the FRC as well (just over a longer time period compared to sprints).
just a thought but…
we might find that rider adherence data will influence TR to lower intensity of sweet spot workouts in certain volume plans eventually I think if the better method is Steve Neal’s method of prescribing basically a lower version of sweet spot zone for 3x20, progressing to 3x30 progressing to 2x48… which fall in the TR tempo range of possibly 80% of the TrainerRoad measured FTP based…
