Because all the cool kids are doing it?
Seriously just following the guidance above in this thread… plus, I have done well with back-to-back in the past. If 3 proves too many the first week, I can play with inserting rest in the middle instead, or doing a 2-per-day, rest, then third. Open to thoughts.
I think it depends on your usual volume. I train usually 7-10h/wk and end up on around 6h during such a block. I would err on the side of caution and not sacrifice the quality of the VO2 intervalls. That means 2-3 easy endurance rides (1-1.5h) in addition for me.
One more comment regarding the interval durations. As written in an earlier post I changed the lenght of the intervals as a mental help.
During my last VO2max block which I finished 2 weeks ago I did all 9 workouts as 5x4min hard start/high cadence.
I didn‘t feel the need of changing anything. In addition I took the advice of @kurt.braeckel to make the intervals longer, so you don‘t have to „ramp up“ that often and stay longer in that VO2max state. But I think it‘s fine so start with shorter intervals if you want to familiarize with such a block.
Have fun 
Fully believe that can’t go wrong with 4 x 5mins or 5 x 4mins at high power (highest you can complete all intervals at, likely min 110% FTP but even that may vary).
Let progression be power increases rather than time. Unless need specific shorter durations for race specific stuff then these long intervals are way forward in my view. If find these super hard then maybe do couple workouts with 2-3 min intervals first to get used to it.
Short on/off (e.g. 30/30) just seem to be a way to make v02 easier which isn’t really the point. We all know v02 sucks, it’s supposed to suck, and if it doesn’t suck then likely not getting v02 benefits!
My preference is for longer intervals, but generally for people new to structure and/or VO2max I’ll use 2 or 3 minute intervals because it can be overwhelming otherwise, and again, Minimum Effective Dose would apply there as well. But that is usually a one time thing, and I aim to get people into that 4-5 min range.
Super Masters doing a lot of maintenance work I’ll have do 2-3 min intervals as well as long as we’re not building.
I have mentioned this before here, but I’m also a fan of starting longer and progressing shorter individual interval durations during a single block, but keeping TiZ constant or growing it. Really the “progression” is total workload, and you’re just trying to maximize the total amount of working time throughout a block like this for more advanced athletes who need a larger stimulus.
Having done several blocks myself this way and coached another half-dozen or so this past year, it made things more manageable for people and kept them going when the 5min jobbers might have overwhelmed them. It’s a bit counterintuitive, but it works.
So something like:
4 × 4 to
5 × 3.5 to
6 × 3 to
7 × 3
?
Something like that yeah. I have personally done 3x6 → 4x5 → 5x4 → 6x3:30 → 7x3 over a three week block, usually letting fatigue dictate when I shift down. Typically that ends up being ~2 workouts at each level. Again though with my athletes I generally manage these blocks a lot closer than anything else I give because of the fatigue cost associated, so do not take that approach as dogmatic. I vary it athlete to athlete and that is just an example.
I’ve given 3 in 2 days to certain athletes. I would not give 3-days in a row to anyone (at least not the level and age of athlete that I typically coach (not pros)).
Volume shouldn’t really change in a block like this. Do your normal weekly ride time. Keep everything outside VO2 days as recovery (like 50%) or easy endurance (like 60%). This isn’t “what you normally ride during your longest week”; this is “typically I ride 10hrs per week” so ride 10hrs… not “I did 14 hours of base endurance two weeks ago so I’ll do 14 again now!”
I would always ride the day before and the day after an interval set personally, but YMMV. Easy endurance before, recovery after. If you do back-to-back days, take at least one recovery ride day, maybe two after the sets and do one endurance day (shorter) after. Point is to recover between the micro-blocks so you can hit it again. 3 days in a row is really going to challenge that.
I’d suggest more intervals and TiZ on each individual day, but only two days back to back. So 20 min of intervals on back to back days.
This has to be a typo right? That would kill me probably.
If I do something like:
for two weeks, would that move the needle enough to make it worthwile before moving in to a threshold progression? I haven’t really done anything any real structured work above FTP for atleast two months, a part from an occasional Zwift Race or faster groupride. I don’t want to dig to deep a fatigue hole yet considering I’m looking to peak for a Endurance/Tempo-event in July.
Not a typo. Essentially 3 sets in about 30 hours. Huge stimulus, back off and recover. Do it again. I don’t see much purpose is banging your head into the wall 3 days in a row like that because your body is going to want to start recovering and that third set is probably just going to be trashed. By the third set on the second day, you’re gassed but your body is still amped up and can manage it (** specific types of athletes only with long training history and who NEED that much stimulus **). Besides myself, I have only ever done that protocol with one other person. Most just don’t need it.
Switch Friday and Saturday, yeah. Otherwise looks pretty good to me (not knowing a thing about you). Give yourself a longer warmup on Wednesday, like maybe do your 60% endurance hour before the interval set to feel better since you didn’t ride on Tuesday.
A lot to think about. My last few months have averaged 12-13 hours per week. I’ll buy that doing 4-5 minute intervals will be better than 3-4, at least for as long into the block as I can manage.
I’ll also buy that three days of back-to-back will make the 3rd day ineffective. But there are so many alternatives. If we set aside the idea that weeks have 7 days, would it make sense to do 2 close together (back-to-back), then 2-3 days of rest/recovery, then go again? Or is it better to be as fresh as possible for each hard day, putting 1-2 rest/recovery days between every workout? It’s still possible to get to the same 8-10 workouts in a ~3 week period either way.
How do you manage recovery between intervals? Not just per set, but as you progress through sets 2 and 3 as well?
I see a lot of people focus on interval duration and intensity but ignore recovery… which in my opinion is probably as much of a piece of the puzzle as the interval.
Depends. With most people doing it the first time, I aim for 6 workouts in a block, usually about 17day span. More experience might do 9 in like 19 days. High end might do more than that… More stimulus is more stimulus, but you don’t want to overdo either. That’s why I watch individual workouts in these blocks very closely rather than blindly following a preset plan. I will lay the block out for the athlete and then we adjust on the fly.
Go when ready. Usually program 1:1 but then tell them they can take up to 1:2 if they need. But really the guidance is “go when ready”.
Some disclaimers:
I learned to monitor myself during the block, which is key when you do it on your own.
I keep a close eye on power, breathing and sensation. When I can not hold a sufficient power, my legs are wrecked or I just don‘t reach that strong breathing I would pull the plug. Heart rate not so much as it can do some weired things at some days.
I guess it also comes with experience that you know how deep you can go.
Like Kurt says, depending where you are coming from it’s a good idea to start with a lower dose. The more experienced you are, the more you can try out.
More questions!
Not having strayed far from TRs suggested power targets on VO2 intervals before (though familiar doing them with harder starts, no erg mode, and high cadence), do you go into these with an expectation of what “max” will be for 5 minutes or 4 minutes? My best 5 minute power of late is now only about 116% of my FTP. Do I start lower (say 105-110%) and try to work up to higher power numbers over the course of the block, or because of the anticipated cumulative fatigue, do I aim higher to start (say… 120-125% but expecting to fade) and cut myself off the block early if I can no longer hit/hold numbers much above FTP? Or am I thinking of it completely wrong?
If you do 5 min @ 100% (of 5 min power) you should NOT be able to repeat without a very long recovery (30 min to an hour at least)… and even then that next rep will be incredibly difficult. I would definitely recommend coming in at a lower intensity and building up! Starting out fast & fading is not physiologically optimal, nor good for your confidence.
One other option is to start with shorter reps. I am a big proponent of doing distances that you can struggle through but be successful at. 
In both cases my follow up question is the same: what are you trying to train? Improve 5 min power or improve VO2max?
For me: VO2 max. I just don’t know what a 5-minute vo2, max-effort interval “feels” like, so I’m trying to come up with power number guidelines to anchor myself a bit. I’m fairly anaerobic, so I don’t want to accidently blow myself up 1 minute into the first interval.
As a guideline, I’ll give people things like 3 min intervals at 5min power, or 2 min intervals at 4min power. For VO2max training I’m going for a feeling, as you noted, but those are examples of the guardrails I usually start with until people get a feel for what they can do repeatedly. In the structured workout in TrainingPeaks, it’s a really big range, and I usually have a conversation with people explaining what I’m looking for before we start the block.
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 think one of the most important things I go over is that I would prefer more intervals to higher power (within reason). I would rather someone do 7x3 well than 5x3 at a somewhat higher power.
Presumably because the intensity is the stimulus and ~14 minutes* at the sort of intensity you’re after is 40٪ better than ~10 minutes?
*assuming that it takes about a minute at the start of each interval for the body to get to the state where you’re hopefully getting the stimulus you’re after.