Well you backpedaled which is why someone suggested not using erg mode. And self paced to me doesn’t mean try to hold x watts but try to hold a steady effort for the duration if the interval, whatever power that may be. Kind of like when i run and swim, i don’t know the pace until the internal is over.
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Gave it another go this morning. Was more rested, better hydrated, no trace of my cough, fuelled well with lots of carbs… and failed it worse than last time. Backpedalling by the middle of the second set, and eventually pulled the plug halfway through interval 4.
I think next time I’ll extend the rest intervals, which is probably most easily achieved just by doing Dicks -2, which is basically Seiler but with 3 minute intervals. I don’t think the extra minute is going to vastly reduce my time at >90% vo2max, but it might just give my legs the recovery they need to see out the session.
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Had a look at your Strava, you’ve got other high intensity stuff happening during your weeks so I reckon that was a really good crack at it considering. Have you ever tried sticking to LT1 for a few days and then trying it?
OK, one quick note on ERG (again) if you were using it… If you drop off the power very slightly and briefly then often you’re fighting to back on top of the gear which means an increased in effort that you really don’t need on 4x8! Do you experience that? Forgetting all that…
This is a really hard session, I just think sometimes even when fresh people will fail it, rather than extend the rest, I’d shorten the interval to begin with, maybe drop it back to 6.5 or 7 minutes and see how you go.
I actually think the 2nd set is the hardest, you’ve had the shock of the 1st set, then you have to go again knowing you have 2 more to come. Once you get the 2nd one done and begin your 3rd you are over half way, I found that helped mentally. The 4th one is all about hanging in there, taking it minute by minute. The advice of, you can anything for a minute if you put your mind to it resonated with me!
Lastly, if you have music or visuals have you ever thought about turning them off? I prefer it without (never use them for any session) but for super hard sessions I think sometimes they can distract you when on the limit.
That’s my advice anyway!
What is your rationale on cutting work vs extending rest?
To give the person a better chance of completing in the hope this would build confidence and in the process probably (no science here) bring about improvement to eventually get the 4x8 done.
As an example, typically for someone doing a lot of SS intervals you’d not start off doing 2 x 45 minutes, you’d probably see 2x10, then 2x15, 2x20, 3x20, 2x45 etc. My philosophy would be the same here. The 4x8 with minimal rest is super tough, not just legs but mentally you really need to battle with yourself.
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Agreed, and is the reason I asked my question. Based on my limited research, I see the work as king and extending the rest as a fine option. That 2 minutes set rest for all intervals in the Seiler catalog seems a bit unrealistic and effectively limiting in my experience. I think it can lead to under-performance on the work side compared to having a more substantial rest time.
I find a 1:1 work to rest ratio is more manageable and yields even more successful work intervals. I think nailing the work is more important here vs ability to repeat intervals at short time. I think that work type of work is important for some riders, but it should be done as a different workout with shorter intervals. Again, I have not spent as much time on this topic as many others around here, and I may be off base with my thinking.
I do think progression makes sense with the 4x4 to 4x8 to 4x16 per Seiler. Maybe it’s appropriate to add some intermediate steps along the way (4x6, 4x12)? In any event, I just don’t like the 2 minute rest being common among all of them.
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Nice post. Regarding the shortness of the rest period, Seiler often mentions that the hard sessions of some of the athletes he compares training to as being “legendary”. I wonder if coming up with such a short rest period helps him define these 4x8’s as such.
You certainly feel legendary having completed 4x8 with 2 minutes rest in between intervals!
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Be interested to see WKO4 estimated % VO2max if you happen to use WKO4.
In the most recent fast talk episode, I think he did mention building up to 8 minutes, and that the intervals didn’t ahve to be in the 4, 8, 16 time frame, just that the ones that seemed to work the best were longer and thus racked up more minutes around 90% of max HR. So nothing wrong with doing 4x6, 4x7, then 4x8 as a progression over a few weeks.
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Yes, possibly it was just a build-up of fatigue over the last week or so. I was mostly LT1 on Sunday apart from the odd hill I had to go a bit harder on to get up, but it was 3 hours of it followed by some core strength work. And sometimes you just have an off day.
Or, the session is just a bit too hard!
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I don’t sadly. The closest I can probably offer is that I had 13:29 at 90-92% maxHR, and 9:25 at 93+% mxHR.
I think it’s somewhere between the two. I certainly wouldn’t go 1:1 with 105% intervals as I think you’d spend too long at the start of each work interval getting your aerobic system to a high % of vo2max. But 4:1 is perhaps proving to be a little unrealistic - hence maybe having a go at 3min rests as a compromise.
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True, it likely should vary based on intensity/duration (since Seiler essentially couples the two, shorter sets at higher intensity and longer sets at lower intensity).
But other than some cases of training for specific events (final month setup for things like crits, CX, etc.), I can’t see how anything shorter than 2:1 is helpful if the goal is to get time in the zones for appropriate HR and body strain.
It seems that we are more likely to end up with lower quality work intervals if we have not recovered for a full pull on the subsequent efforts. I expect we would have a tendency to pull back on the power and that may lead to lower effective stress. Not sure if that will really matter, but I dislike the concept that short rest could be leading to poor work.
Here you go:
This is what I read:
-self pace at an intensity that results in roughly 90% (88-92%) HRmax for the final 2 minutes of each eight minute work interval
If you can map that into TR workout great, but keep in mind your HR will rise during the 8-minutes, and the 90% HRmax is only for the final 2-minutes of the work interval.
See, this is where it isn’t quite adding up for me. 4x8min that reaches 90-92% HR max in the last two minutes is not that hard a session. It certainly wouldn’t be “maximal effort” interval training as mentioned in the screenshot.
I found this from the study which suggests the ~90% figure is for the whole 32 minutes:
It’d be an interesting experiment to go to a climb (or a long climb on Zwift, or even (shudder) on TR without erg mode), and do 4x8min based on heart rate, maybe keeping it to 90-91 for the first 6 minutes, allowing it to creep up to 92-93% in the last 2 minutes, and then see what the power averaged out at.
Edit: do we know how Seiler’s subjects had calculated / tested their max HR?
Hmm. Yes, you’re right, looking at a table from another study.
So, with average ~88% HRmax, peaking at ~91% HRmax, RPE (average of all 4 intervals) of 16.2, is the Seiler protocol… not that hard?
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keep in mind you have to repeat all 4x8 intervals, twice a week, along with an additional 2-3 low-intensity sessions, for the 7 week intervention.
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I did 3x8 the other day at around 105% and it hurt, bad. My HR crept way above 92% HRmax near the end of the 2nd interval. I plan on taking an approach similar to what was discussed by Steve Neal in the recent FLO podcast, where he said that he prescribes Vo2max workouts based on power but sets a HR cap. So basically you follow a rough power prescription, but if you start to creep over the HR ceiling (which in this case might be 92% HRmax) you should back off. And you continue to repeat this workout until eventually you are completing the entire thing at the prescribed power without spending a significant time above 90% HRmax. At that point you need to retest and set new power targets. I don’t think this workout is supposed to be an insane test of mental fortitude…the last two intervals should hurt but the goal here is to spend a lot of time at Vo2max without building up an overwhelming amount of lactate, such that you can do it up to twice a week without burying yourself.
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