I have similar sentiments re FTP setting to be too high but it can also be a function of workout order or fatigue in the legs. I tend to be in good shape on Tuesdays which I would aim to do my hardest workout for the week. So lately in the program the first two workouts of the week were VO2 and threshold which are done Tuesday and Thursday. Threshold work felt hard and was challenging to get through that last interval of different workouts. I switched around my days to move my threshold workout to be the first workout of the week and VO2 later. What I noticed was my threshold workouts were going better. I now felt it was easier to push the threshold work on Tuesdays as the RPE just became better. Both workouts have their challenges but having fresher legs made the threshold feel a lot better.
From my personal perspective breathing hard isnt as challenging as doing harder muscular endurance work but we all have our own challenges.
Definitely agree with this. I have been trying to move away from what TR keeps pushing with the short intervals and just use longer intervals. For me longer intervals work better on the heart rate to get me in zone longer.
One of the metrics in intervals.icu is HR lag, i.e. the time between a significant power change and your HR responding. Mine has been around 45 seconds for the last few workouts so for typical 30/30 sessions Iāve not even begun to get into zone before Iām easing off and getting recovery. The next time I get a 30/30 workout I may well sub in a 30/15 and see how that goes.
My MHR is around 180bpm so depending on who you listen to I need to get that over 162bpm (90%) or 171bpm (95%) to truly be in VO2max territory - Intervals.icu has my Z5 starting at 163bpm & Z6 at 167bpm. Hereās the last set from Sleeping Beauty. Top row is raw power, middle row is 30s avg power, bottom row is HR.
Max HR is 146 in that section, lowest value is 110bpm.
Hereās the back end of Wild Snow, the valleys are in the 116-124bpm with the peaks around 167bpm
Just to compare with a threshold workout, hereās the three 16min threshold intervals from Mount Grant.
The short repeats are considerably easier to execute, and for me also donāt benefit me as much. Iāll be doing some of the classic vo2max workouts from ssb2 when i do my build, those are mostly 6 and 7 power level.
Iām also one to say if the threshold workouts are super hard, you might benefit my dropping 5 watts or do from your target. The unders in the over unders should be some relief.
Exactly, unfortunately most of trās good workouts wrt interval length and rest interval have a pretty high pl, so most people might only get those suggested very late in a training block.
Mine HR lag is pretty shortā¦ Infact today it was nearly immediate.
I also wonder if the difficulty is down to how advanced our various fitness systems areā¦ I am pretty strong legs (from kitesurfing), but have an under developed aerobic system, never having done any proper aerobic work before cycling.
In general Threshold sessions should be ācomfortably hardā, they should not āhurtā, maybe you might not want to do them or carry on at a given output but you could as long as you tell your Chimp brain to be quiet. If they genuinely āhurtā (sidebar - I donāt agree with the word hurt in any training but I am overlooking that) then they, as I said before arenāt threshold, or something is wrong, maybe illness or serious fatigue.
Threshold over/unders might be a different matter dependent on how far over the overs are and the duration.
^ Totally agree, you get the same adaptations without the suffering and extra fatigue.
You had me looking at intervals.icu but I am not exactly sure what I should be looking at for the similar interpretation of hr lag as what you see. Feel like I am lost in the detail here. Data overload.
I can see it shown on individual workouts but the lag is different based on the type of workout. So Gendarme +5 30/20s had hr lag at 57secs. Merced 40/20s at 135% was 45secs. Yet Spencer with 3 minute intervals 120% had heart rate lag at 15 secs.
All this for me means I focus on longer intervals.
Unless I can do 4x5-6min @ 132% FTP, Iām going to disagree with you on this one My 1h power is definitely a lower percentage of my 5min power than āaverage,ā but I donāt think itās that much lower.
The difference I think boils down to muscular endurance versus VO2. I have terrible muscular endurance. My VO2 max is getting close to 70 these days.
VO2 intervals donāt really tax muscular endurance at all because they are short. Threshold intervals are longer and tax muscular endurance.
2x20@FTP for me puts my HR right at LTHR. I hate it. Persisting at that work level for that long is just a terrible feeling, and leave me wasted for the day. 4x5@~115% puts my HR well above LTHR, and leaves me gasping for air. But I can do that over and over, 3-4 days a week, and not feel like garbage for the rest of the day. The difference in tolerating the āfeelingā of each workout is very different, and my ability to recover is very different.
For me to get the same RPE on a 2x20 that you describe, my HR is 10+ bpm below my LTHR.
Iām going to agree with @kurt.braeckel. I think oneās FTP is too high if FTP intervals are such a struggle. If you are wasted for days after then you were probably working at 105%.
One can also do FTP work at 90-95% with nearly the same benefits as 100%.
If intervals at 120% are a walk in the park for someone, they probably have an extra large anaerobic capacity.
Yes, itās a per workout value. I donāt have much variance between workout types, maybe a total range of 10 seconds. Iāve traditionally been very (as in really very, very) endurance based so quite likely that I donāt have much difference between workouts.
Depending on what your discipline is, this might not be unusual. If youāre a track guy, pursuiter, etc., I can see this being true. Otherwise, your fractional utilization is probably pretty low and you have a lot of room to grow progressing threshold under your current ceiling.
Conversely, if youāre not getting a large buildup of metabolic byproducts at 115% of your FTP such that you donāt feel any kind of burn after a 5 minute interval, and you can do 4x5ā of that 3-4 times per week over and over again, then youāre probably a pretty substantial outlier in that regard.
Obviously I canāt make blanket statements that apply to the entire cycling universe. The fallback adage is āit dependsā, which is why I said Iād throw that stuff out for people to chew on. As in all things, your mileage may vary.
If youāre really struggling with threshold - especially with AI FTP and Ramp tests there may be a small few with an FTP set a tiny bit too high.
This happened to me 2 blocks ago. Over unders or supra threshold work was impossible. But sweet spot and v02max was fine. I dialled it down and now I think the sensations Iām meant to feel with over under work is there.
Hard but manageable. Lactate buildup during the over under bit and trying to manage that feeling throughout the under.
You can get away with an FTP too high for all other zones except threshold imo
For me, itās important to know my HR zones. If Iām 10 minutes into a threshold session and my HR is creeping above what I know (from much past experience) Iām able to sustain for, say, 20-30 minutes, then Iām prepared to dial back intensity rather than bail.
They both affect sustainability. Zones are not like switches. The idea is that you mix up your training zones so your body keeps on adapting to the change. If you did all your efforts in one zone you would get less efficient adaptations over time. So we do some VO2, some threshold, some sweet spot and some aerobic threshold for a better overall result. Depending on your goals, you might bias more toward one or more of these zones.
The benefit is that you get used to making those bigger power efforts. Letās say you were racing and never did any VO2max or even Threshold intervals. Youād get dropped instantly on the first attack. If not racing then itās less important, but VO2 max intervals in particular are known to be very efficient at boosting both your FTP and burning fat during recovery (like for the next 24 hours+). As I replied to the other guy, if you only ever did sweetspot intervals then you would eventually get stale and stop adapting. Or at least adapt less than if you mixed up your zones.
My FTP is accurate.
Threshold is always tough for me. Kaweah last week was a sufferfest, Looking Glass +1 this morning looked like it would be easier as it has some low level SS in there but it was even harder and I just got through it!
Smith -1 next week will give me nightmares))
Donāt enjoy Threshold.
They were longer active intervals so more pain. I just got into riding the harder workouts recently, and have enjoyed them. There is enough (sometimes too much) recovery in many of the TR workouts Iāve done, but Iāve survived them (so far).
The VO2Max workout was what I feared the most, and yet it actually seemed easy. So, as many others have said, itās up to the individual. I used to ride with a guy that could pull into the wind all day long. He was large too, so we would all āhideā behind him, and he was no semipro rider. He just cranked at riding that way. He had no idea why, he said he was ājust made for thatā, but I think people can improve.
Just did Hang Shen, might have been āvery hardā rather than āall outā mainly because the trainer glitched at one point giving me a break resetting it, Definitely not looking forward to Robion next week.
My 1h power is definitely a lower percentage of my 5min power than āaverage,ā but I donāt think itās that much lower.