This is really interesting to me because it seems to go against what KM says. Thanks to you both for sharing! Always learning.
Maybe? But practically how are you going to know when you’re at VO2max and how are you going to then measure the power, and for how long, etc.?
Said this before elsewhere (and I think you’ve probably read it), I approach these things with two different styles:
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VO2max - hard start/high cadence, long intervals of 3-6min, going max repeatable. Target is stroke volume improvements. Focus is high cadence and achieving maximal respiration (fish outta water) for as long as possible.
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MAP (Max Aerobic Power) - relevant interval length depending on event or weakness (usually still in that same neighborhood but up to 8 min); Target is maximal power for the prescribed duration - no set cadence, typically no hard start. Focus is laying down max watts in a manner that works on something the rider needs - hill, flat speed, etc.
Subtle difference, and one works the other. Grossly oversimplified you could say one I’m targeting the heart and preserving legs, the other I’m targeting the legs.
(As always, I didn’t make these interval styles up.)
How so?
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Changed it for you:
Thats my quick hack to remove any subtlety by acknowledging that both MAP and CSV are considered high-intensity vo2max work.
I welcome anyone to edit that, its based on my understanding from Empirical and other podcasts, plus various studies, blogs, and books I’ve read.
Vast majority of training is focused on the leg muscles. The distinction here is that MSV protocol is specifically focused on a short block of training to affect cardiac remodeling to improve maximum stroke volume.
All exercise will increase vo2max to a certain extent, and we all know it is possible to put down huge volumes at low intensity and see large increases in both cardio and metabolic (leg muscle) fitness.
Stroke volume can see large increases from lots of low intensity work. And once you’ve maximized the gains from low intensity (endurance) + MAP work, you might want to consider CSV work
@DaveWh hope that helps, I’m with you that bread and butter training is about endurance and interval work focused on leg muscles.
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When you say “around 2 min power”, is two min max power of the season, or the power at which I would do 2 min repeated intervals?
Doesn’t matter that much, it’s just kind of a guideline to make sure people don’t go too hard on it. I usually use 2min max power if I don’t know someone and how anaerobically gifted they are; that’s been a good starting point to make sure they don’t overcook the hard start. Then when I see how they execute I can tweak it up or down to give them and idea. Usually end up bringing it down because most people hear “hard start” and they wanna go nuts.
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Yeah I’m also coached by an EC coach (not Kolie) and was never doing rests less than ~1.5x. I think the workout description just said “rest as needed”. At the start it was more like 1:2 (partially cause it made sense for the loop I was using) but by the end of the block it was like 1:3-4 (most of that was cause I was so mentally fried that I couldn’t make myself go again).
At one point I started to get lazy and go longer between and my legs definitely felt like they started to ‘turn off’ between efforts so my coach said to try staying shorter. But I never got a comment that the rest was too long.
And FWIW I ended up with like a 5+% FTP bump after so it obviously worked. Though I’d been plateaued for a couple years so it probably didn’t need to be super optimized.
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Really really valuable. Thanks so much for sharing. I’ve definitely decided to change my approach based on all the feedback here from you and others.
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I highly doubt it. Dose-responses for these things are rarely (never?) linear.
I have no idea of the actual numbers. I would imagine that just getting to the “gasping for air” level of effort for intervals brings like 90% of the gains. Then raising RPM is like the other 10%. But as others have said. Raising the RPM has other benefits throughout an entire block that may add even more benefit when looked at for more than just the SV increase.
I think I had 1 rest week, 1 rest/endurance week, then an easy week with a sort of tester 3x10 FTP type workout. But I didn’t see the full FTP gains till almost 4 weeks later. I was definitely rested after 2 weeks but mentally I needed a bit more time and I think I went so deep and then recovered so hard that I needed at least a week just to open back up and feel good.
When I do MAP intervals, my cardio system is what limits me. Never my legs. So I don’t really (for me) understand the value in doing VO2 intervals in a way that “save my legs”.
If legs are a limiter, then makes more sense to do VO2 workouts that do “save the legs” so you can get enough cardio stimulus.
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The value I find is not over a single workout but over a whole block of workouts. I tend to structure a vo2 block with a larger than normal number of workouts, sometimes back to back and double days to extract as much as possible.
Sure my legs are fine doing lower rpm for a couple sessions but once fatigue starts to mount saving them as much as possible so we can focus on the desired vo2 stimulus is extremely important.
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Just doing normal 3-5 minute vo2 intervals, with a natural hard start (not overemphasized), I die a thousand deaths from both legs and lungs. Struggle to hold on even though prior I’ve done longer 6-10 minute efforts above threshold to improve muscular endurance.
Either because of my training age, or my actual age, I’ve been able to keep pushing absolute vo2max and ftp up. And my prior 2016-2017 “train really really hard on 6-8 hours/week average” may or may not have led to a couple of racing heart issues in 2018, 2019, and 2020. Thats when I switched to more classic training - mostly endurance plus interval work and a few times a year all-out efforts sub 2-minutes - and as I’ve said that has continued to move the needle although patience has been a virtue. EDIT: and no more racing heart issues since switching to classic endurance+intervals training.
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I am a little bit the opposite. My legs are almost always the limiter for me.
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Legs seems to be the more common limiter for above-threshold work.
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Agreed, such valuable information! I especially think @kurt.braeckel has made a very important distinction between objectives that is not obvious when looking through the TR catalog of VO2 max workouts. It’s important to know why we’re working in the “VO2 max zone”: Are we wanting to raise the ceiling imposed by peak aerobic uptake, or are we looking to increase power at VO2 max? I had an inkling of that but I really appreciate it being so well articulated.
Perhaps the OPs question is really, which of these adaptations are we most wanting to target by working in the VO2 max “zone”? And then, which protocol works best for that?
For me as someone who has made a fairly recent return to serious training & who is interested in audax rides, I can forsee my FTP sneaking up on that aerobic ceiling, so it makes more sense to me to raise the aerobic ceiling rather than increase power at VO2 max.
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Because if you’re training VO2max (stroke volume) you are probably doing so in a very dense block of training so saving your legs for 3+ workouts every week for a block becomes a concern.
Now you see why I don’t like calling zone 5 “VO2max”. Actually Max Aerobic is probably a better name but whatever. I’m splitting some hairs. 
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just do more above threshold work and don’t focus on repeatability.
just landed from Fast Talk
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The Fasttalk episode was interesting. Key points for me:
Per the exercise phys literature, all types Vo2max work result in essential the same outcome. Michael Rosenblat’s meta analysis favored the longer intervals but ultimately time in zone was the key driver. (It seems to be that time at 90% of vo2max or 90% of HRmax are antiquated.) Time in zone in the severe domain is all you need.
The coaches on the podcast mix it up based on race course specificity. I mean they choose 30/30s, 40/20s, 4 minute intervals, etc. based on what kind of races the athlete will do. Neal Henderson likes reverse periodization starting some light VO2max early on in base.
We all seem to make this way more complicated than necessary. 
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Like I’ve been saying, endurance with some work above threshold (severe domain). And back to what Kurt wrote, and I am editing again:
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Max Aerobic Power (MAP) - relevant interval length depending on event or weakness, and typically between 2-8 minutes. Target is usually maximal repeatable power for the prescribed duration. Focus is increasing fatigue resistance at maximal aerobic power (duration dependent). These will achieve maximal respiration (fish out of water) for a fair amount of time, dependent on the interval format and physiology (as opposed to 15-45 second sprint intervals, or 60-120 second anaerobic intervals where muscle failure occurs before reaching max respiration).
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Max Stroke Volume (MSV) - this is the Empirical Cycling block protocol to bring about a quick cardiac remodeling to improve max stroke volume / cardiac output. Start with hard/high cadence effort, long intervals of 3-6min, going max repeatable although power will decline a bit. Focus is on preserving legs by using a high cadence to achieve maximal respiration (fish out of water) for as long as possible. These are organized in a block and induce very high levels of fatigue.
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