@WindWarrior ya, huge “roger that”, and appreciate the reminder / heads up, and the pic. It helps.
Not gonna over analyze, or over plan: For now, 4 x 4 mins, hit each as hard as I can, trying to hold a target, for the full int, but let it fall if it has to. Get stronger, repeat! LOL
As some have mentioned above, if fatigue during a VO2 block starts mounting, will consider trying to 5 x 3 mins, etc, instead, see if that feels easier. But sorta think my bod prefers the longer holds vs fast up and down…
Bonus intervals… ‘take it where you can’ and ‘ya gotta roll with the punches’ all because of earlier mental brainfarts. Was simply trying to get some additional work done despite shortchanging the high aerobic demand part of doing 3-6 minute vo2 intervals. Ugly. Whatever. Next!
Almost done my block. One more workout tonight (assuming I have time). for #9 in a 17 day span. Mostly copied @Rad-ler plan. Did one day with two workouts (well. 1.5 I guess since the first one I died in). And stupidly (stupid like a fox) decided to sign up for a gravel race right in the middle of the block! A hard and climby race too. I set 5-6 minute all time power PR’s during the race. Sign of the block working? General fitness increase? Who knows?!
All workouts except #2 were done indoors on a trainer. I feel like #2 (outdoor) was the best of the bunch. Different PMs but last time I compared my pedals to my trainer they were pretty close.
I generally tried for hard starts but it didn’t always work if I was fatigued or my head just wasn’t fully focused. Also tried for high cadence stuff (>105rpm) but I am just not very good at that. Need some practice. Seemed like I couldn’t keep high enough power at higher RPMs. Will check back in a few weeks to see if I have noticed any bumps. Kinda wish I had done some baseline tests beforehand but too late now.
I’ve done a couple 5 x 4’ workouts now. It’s kind of surprising how not horrible I feel at the 3’ mark with HR pegged at 185 the whole time. Doing 3’ intervals to TR power felt nearly impossible.
Minute #4 still feels like near death every time, aside from the first interval anyway.
Haha. Certainly possible it was the suffering. I really didn’t want to get dropped by my coworker up the first climb (again…) but him and one or two other guys went complete smash city.
Thanks for the kudos. Was a weirdly kinda fun block. Granted, 3-4 min intervals are kind of the WORST but they are short enough that you can tick off 30 seconds in your head without looking at the time and you’ll be almost done. And you can always hang on for 10 more seconds. 10 more seconds… So I never really had to get “in the zone” for a training session after a day of work and playing with the kid for an hour. Was just hop on the bike and do some quick smashing.
I kinda died in the last session, lol. I probably should not have done 3 days in a row on this final week after that race. But figured I would give it a shot. This last one was by far the heaviest legs I’ve had. Just could not spin fast/hard enough to really get the HR up enough and into that fish out of water breathing. So shut it down after a few intervals and just spun some z2.
Have no races scheduled in April. So either gotta hold on to any gainz until things kick off in May or might have to manufacture some all out efforts in about 2 weeks to see where I stand.
Hey, can anyone here comment on going too hard on an interval?
I’ve been doing 5 x 4’, and yesterday just decided to see what I could do for the first interval…out of the saddle putting in a hard effort for the first 30", then finished off the interval with everything I had. It seemed to really really impact the rest of the workout. Or at least the last 2 intervals where I struggled to spin fast enough to really get HR up.
I think i’ve heard both go all out on the first one then just focus on cadence later on, and also hit each interval at an intensity you can sustain till the rnd of the workout.
It’s sort of a balance. You want some amount of repeatability in terms of what your target is…but if you’re going hard you’re gonna drop some. I think you can definitely go too hard on the first one and interrupt all the rest though.
From @kurt.braeckel earlier in the thread:
“For VO2max, I also disagree that fading power is a bad thing. They should be max “repeatable” efforts, and by their nature it’s pretty normal to see power fade some both during the interval and from 1 to 6 or whatever. Power is secondary for me when coaching and training VO2max proper.”
I had been pretty good at doing these in the 108-112% range and keeping consistency…but this day I went a little overboard on interval 1 and it wrecked the whole thing:
My experience is that it’s fine if I only want to do one full interval.
I have a terrible habit of slamming the first one and not getting a full workout done. Next block I’m going to set myself at least a rough power target to try to keep things sensible. Maybe just for the first interval or two.
I can’t remember where, but I remember hearing someone say a good starting target is 5 min power, rather than 120%. Interestingly though, my 120% is almost identical to my 5 min power.
A longer rest period can help. I’m going to be doing 4 x 4 today, but these will not be VO2 max in that I don’t have any restriction for cadence or staying seated, so these will be more about max power. I will definitely pace my first one close to my 5-minute max, then gauge the rest of the intervals. My rest period will vary from 4 minutes to 8 minutes.
Yea I definitey take as much rest as I want/need. This ends up being maybe 1:2 work/rest, maybe a little longer on the later intervals.
I think i just kind of blew my wad on the first interval yesterday. Started out with like 30 seconds at 450 watts (ftp maybe 275?), then finished the 4’ at 360 average, or ~131%. Way past repeatable for me haha.
I think I hung on well enough to make the rest of the workout worthwhile…I managed to get around 90% max hr and 110-115% ftp on the intervals…but this was way harder than other ones where I didnt go flat out the first interval.
Definitely better to use previous performance at a relevant duration rather than a percentage of FTP for supra-threshold work.
The other rule of thumb is to use 95% of the power PR for whatever interval duration you’re using as a start point. So if I was doing 4 × 4 mins I’d ballpark them at 285 watts as that’s 95% of my best 4 mimute power of 300w.
Going all out is a Wingate test. If I did something like that for 3 mins, I’d be destroyed for the next 30 mins. Maybe rest of the day.
It’s fine / normal for the power to decline over the course of successive intervals, but not excessively so.
By the way - this is the reason I do all my vo2max workouts in erg. Prevent me from going too hard on the first interval. My intervals have declining power targets.
I wouldn’t go all out on the first one; you’re trying to maximize time at max ventilatory intake and high contractile rate. So maximizing power on the first one defeats the purpose, assuming your goal is to train max heart stroke volume.
I’ve said that for MAP-style intervals for masters athletes. I’ll have them do 3 min repeats around 5 min power. I usually give a very broad range for VO2max proper, and tell people “max repeatable” and as long as they’re above threshold for the duration, keep pushing high cadence and max vent.
