love me a good authentic pizza, we have several good ones around here… can’t win with logic, can’t win with analogies!
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It’s a tough place…
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I’ll be more than happy to take your dough.
April 13/14…my 125% tally vs your 125% tally? 
I’ve seen pVO2max-based interval protocols which calculate I should currently be able to perform 2x5min@125%. We’ll see if I can get it to 3 in the next 6 weeks!
Maybe you’re racing the wrong race. 
From all your talk about personal strengths (vo2) and current training load I have confidence you can. The question is always, what am I’m accomplishing with these workouts?
I’m sure it will give some new stimulus and additional intensity, and changing things up can be good. Not sure those are optimized for vo2max, but we’ll never know without hooking you up to a cart while on your trainer. Its been shown you can increase time at vo2max by decreasing intensity to something a little above/below ftp. One subject in that study went 16 minutes vo2max with almost 13 minutes spent below ftp! (Fig 1 on page 8 of pdf)
I’m interested to read how this next training block works out, I’ve tried a lot of things myself and not afraid to push boundaries otherwise you don’t know your limits!
Said prop bet is not a competition. I know personally that repeatable duration at 125% is only about 2 minutes during peak condition for me. Pisgah is during race week taper in the xco lv plan and even with the long rest durations is still incredibly hard. To even do one interval your fractional utilization needs to be around 80% meaning you have a rather large anaerobic contribution.
All betting is competition.
Besides, someone has to get the money, and who better than the guy doing all the work! 
I’ve read research of choppy declining power VO2 intervals (~10minx30/15) allowing for greater duration @>90%HRmax (one subject recorded a straight 26min @VO2max); for me, I’d start at ~135% and end at ~110%, ramping down every 3-4 reps to keep HR steady. These types of intervals developed the utilization of aerobic derived power vs anaerobic derived power (among other things) but did not necessarily increase power output. At this point I’m almost exclusively after increasing power, hence the shorter, higher intensity intervals and I’m willing to sacrifice other improvements (e.g. lower lactate production) which declining power intervals might provide.
And, as BioT timely pointed out, Pisgah (which I’m doing today) and others (e.g. Mondanock), even though tagged as ‘Anaerobic’, is described as “VO2max intervals at 125% FTP”. This might cause confusion among some TR users.
I also took off the rinky dink 50/34 and slapped on a 52/36.
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here is my thought process… the long anaerobic intervals you are talking about is something that traditionally comes late in base/build/speciality periodized plan… and the later phases imply those workouts are more about specificity than increasing ftp… so who knows what its going to do for your power. Thats why I’m interested to read how this training block works out, building on top base>build>base progression you’ve completed.
edit: re-reading Friel’s 5-part interval series Intervals, Part 1 - Joe Friel and part 5 in particular, using the pyramid model reinforces that you’ve laid down a strong muscular endurance foundation doing SS/Threshold work during base>build>base and the right thing to do now is anaerobic endurance.
I’m more curious of how this works with the timing, already switching to higher intensity with the goal for @Captain_Doughnutman being a long TT in June.
I’ve been doing intensity only sporadically but have seen big increases in almost all segments of my power curve since starting my progressive freestyle SS block in January. Definitely haven’t hit a plateau.
With my A race the last week of May I’m still holding off on the seriously focused short power work until April. Counting on group rides and low priority road races and crits will be a good warmup before then.
Pass me the popcorn…
I’m bullish for @Captain_Doughnutman for several reasons.
First off without looking at his data, I’m going to say he has nailed muscular endurance by doing base>build>base high-volume as it is focused on sweet spot and threshold work. And without pulling up a calendar I’d say given his apparent power plateau it is time to switch to anaerobic endurance to raise vo2max and possibly sprint/anaerobic/neuromuscular. Definitely vo2max work, which brings the next question of long or short vo2max?
Both short 30/15 second vo2max intervals, and longer 4-8 min intervals at lower intensity have been shown to increase threshold power and max aerobic capacity. There is a Norwegian study showing greater power gains doing the shorter 30/15 intervals, but that could be a result of the elite cyclists having more experience doing longer vo2max intervals.
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I’m always bullish for @Captain_Doughnutman because whatever he does, he’s all in. And entertaining. I’m interested in the overall type of work/volume and periodization that he seems to implement vs my own training since we’ve been following somewhat similar progressions.
I don’t really stress %s or numbers much so I don’t have much of an opinion on specific intervals and how they differ in a granular sense.
In my training intervals in anaerobic, VO2 and Threshold zones are full gas for a given duration, SS is hard”ish” and Z2 is cruising pace. I know my zones and always have a target in mind, but just as a general point of reference.
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I think we should try this WO, it kinda checks the boxes of the VO2 variation we’ve both come across:
https://www.trainerroad.com/cycling/workouts/1379-rattlesnake
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yes I plan to at some point. Coach Chad calls these “peak and fade” and that one is based on the 1st of 2 posts, start with update post: Update to ‘Prescribing VO2max’ – Spare Cycles and if you haven’t read the 1st post its linked in the first paragraph.
We’re reading the same dude! 
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What’s exciting about this workout is that it looks like it can also be achieved on the open road just running on feel plus a page on your head unit with just Time (or maybe Lap Time) and %MaxHR.
As he mentions, that’s how you end up naturally doing 30/15s if not in erg mode anyway.
Thanks for the shoutout!
Just to tease, I’ve got a post coming out in a couple days where I was able to look directly at my own VO2 response during these hard-start 30/15s microbursts and compare them against continuous power VO2max intervals, like 4x4min or 3x5min.
Quick summary: intermittent/microburst 30/15s are very relevant to accumulating time >90% VO2max, and may be more tolerable than continuous power intervals, but the latter seem to be more effective at maximizing time >90% VO2max and show a more reliable HR-VO2 relationship, ie. HR better predicts VO2 in continuous power intervals.
I already have a post up looking at VO2 & SmO2 during continuous power intervals. Super interesting to see the metabolic response in real-time, IMHO. Not sure what the policy is on linking your own stuff, but should be easy enough to find.
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Thanks for dropping in, and looking forward to the next post! I started reading the blog before understanding what all this training stuff meant, really appreciate the thoughtful and detailed posts! By the way, I looked up the price of the vo2 mask this morning and almost fainted 
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Given your posts are entirely informational in nature, I’d say link away.
Thanks for all the investigation you’ve been doing! Been following your blog for a while.
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Yup!
Which leads to another point, lifted directly from @SpareCycles (star power!):
The main limitation of prescribing VO2max intervals remains that HR and Power are not linearly related, nor well correlated to VO2. Power and HR targets derived from a single MAP or FTP test seem unreliable in predicting the actual VO2 response to a workout.
Unless you have all the appropriate/expensive gadgets (e.g. gas exchange mask), VO2max intervals will always be somewhat of a nebulous affair, esp. if they are based on a single metric (e.g. power).
Personally, power and HR, plus a smidge of RPE, work for me at this stage of my nonlustrous career. I might not reap 100% of VO2max benefits like I would with more fancy machines, but I think using those gauges capture a lot of what I’m after.
Directing back to the OP (me!), I can see where this would also apply if someone did a bunch of training and their FTP didn’t change…using only power as a guide vs other tech instrumentation/measurement, could lead to incorrect training.
Will be giving a moded Rattlesnake a go tomorrow (if I’m not scared shootless of exploding my brain/eyes/heart! 
)
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