Im very curious as to the reasoning and evidence behind a threshold workout that was in my program, every week. It consists of 10 intervals of 4min at 107% with 2min of rest. It’s a pretty hardcore way to work threshold that contrasts with the traditional 100% or slightly below, with longer intervals looking to extend time in zone.
Wonder if @Prof or the other coaches can speak about the use of this workout 4 months out from event and tradeoffs in terms of gains, fatigue with the traditional 95-100% intensity but longer intervals 10-20min
That’s very interesting. In my cycling plan, the threshold work is prescribed at an L4 intensity. L4 represents a range that is just below to just over threshold. If you do them in resistance mode indoors, then you are free to ride anywhere in that range that feels good for the day, up to 107% if you like.
Follow up thought. Early in the program I’ll probably ride them at 97-100% and a few weeks in I’ll venture over to 100-107% since my fitness is improving and so is my threshold.
As we always say @oldandfast there’s loads of ways to skin the cat. This one at 107% of L4 is really going to be the lower bound of L5, so we’re talking a VO2 long interval here, which makes up the bulk of most good cycle training program in terms of the HIIT content. That being said, if you need to lower the intensity, listen to that little man in your head and do so… Screenshot is chapter 15 HIIT Science written by Grand Tour cycling coach/trainer Marc Quod.
I have those, I’ve got 6 intervals next week, and 10 intervals the week after. I find they are quite doable, though I do do them on a quiet road where I’m not staring at a timer counting down. I know the start / end points on the road that will give me the 4 minutes.
Like @Jesse says, it usually offers a range below and above your Threshold and where you choose to work in that range can depend on how you feel on the day and how the first few intervals go.
Hello Old and Fast!
I assign these to my athletes throughout the base block, especially if FTP and/or power at threshold is a limiter. With my Athletica athletes, these come up weekly right now as well, I’m doing them too! I tell my athletes to utilize the full range of the zone 4, so in your case, 259-289.
But I also tell them that these intervals, while challenging, should feel doable. You’ll be breathing hard, but still able to speak words, not complete sentences. So if they’re too hard, simply do them at a lower pace. We often start a block at below the low end, and gradually move up each week as our fitness improves.
The goal is two-fold: build your cardiovascular system, and train both your fast- and slow-twitch muscle fibers to be more fatigue resistant. There’s also a huge benefit in your body’s learning to process lactate as a fuel.
So threshold intervals are really important and really useful. Just remember to recover fully and eat well before and after these to keep your glycogen supply topped off!
Thanks! Let me know if you have further questions. Glad to talk about this stuff!
Really interesting thread. I had my first go at these today and wasn’t able to complete all sets. I’m on ERG mode and my HR was at 175 out of 182 for the majority of the intervals. My instinct was that this was too hard and I dropped the intensity for the last set down 10w. Unfortunately this unraveled my mental framing as I thought I’d failed and ended up skipping the final set.
Whether it’s a mental thing or my physiology I find these types of session much harder than the Vo2 session.
I accept that the advice would probably be to retest, lower or turn off erg but I like full compliance with what I’m being set to do.
Great podcast btw. I took a few takeaways from this;
a) I fall on the fast twitch side of the balance and this is why the longer intervals are more challenging for me
b) Higher engagement of Vo2 max during training sessions elicits greater response but with out a lab set up we are unable to tell based on RPE.
Is there a relation between cadence in this I wonder? I can grind out intervals at low cadence - especially short ones or really spin up. I know the faster cadence works the cardiovascular system harder by my rate of breathing and HR. Both methods I could score as the same RPE?
c) The athletes in the test working at higher levels of Vo2 intensity also had a greater training volume overall.
-For me this seems to fit the theories of 80/20 training.
Taking all this into account and my initial question around how to deal with the sessions feeling too hard is to probably make more use of the workout wizard and just do what I can on the given day and try and maintain a good cadence. These longer intervals are probably better for me just due to the fact that I’m not very good at them. Consistency probably trumps everything here.
