@Rizzi that’s an interesting way to do long SS intervals. The mental effort required to grind out 90, 100, 120 minutes on a trainer is huge. So good idea, well done, and yes: I’d count it.
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Totally fine. Most of us are way too worried about perfection and making sure all of our numbers are properly tracked and recorded and optimal.
The work is what matters.
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Coming back to this and to put it as a better question…when following the WKO training design…have you been at the end of extensive aerobic not wanting to extend further and also not wanting to go right into intensive aerobic (or more intensity at all)…what did you insert and how was the outcome for you?
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@Rizzi: I got to the end of my extensive phase early this week [it’s 21 Feb as I write]. Since then I’ve done several 2-3 hour Z2 rides, mostly outdoors; and I’ve tried out a couple of the shorter interval sessions, to see what they are like. These were just for familiarisation, and were not done to push me too hard. So, really, this was four or five days of taking it easy. On one of the Z2 rides [with a group] I also did a few 20 - 40 sec all-outs just to raise my actual max powers nearer to the model PD Curve.
Monday, I start on the intensive phase, using @kurt.braeckel’s suggested framework to me a hundred of so posts ago:
Good luck with the next phase of your life [sorry, I mean training].
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You can shift to repeatability. 15/15s, over/unders, etc.
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Here’s an idea if you can do longer endurance rides (which fill the bulk of your time). Depending on what you feel like, you could do one threshold session per week (making sure to progress TiZ week over week) as a “maintenance” workout until you’re ready to kick off another phase.
Shifting to a polarized approach w/two working sessions each week sounds like what you might want to do if you’re not ready for something super intensive.
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Depends on your goal. If you’re cooked, take a week or two of easy riding only. If you want to continue progressing, you could dive into a dedicated VO2max or repeatability build block. Depends on goal events and how far out they are, etc.
I followed the cookie cutter: Extensive - Intensive - VO2max. I’m going to take at least one recovery week after my last VO2 week, maybe recovery week then HVLI/test week and back to extending at my 10W (right now) higher FTP. But I’m doing that because I have no idea when I’m going to be racing…
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100%. The difference between AP and NP is tiny; this definitely counts. I thought 75 minutes @ 92% was hard. Great work.
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At some point along the way I hope you are testing a maximal effort. You should see an increase, which would mean restarting a block even at shorter duration would net a higher power output.
If you’re testing and you are not seeing an increase, you almost by definition then need to move into an intensive block to get the required stimulus to see growth.
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@michaelfrommelbourne @ErickVH @anthonylane @kurt.braeckel @RONDAL Thanks all for your suggestions and experiences…appreciated and food for thought!
(Just have to balance this with some running and hopefully swimming again sometime)
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I have a question.
I completely realize that doing longer intervals is more beneficial than doing shorter ones. I am aware of Kolie Moore’s view about not doing any intervals shorter than 10 minutes and I know the ultimate goal is to build longer intervals.
However: how big of a difference does it make if you do let’s say 12 x 6 minutes (Carson, actually 5-7minute intervals) vs, 6 x 12 minutes (Geiger) vs. 2 x 36 minutes?
I know you can’t say: “oh, that’s 2.24-times more effective”, but if I feel mentally weak on a certain day and find it much easier to do shorter intervals with short recoveries between, I’d like to know just what I’m letting go.
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No one can say precisely how much better longer intervals are, but it’s worth remembering that you only get adaptions from the work you actually do. If you don’t feel mentally strong enough to do long intervals, just do what you can. Even if it’s 7x6 minutes — that’s still 42 minutes TiZ. Don’t put pressure on yourself to do mentally tough intervals if it’s going to affect your consistency. One “hero” session doesn’t make you strong. Hope that helps.
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I think it’s to do with energy contributions. The shorter the interval, the higher the anaerobic contribution, so your aerobic system doesn’t get as much of a workout. If you have good anaerobic capacity (and repeatability), you can probably produce a good part of the power in a 6-minute interval anaerobically. The longer the interval, the more this will tail off. You want your sweetspot intervals long enough to be mostly aerobic, so probably 15min plus.
I agree with the sentiment of ensuring TiZ vs. trying to hammer out long intervals just for the sake of it, but if you are finding “longer” 10-20min too hard, especially when focused on SST, I think this is a tell-tale sign that your FTP is set too high. Knock that down, prioritize working through those longer intervals, and it will then ensure you are truly working your aerobic system and not just hammering anaerobic all the time with shorter high power intervals.
I agree with everything you’ve said. I think @KlemenSj can and does do the longer intervals, but there are some days when they need a mental break – correct me if I’m wrong – so it’s more of a case of breaking up the monotony. If that’s the case, then I think it’s fine as long as not all the work they’re doing becomes really short intervals.
Now and then is fine, but if it’s a recurring theme then you’re spot on: FTP is too high.
This is for threshold workouts IIRC. Personally I don’t go shorter than 20 mins (usually 30) for sweetspot, but agree with other comments that more work overall generally wins, so break it up if you need to.
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From the horse’s mouth
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I’d agree with the above. If you can’t manage 10-15 mins at sweetspot (let’s say at 90% of what you can hold for 40 mins plus…) then either
- ftp is overestimated or
- your overtired and better to have rest day (or v easy ride) instead
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I’m into my SS progression which will culminate with a 4x20 on week 5, week 6 is a rest week and then it’s on to something else as I have a race at the end of May. I figure that 80 minutes of TiZ at SS is a good amount for 2.5-4 hr gravel events. Would like to push that further when I can start riding outdoors.
That said, I’ve determined that the next 8 week block coming off this SS progression will include a 3-week block of threshold workouts followed by a rest week, and then a 3 week block of VO2 max race-prep.
For the threshold block, I’m doing fatigued-state workouts that have me starting at 3x10 @ FTP (or slightly above, TBD), 3x12, then 3x15. All of which happens after 30-min of tempo. I’ll couple these with a second workout of the week that is an over-under progression. I’m hoping this will bring on some FTP adaptations before I go into a rest week and then a 3-week block of VO2 work.
I’m curious to know if the FTP work will maintain my fatigue resistance that I built up with this SS progression or if I should throw in a 1x45 or 1x60 @ SS every 2 weeks in order to maintain.
No, actually that’s not the problem. I have managed to do 1x75 interval just a couple of weeks ago and am planning on progressing to 90 minutes next.
Exactly. Some days, I know I have a hard workout ahead and I generally feel “good”, but simply find doing longer intervals daunting, so I was wondering what I would leave on the table if I picked the mentally much easier task.
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