For sure they’re tough! I’m just going to keep plugging away at them for the next couple months. After that I’ll go back to extensive intervals.
I’ve never really done long suprathreshold workouts, so it’s a new kind of pain.
I don’t have any events til fall so working on a weakness won’t hurt, I’d assume.
Yeah, I’m doing a polarized build, and I am not sure why I am going from 2x16@100%, and it jumped me to 4x9@105%. Those intervals seem silly, and not sure if people think that 9-minute intervals at 105% are normal to do.
Yea I think I’d be better served 6-7 minute intervals the first week or 2. Then try the 8-9 minute ones.
That seems to make more sense. To get used to doing those efforts, rather than just jump to 9 min. I know that I would fail that workout.
for what its worth, these sucked and I flamed out until I changed my training to target 8 hours/week and do a more traditional endurance + intervals pyramidal approach. I’m sixty one and started cycling 8 years ago, my vo2max is between 38 (if I take a month off) and 46. My ftp is a really high % of my vo2max, so I don’t have a lot of ‘headroom’ to do these. But doing a lot of endurance work has paid off big time for me.
That’s what I’ve been doing too for the most part. Up until recently i thought I should try out these polarized plans, I like the idea of 2 intervals per week, so far hasn’t gone as planned.
I also am thinking I needed to work my way up to 8-9 minute intervals before starting at 8 minute intervals. Oh well live and learn, I’m going to finish this block. Retest, might change course or try the final build block depending how I feel.
I get what you’re saying but also kinda depends on what the rider is good at. Just seems strange having Vo2 workouts a few weeks ago of 4 min at 104-106 and 2x16@100 to then go to 9@105.
Interesting, how do they go about this?
I find with suprathreshold intervals it’s half a mental battle.
So I like descending length intervals, last block I finished with a workout consisting of 12min, 2x8min and 2x6min intervals (107%).
I just don’t do em.
I think my problem stems from not doing any prior vo2 efforts in like 4 months. I’ve been doing mostly long sweet spot and threshold intervals. I did TB 2&3 and then SSB1 mv. Jumping into POL MV build I think was a bad idea. Lol
So, Friday, I scheduled that 4x9@105, and I decided I was just “going to do it.” Nothing special to prep, a normal work day, a big bottle of sports drink, and it really wasn’t bad at all…I was kinda surprised. Rather than keep it to myself, I figured I’d let you know that you were 100% right about that workout.
I think that a major issue in some TR suprathreshold workouts such as Jacks is the too short resting time between intervals which are close to maximum. In Jacks it’s 4x8min at 105% recovering only 1min. On average the maximum working time prescribed in the VO2max zone is between 8min at 105%ftp and 3min at 120%ftp. So no wonder Jacks is virtually impossible to finish unless your ftp is underestimated. Essentially they are asking you to perform VO2max intervals in the lower end of the zone close to maximum and recovering just 1min. IMHO this is a clear example of bad designed workout making a lot of people suffering unnecessarily.
Hey @Jose_Manuel, just wanted to clarify that athletes would only get a workout like Jacks if it’s something that is appropriately difficult for them.
Jacks is a challenging workout, but it should be appropriately difficult if an athlete has worked their way up there in their training progression.
To what you’ve mentioned about FTP being too low, if an athlete has completed higher level Threshold Workouts, it’s likely a sign that their Threshold has increased, and if they are using AI FTP Detection, they likely have another FTP test coming up.
From a coaching perspective, this is what progress looks like.
Alternatively, we have an extensive Workout Library with many options for Adaptive Training to pick from to meet a diverse set of needs.
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Recently TrainerRoad has been pushing me to do the Guard workout, which contains blocks of 2 minutes at 107% with 4 sprints sprinkled within. I’ve found it pretty much impossible to do.
I answered in the TrainerRoad survey that I failed the workout, because it was too intense, and then TrainerRoad gave me Guard -5 the week after, which wasn’t of much help, because it’s just shorter, but just as intense and I’m unable to complete even a single interval-set. The wattage targets for the sprints are just too high for me. I’m not much of a sprinter.
A few weeks ago I had completed Gendarme +7 (VO2Max 5.5) just fine. And really I haven’t failed a workout for several months. But Guard -5 (VO2Max 4.7) is just beyond me.