Vo2 Max training - did I do it right?

[jb0980]

@SpareCycles

Assuming the colour-coded power are Coggan-zones, you might have been a bit ambitious with those hard-starts, actually? If you were up in ‘anaerobic zone’ territory (whatever purple is), that might have left you quite depleted at the start of such a long interval.

Yep, purple would’ve been anaerobic for me. I didn’t realise that going too hard to start was a problem, and thought the goal was just to elevate HR to 95% of max as quickly as possible.

@SpareCycles

If you deplete PCr and disturb metabolic milieu to a great enough extent at the start, your power output will fall toward Threshold (CP/FTP/etc.). You will basically be stuck at the highest power output that can be sustained exclusively(-ish, usual caveats apply) by aerobic metabolism. Which on paper is CP/FTP, and in the real-world can fall below that as fatigue accumulates and Economy decreases.

This follows with what happened. And I take it this won’t have elicited a good vo2 max training stimulus despite elevated HR?

@batwood14

My FTP is ~300 and my best sprint power is ~1200W. During blind Vo2 intervals, my hard starts on Vo2 intervals won’t get above 450W — and then I hang on and try not to drop below 310 by the end of them… it really depends on the length.

my peak power is just north of 1400w, so I didn’t go 100%. But the first minute was like a hard attack in a race.