I give them a lot of guidance… for a hard start, I usually try to be pretty directive because those can blow an interval. For big sprinters, I use a shorter hard start and tell them to keep it under wraps… general guide is 2min MMP, but that’s just a number I’ve used to make sure they’re not going all out sprint crazy. For big anaerobic athletes, shorter hard start, 5-10s. For guys without big anaerobic watts, go a bit longer 20s or so.
For power, it’s just “all out”, keeping in mind you gotta do 20 minutes. My structured workouts in TP use a range from like 130-103% of FTP. It generally takes them a workout to figure it out. And I tell them to expect power to go down over the course of the workout… if they find they can’t stay above FTP for a big portion of an interval, they’re done for the day. 110rpm or more… ALL of them want to lower cadence and do more watts - NO! It’s not about the power.
So now you see why erg mode doesn’t make sense.
It’s nothing magical, and usually amounts to extending TTE type sets AT threshold. For some guys I’ll do more over unders, those are usually the guys who are being stubborn about growing watts. The guys that get BIG bumps from VO2 work, I just focus at threshold more.
Eventually I get everyone into some over unders at least the roadies because I think they’re great race prep and they grow FTP. The FTP over unders are more 105-95 with quite a bit of time at 105. The race prep stuff I tend to do more like 125-85 with shorter overs, and often I’ll add a longer hard start to that. Purpose being simulate a bridging effort then a rotational breakaway. Plus they’re fun, and a really good lactate shuttle.
Sometimes, if there’s not racing around, I might do some intervals above threshold and attack above the curve for 5-8 min at a time, 20-30ish min sets, but that’s pretty rare. I generally think with over/unders and VO2 intervals you’re getting enough efforts above the curve to pull FTP up.
Here’s the link to the channel: https://youtube.com/@rocketmultisport-coachkurt7879
It’s pretty sparse right now but I really only got my website up in November. I like writing a lot more than videos, but the world wants short video tips, so that’s what I’ll have on there for the most part. I’m also being pretty conservative in pacing my content, and hopefully one day I’ll wake up and have 50 articles and 30-40 videos and it’ll be a whole thing… but my focus is a quality product for my 11 current athletes first and foremost. Not sure if I’m going to try to grow a business like Kolie and others with multiple coaches or stay solo… it’s more of a passion play for me and a tertiary income source for my family. But its what I do “full time” now in addition to helping my wife run her gymnastics center, being daddy, and my own training!