Yep, but I only had the one workout a week at sweetspot at low cadence.
trueā¦ strength doesnāt always predict amount of fast twitch, since some strength is based on higher neurological control of oneās muscle.
But a lifetime of training for wrestling, skiing, and then mountain biking has probably had an influence on my phenotype. Singlespeeding for 2 of those years probably also contributing.
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yeah, and you could also just have both, based on a combination of genetics and the training history you describeāhigh neuromuscular strength and power, and strong anaerobic capacity.
A lot of people think that anaerobic capacity and power max out quickly because they have been told this or learned this. I donāt think this can be true. Rather, i suspect itās that the benefits vs. returns for many endurance athletes max out quickly. But hte overall capacity and power must be able to be further developed over time, otherwise someone should tell all those sprinters and power lifters theyāre wasting their time 
As another follow up, Yeah, Olbrechtās definitions of capacity vs power donāt always hold water, as there are studies that show power type workouts improve capacity as well as power. But of note though is the Seiler study showing that only about 50% of the study participants responded favorably to the shorter intervals. Where I think the two of their ideas converge is the notion of not going in to zone 5 during suprathreshold intervals. In the context of short swimming races of 1-4 minutes, race pace intervals will more than likely send an individual in to zone 5.
My march to May numbers didntā appear at first to show the nice shift to the right, I did graph this out:
After SSB2, my baseline was higher, but we canāt say whether or not that was from the training as Iāve seen the baseline shift up to 1mmol for what seems like no reason at all. In March, it looked like aerobic threshold or LT1 was at 212 watts, now itās 240 watts. Determining LT2 is a bit tougher than LT1, and it looks like since I didnāt go to failure in the lactate ramp, it makes it even harder to determine. At first it was hard to see the improvement at LT1 since the raw baseline values were higher, but if you subtract 0.5 from all of the may values to normalize the two (so the baselines are aligned) you get this graph. Illustrates the improvement better.
Now Iām doing the general build, and allowing myself to go a bit harder on some of the earlier intervals to try and get my HR up to ~90% of max sooner in the workout. Iāll probably just repost this in the MLSS thread.
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Would short all-out sprints training 2x/week increase VLaMax in a GC/climber type rider (FTP focused guy)?
For example,
in a 3h Z2 ride: 10x 10sec ALL-OUT sprints with 5min recoveries.
I think this WO would be more PCr dependant, since the sprints are very short and the recoveries long in-between. So not too glycolytic, therefore not raising VLaMax. Right?
If wrong is there a type of sprint training that wouldnāt raise VLaMax? Thanks
I just listened to episode 238 (part 2) with Weber.
Maybe Inscyd testing is not the magic bullet for the average recreational / amateur athlete? Iām thinking of the part where Weber says that if you are a 6 hour per week athlete that you probably shouldnāt even think about VLA max - no doubt that your limiter is VO2max.
It seems like VLAmax would be of more interest to triathletes because long term they probably want to drive down their VLAmax number.
Maybe you could be a decent crit rider on 6 hours per week and in that case, intentionally trying to raise your VLAmax might be good so you can sprint at the end.
But if you are an all-arounder and riding 6-8-12 hours per week? It sounds like VLAmax is not very useful. ???
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Regarding VO2max, from the shownotes:
a big training volume generates a high VO2max and with a low training volume one simply cannot anticipate a VO2max higher than 40-50 ml/kg/min.
Itās not just volume, but intensity as well. Iāve read studies which show doing high volume of only low intensity can actually decrease VO2max.
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Weber talked about intensity a bit (Iām going to have to relisten). He was saying something along the lines of the amount of intensity being fixed - like maybe you do two hours of intensity per week at 6 hours of total riding. Itās a high percentage but you can recover from it with all of your days off. If you increase to 8, 10 or 12 hours per week, the intensity still stays at 2 hours as you add endurance volume.
Anecdotally, I did my first group ride on Saturday. Iāve lost a bit of my top end. During the last few months Iāve been doing a lot of gravel riding and working up to 4-5 hour rides so my endurance is off the charts. But on Saturday, which is a fast 2 hours I was lagging on the sprints more than usual.
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Yes. My understanding is that at some point you will max out gains from doing purely aerobic work (high volume of low-intensity), however keep in mind this type of work will generate the biggest increase in vo2max / aerobic capacity.
High-intensity intervals also contribute to aerobic capacity / vo2max increases, but to a lesser extent. And these gains are quickly earned and quickly lost.
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I have recently just done an inscyd test and my results were not what I expected or predicted.
For certain I have learned that you do not know until you test!
One thing that is particularly useful from the report is the carb/fat combustion and from my previous training zones being set too high I am burning carbs like crazy and therefore jeopardising recovery,adaptation and the quality sessions. By lowering my normal training pace 30w my fuel ratio changes massively and I have noticed that I can add more volume with less fatigue.
I do not know yet what performance improvements this will Bring as these things take months but what he said about hard sessions at threshold or above being similar in absolute time between 6 hours per week and 20 hours per week makes total sense. To recover from glycogen depletion while training daily (upto 3 hours for those doing high volume) means you have to stay at an intensity that requires low carbohydrate combustion. And that is probably much more of an easier pace than We think.
This is consistent with Jan Olbrechtās recommendations in teh science of winning. That you can get āperverse resultsā from your training and one way to prevent this is to spice up your endurance training with sharp, hard efforts. His recommendations were for swimming so not the same but thereās a lesson for cyclists as well.
This is also a reason why i donāt like it when people are too didactic about how they tell people to approach training. Like, you can only do easy rides during ābaseā, stuff like that. Second biggest pet peeve, the other one is why vo2max intervals are called that in the first place (I still donāt know why)
I donāt know that i agree with that. Giving athletes a heuristic for contextualizing changes in performance is pretty useful. Like shifts in the lactate curve, tested FTP going up or down, all these things have different implications in a Vo2max / vlamax model vs. when people just approach FTP as a single physiological aspect as opposed to the combination of aspects that it actually is.
Another example, mountain biking is very stochastic. You might average 250 watts but itās more bouncing between 350 and 0 vs. steady at 250. Suggests you might be more successful with a high vlamax and high vo2max vs. both being lower, even if FTP is the same. This gives you more levers to move.
I think it still would increase vlamax. One, PCR is only for the first few seconds, after that lactate production has to ramp up hard in order to take up the slack. I remember hearing Weber in a podcast say that an athletics sprinter who runs a sub 10 second 100m would need to have a high Vlamax. The first few seconds is PCr, but the sprinter with a high vlamax is slowing down less as the PCr goes away vs. another with a lower vlamax. You could always just go to 15 seconds if there was any doubt, though.
Second, the size principle, because you are going out at max you are recruiting immediately from teh get-go the big muscle fibers, and making them perform in a fast-twitch way.
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This makes great sense. Thanks!
I had last week an inscyd test:
My FTP is around 300 (I can hold 300 Watts for an hour ) and my power meter was 5 Watts off. My VLamax is of a classics rider and I want to lower it a bit (to 0.45).
He suggested following approach (in order to keep the vo2max as high as possible and to lower VLamax):
1 x /w variations on 4 x 8ā @ 315w
1 x tot 2 x per week Medio @ 260w = sweetspot
During Medio 3ā @ 100 rpm en 2ā @ 60 rpm (example)
At least 1 x per 14 days VO2max training with longer intervals and little rest (less anaerobic). No 30/15 of 40/20 but (2ā30ā VO2max - 1ā Fatmax) x 2 and this 3 times
Rest easy. Once a week low glycogeen training
To add: Iām self coached
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Hi, could you explain the vo2 max intervals again
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In my case it will be 2*(2,5 minutes @380watts + 1ā @180 watts) this three times. Rest between the sets was not importantā¦
It will be though
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So via a Team Jumbo-Visma competition on Instagram, I won an Inscyd Power Performance Decoder test. Last weekend I performed all tests, seperated over 2 days. Ā±20" and Ā±12ā efforts on one day and Ā±3ā and 6ā on the other day.
At 67.1kg of bodyweight, I got:
20": 857W
2ā30": 449W
5ā: 365W
10ā: 332W
Now the report estimates my VO2Max to be 72ml/min/kg, which seems way too high. My last lab test I came in at about 62ml/min/kg at a similar weight. My VLaMax was estimated at 0.67 which is really high given that I rarely do efforts <5ā (Olympic/half distance triathlete), except for the occasional race uphill on a group ride. I know Iām a punchy rider but both of these values seem off. They estimated my anaerobic threshold to be 295W which seems right given that I averaged 292W for 44ā in a Zwift TT in April.
So for a lower VO2Max but the same AT/FTP, I would have a lower VLaMax? I guess more in the region of 0.5 which is supposed to be similar to that of classics riders and olympic distance triathletes?
Iāve uploaded my report if that helps anyone.
MetabolicProfileReport-2020-06-23.pdf (417.7 KB)
Interesting. On first glance ~70 ml/kg/min feels about right to me for your W/kg numbers, for whatever thatās worth. I donāt have enough experience to comment on the VLamax estimate. Any chance youād be willing to share your physiological test data to compare?
Do they give a range for the PPD estimates? Like Ā±5% or Ā±5 ml/min/kg or something?
Right. Lower VLamax should imply you produce less lactate at any given workload. So said another way, you should be able to sustain a higher power output and higher %VO2max at lactate threshold. Or the same power output at a lower VO2max.
Sure, the reports are in Dutch though so Iāll just share the numbers.
When I started training for my first triathlon November 2016 (background in combat sports only), I did a running test (start at 5.4kph, +1.8kph every 3ā) and I was measured at a relative VO2Max of 53ml/min/kg at 72.2kg.
October 2017 I did another running test where I got 57ml/min/kg at a weight of 68.3kg but I quit at a lower heart rate (5BPM short).
December 2018 I did my first cycling test which started at 120W, with a 40W increase every 3ā. I stopped at just over 2ā in the 360W step at 13.2mmol/l of lactate. VO2Max was not measured but was estimated at 4112.7ml/min or about 61ml/min/kg. 2mmol/l at 141W (really bad actually) and 4mmol/l at 265W.
Last October I was selected for a ketone experiment on well trained amateurs where I also did a few tests. I came off of a 2 week ārest periodā after a 6 week block to go for a half marathon PR so a lot less cycling. Starting at 100W, adding 40W every 8ā (same protocol used for Deceuninck-Quickstep team). I stopped after the 300W step at 10.7mmol/l since I still had to do a 30ā TT and some other tests after that. Submaximal VO2 was measured at 57 as well. Aerobic threshold was estimated at 1.7mmol/l at 200W and anaerobic threshold was estimated at 6.1mmol/l at 265W at 67.45kg.
My Garmin estimates my VO2Max to be 62-63 lately for what thatās worth.
I did not get any accuracy numbers on the estimates and I couldnāt find any myselfā¦ They only asked for my weight Ā±0.5kg and fat percentage Ā±0.5%ā¦
I assume itās not possible that Iām already so full of lactate that I just canāt get to that 70ml/min/kg number haha. My max. HR is quite low though at 176 at age 28.
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