Don’t ignore the fact that if your FTP has stagnated, VO2max work is one of the best ways to get it to move. It’s not just about working that shorter power (I call that Max Aerobic Power work). You can also train for physiological adaptation which then manifests as better sustained power after recovery. There’s plenty of that discussion in this thread already.
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I have what I think is a totally new question to ask of the crowd & add to the discussion.
Have read entire thread, participated, and massively changed & helped my VO2 strategy. Thank you again, those who contribute their super valuable info. You’re legit helping ppl get better. 
Specifically for LV ppl, 3 - 4 hrs / wk max, who focus on intensity and simply will never have the time to add volume, what are thoughts on the value of “peppering in” VO2 WOs to Threshold blocks, to add intensity ?
Is this truly completely without value, bc you’re not doing it in a full VO2 block, you won’t get any adaptation or improvement at all ? So you’re just adding unnecessary an non-beneficial stress to your bod ?
Or ya, even though not in a full block, doing 2 Thresh + 1 VO2 / wk instead of 3 Thresh for 3 - 6 wks straight will def help ?
All the TR plans, in Specialty phase, for 40k TT, etc, are pure Thresh. Zero VO2. IDK if that is bc it’s solid gold, proven, the way to go, or no, adding VO2s in will help raise your capacity & 60 - 120 min max steady output power, and it’s a good idea.
TIA 
Absolutely it has value in certain parts of your periodization, especially for older/masters athletes. In fact, for people doing that kind of volume, I would probably do VO2 workouts year round. This doesn’t mean do it every week. Every other week is probably fine. But you’re riding low volume, giving that higher stimulus can help you sustain those gains from your block over the long term which is still progress. Generally speaking, it’s one or the other - ride the volume, or do the intensity. The volume is definitely better over the long term as you can progress further with that approach.
Help for what?
Over the long haul, help maintain VO2max? Yes. Over the course of the block, give you an increase in FTP greater than doing something else? Depends on your fitness and background. For you, having already done a large stimulus, you probably are not going to see more gains doing a VO2 every week in a block like that and the fatigue cost is too high, IMO.
But peppering in a VO2 every other week or so during training can help you maintain those gains, and maybe make some progress long term.
I just would not expect more gains from doing a VO2 every week during a threshold block. In fact, I’d probably argue the opposite just from fatigue.
Specialty plans are simply your final phase of periodization. In the Friel model, they’re like Build 2+Peak+Race. So you’re training race specificity. For a 40K TT you aren’t doing 5 minute efforts at 125%. Further the aerobic adaptations from training take time to occur, so in many cases what you’re doing in your specialty phase you may not realize those physiological gains until AFTER your event anyway. Speciality is about adapting to the specific demands of your race, then recovering into then race so you’re both fit and fresh.
A bi-weekly VO2max approach is far more long-term (MONTHS) focused. So throwing some into your block 8 weeks before your race - in my opinion - would do more harm than good.
If your race will be decided by a big effort on a 5+ minute climb, for example, then go train the power required to do that effort and don’t overthink the Vo2max adaptation for it. If your race is a true 40KTT with sustained near-hour power being king, skip the VO2s as the race approaches.
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@kurt.braeckel thank you very sincerely for taking the time to write this. I am removing two VO2 WOs; one from this wk & one from next, and I strongly trust your advice, and that this change will have a large and positive effect on my race.
It has also massively decreased my mental stress; I was worrying and stressing about doing the wrong thing in these two oh-so-critcal wks just before the event, and sending myself in with unneeded ‘intensity damage’ / physical stress / load / whatever the correct term is.
This race is a very special one, to me. Sincerely, thank you.
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Sometimes the best stimulus for the body is the one you haven’t had. Sometimes mixing it up is better than block work. Sometimes you can get saturated by the intensity and the body can’t absorb it (and worse, sometimes make you go backwards).
Coaches are people, coaches have biases, and the different adaptive training engines reflect the bias of both the coaches and those that interpret and program the adaptive engine. I am a living example of someone that didn’t respond well to how the TR head coach laid out the timing and density of intensity work. Reduce your stress, listen to your body, don’t be afraid to experiment, and don’t believe there is some magical gold standard.
This advice doesn’t apply given the constraints you laid out, but over a month ago a 30-something was talking about his recent race experience (he started this year). We talked about it and I told him “ride more” - he wasn’t sure so I called out T-man a 20-something cat1 with some talent and pro ambitions (because who is going to listen to a guy twice his age that rides at his same level 
).
over the last 3 months he bumped from 6 hours/week to 9 hours/week to 13 hours/week and rode easy and stopped worrying about riding hard. And now he is faster than me 
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LOL @ !! Thanks @WindWarrior . As always, appreciate your input.
Huge ‘roger’ on that. Buddy’s results are super impressive!! Right on @ him.
I’m one of the terrible, horrible, “not a real cyclist” try-to-be-a-triatheles. [Sprint or Olympic… I’m not a crazy person!]
M, W, F = Bike, T & T = Swim. And I’m not doing more than 60 - 90 min on the trainer in one shot… ever. 
Roads around me are too dangerous, but we do have some city bike trails that are impossible to go fast on; traffic & surface conditions, so they are perfect for Z2 - 3 rips, bc you’re stuck there, even if you start to get excited and stupid and would otherwise crank it up.
I seriously and genuinely am going to try to get out for a good 1.5 - 3 hr rip every Saturday, and strictly a “for fun” ride, enjoy the scenery. But also not no-pedal cruising… keep it solidly in Z2 - 3, w as little drops as possible, for the entire 1.5 - 3 hrs.
This plan was set a few mo ago, largely due to your advice; you’ve echoed the value of just getting more miles on in the past, and I noted it, strongly. Hopeful for a big jump, slowly, by the close of this season! 
I just want to add that I’ve tried the KM style VO2 blocks and I keep failing. I fall so far into the fatigue hole that I’d be one of the walking wounded and feel like I was coming down with the flu all week. It’s not fun.
At Kurt’s suggestion, I tried a mixed block of one VO2 and one FTP workout per week. That worked better but after three weeks, I felt like I had lost fitness. I had previously built out my TTE to 4x20 but didn’t maintain that during the mixed block.
Also, I’ve hit my highest numbers doing a weekly Saturday group ride where I’d do many VO2 efforts over three hours. I’d feel thrashed for two days after these group rides.
We moved and those hard hitting group rides are no longer available to me. I was thinking recently that I should just do one VO2 workout every 1-2 weeks as maintenance and then just forget about VO2 “blocks”.
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On the podcast, I believe KM talks about maximizes endurance and threshold work before doing a vo2 block. Extracting everything possible, and more importantly properly preparing the athlete, before doing the vo2 block. I recall one pod in particular where he said that if he knew someone, he would push them on volume and threshold until there were no more gains, and they returned to previous peak state, and only then do a vo2 block.
FWIW I’ve come nowhere near that level of fitness, however have seen gains from doing a “block” with only 2 killer all-out vo2 sessions, at the time (2.5 years into the relationship) my coach said “congratulations you earned these” as I had really worked hard over 6 months doing my largest consistent volume (for me) of aerobic & threshold & pacing work. Versus the previous 2.5 years, believed I was prepared for some super hard (for me) efforts. That first effort took a lot out of my legs, yet the second effort about 14 days later was as strong. And then more recovery and then bam, fitness bump.
Some of the comments on the forum, not saying you, remind me of the scene in Weird Science where they forget to attach the leads to another doll and end up making a super rocket instead of a super woman. Experimenting is good, but sometimes people fail to listen to all the instructions and just get excited about trying something new.
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That’s interesting re: losing fitness while doing that work, and I’d be curious what that block looked like relative to your ability to do 4x20, was that 4x20 at 90% or full boat FTP work, and were there other circumstances involved?
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This is a solid general approach. VO2max blocks are not for everyone. Work TTE at your current threshold, and if threshold itself doesn’t move (but TTE is maxed out), then a VO2max block is usually a very good option.
Of course there are other ways to move threshold as well, but my general approach follows:
Base endurance → TTE work (usually at sweet spot and tempo) → VO2max → FTP work (Threshold and Over/Unders if required) → Race specific.
My general advice on these dense blocks of VO2max would be don’t do it until it’s needed and then minimum effective dose applies.
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I don’t have much to report. These blocks are always fatigue disasters for me. I started with a 5x5 vo2 workout and while the intervals and workout was totally achievable, my legs were sore for a solid week.
You suggesedt a mixed block so I started doing one VO2 workout with less time (4x3, 3x4, 3x5) and one threshold workout per week with everything else in between being super easy. I was doing threshold right at threshold but not maintaining my 4x20 TTE. I built out the TTE at 90-95% of FTP.
Volume also decreased a bit because I just can’t noodle around on the trainer going super easy. My butt just can’t take 2 hours of 140 watts.
And we all got the flu shortly after that, three weeks before my gravel fondo. Still, I did pretty well in that fondo (5 hours on the bike) all things considering.
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There’s a lot to unpack there:
- Sounds like overall volume went down some, so that can be part of it.
- TTE work should not have had you getting less fit.
- 5x5 is a big workout, and I don’t usually have people do that much.
- But 4x3 and 3x5 are probably not enough stimulus either (depending on age, intent, etc.). I work people in that 18-22 minute range a lot, assuming they’re doing basically max efforts.
- and then how you execute the intervals can contribute to fatigue.
TTE work at 90-95% is fine, so my guess is the combination of the volume going down a little bit and not quite enough stimulus in the VO2s contributed here.
But yeah, I can see with some of that info how the block probably left a bit to be desired overall. Thanks for humoring me.
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I’ve listened to all of KM’s podcasts more than once. My challenge is that I’m not going to maximize volume. I don’t want to maximize volume. I’m going to train 6-8 hours per week these days and that’s about it. I’ve tried various approaches in the past.
I’ve gotten good gains and felt strong on the bike doing TTE work. There’s even a limit to that because 4x20 on the trainer ends up being at least 2 hours and I don’t want to do that very frequently. 75 minutes is usually my mental and rear end max.
Yes, I realize it’s a lot of excuses on why I can’t be all that I can be. Not going to ride 15 hours and don’t want to spend 2 hours on the trainer.
I’m curious about minimum dose. I know that all the studies show that the more time accumulated in the severe zone the better. Like I said, I tried a 5x5 and that put me into the fatigue hole. Doing like 12-15 minutes of hard start, high cadence work was much better from a fatigue point of view.
The thing I’ve been thinking about lately is why do all this work to get that extra 20 watts. I’m not racing other than ‘racing’ friends in gravel fondos. I’m 58 years old and not shooting for any podiums. I do what feels like minimal work and get to an FTP of 220-230. I have to do what seems like A LOT MORE work to get to a 250 ftp which is the highest I’ve gotten to in the last few years.
My current thought is two workouts per week plus endurance riding. Maybe 30/30s or similar for one and one FTP workout per week. Maybe work in one hard start VO2 workout every two weeks. Easy peasy, rinse and repeat. I know I’ll plateau doing the same thing but I think I’d be fine being 95% fit most of the year.
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If you don’t want/need the 20 watts, don’t kill yourself for it.
One issue above too was the fact that you kind of mixed the concept of “block” periodization with “mixed” periodization. So once I start someone on mixed training progression like that, we stick with it for months.
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The results from it are less acute - you don’t get big jumps in fitness like you can see sometimes with block style where the blocks are intensively dosed. Doing a 1x VO2 + 1x threshold I would do that for minimum of two training cycles (so 6 working weeks, at least) before I would expect there to be any kind of change, and principles of progression still apply within those cycles.
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Particularly for Masters athletes there is an element of maintain VO2max to hold off the natural regression as we age. This is where doing 1 x VO2max or MAP workout every two weeks can be very helpful.
What you described is perfectly fine, and what I do with my 60+ masters guys a lot to good result.
Early season, they work base endurance and TTE extension via sweet spot and tempo. When some of my younger guys dive into VO2max work, they go into mixed periodization and we stay there through the race season.
The mixed blocks then become something like 2x VO2max + more threshold/SST work and progress to 1x VO2max/MAP + 1-2 SST + 30/30s and stuff like that to prep for events.
How each individual block looks depends on proximity to A events, how much they’re racing at that moment, and how they intend to race/goal event demands.
For each of those guys, too, they’re riding 12+ hours in both cases, so many of their interval sets are baked into 3 hour rides.
That said, I would still program roughly the same way but ask for the long endurance ride as the third quality ride of the week in each case, and then as much “filler volume” as you want.
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I just want to say that I appreciate all the help you give people here. I personally enjoy nerding out on ex phys stuff and I’ve enjoyed all of my personal experiments even if they haven’t seemed amazingly successful.
My mixed block only lasted three weeks because of the flu and then I had that gravel event coming up so I didn’t want to keep building into it. I did a little more TTE work while still recovering from the flu and it worked out ok.
But it sounds like I’m on the right track with a couple of workouts per week plus endurance.
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My interpretation is different, and there is a limit based on your fitness level. More isn’t always more, when talking about high-intensity work.
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Yeah that was the plan for the 2 week block. I just don’t know if I have a proper block in me after the marmotte. And I don’t want to do it right before my next long climbing event. So I probably do it after that in September. Which should fit in well for my last 2 shorter gravel Events/races at the end of October.
Edit: I’ve decided to do a threshold/SS block instead after re-reading the thread over the past few days. Feel like that will give me a better platform to launch my VO2 block from and get the best out of it.
Edit on the edit - I decided I should live by the code of all Aussies and just stop overthinking and just accept that ‘she’ll be right’.
To that end this week I started a 3 week Vo2 Block based on all the suggestions above.
Wk 1 = 4x5, 4x5 and 6x4 in a 2 on - 2 days endurance - 1 day on - 1 day endurance - 1 day rest protocol.
Last night I did the 4 x 5s in a 1:1 ratio in a 60 min session.
Let’s just say the close your eyes and think of England analogy was spot on.
See below for time in zone data.
Notes - Picking the right gear is a process. Just go hard AF is the aim. Worry about everything else when you finished.
16m Above 95% hr from 20 mins work I think I got it right? Work in progress but these are going to test me.
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I’m curious about exactly what these blocks looked like, both focused vo2s and vo2/ftp blocks. I have an idea of what went wrong but I’d like to see it for myself. Based on the context here, it looks like you’re doing too many efforts or you’re not recovering very well for one reason or another. All are solvable. If you’re not seeing progress between most workouts then you need to adjust your training structure until your performance says that you’re sufficiently recovering before the next workout.
@empiricalcycling is there any benefit of doing 2 weeks of vo2max before a 10 days complete off the bike (holiday). I never do vo2max workouts. My intensity is found mostly in a zwift race but that is more tempo with surges I am afraid. And to raise my FTP I think I would benefit some vo2max work. So my idea was a vo2max progression 2 weeks (5-6 workouts) with easy Z2. But will the 10 days off immediately vanish the (eventual) gains of a 2 week vo2 block?