What is this Tabata Protocol? Never heard of it before.

Works well if you are a Crit or cyclocross racer.

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I did them through the winter as part of my 'cross training.

As you said 8 (or even 6 to start off with) x 20s ABSOLUTE MAX with 10s inbetween. Truly a horrible experience.

I remember the first time I did them thinking "this is going to be a doddle" and not finishing the 6 reps !!!!

Enjoy !

LG

Here you go.

As part of my CX training we use them every week as certain stages in the year - and vary the efforts/recovery ratio - but hey if you can push out well over FTP - it all has to be good eh?

Strongly recommend then - but also use a Repeat Set I got off TP--- this is a killer:

10 secs max - 1 min recovery - 20 secs max 1 min -- etc to 1 min max 1 min recovery -- 5-8 min spin between and then go again - the coach (apologies cannot recall his name) says he has only met one pro cyclist who can do 4 sets. So a great variation on Tabata. We start with 2 sets and then move to 3 after a couple of weeks!!!

Have fun and have a bucket ready!!! :-)

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Did you do these indoors/outdoors? If indoors, which trainer and settings?

I used to do these on the trainer. They hurt like hell but knowing that it'll be over soon makes them doable

Thanks a lot for the feedbacks!!!

I did it indoors this time, but I'm willing try to it outside also. I've setup the "protocol/intervals" on my Garmin (920XT), the trainer is the CycleOps JetFluit Pro. The power data comes from the P1 pedals.

Cool, thanks.
I'm mostly curious to hear which power trainers are able to ramp so severely, so quickly.

Certainly, I can set mine to a pretty tough resistance and shift up a bunch to hit the watts, but was hoping to do it a little more automated.

Lemond or Revbox for example. However both are not smart trainers. Otherwise Wattbike.

I tried them with the usual gusto and, as usual, got injured.

They're supposed to be done flat out, but the examples I saw on youtube showed cyclists remaining seated when obviously you can get greater power standing.
So, I did them on a 10% hill, standing and, because I was pulling so hard on the handlebars, I damaged my elbows!

They'll make your legs stronger if you survive.

These intervals are done at maximum, all-out effort, and thus put you in L6 (Anaerobic Capacity) or L7 (Neuromuscular Power). As a result, they do very little to help you increase lactate threshold for TT or the bike leg in tri. However, they will help your fast twitch fibers. Tabata protocol doesn't get mentioned much here because this forum is all about slow-twitch fibers, haha.

As usual, some good info here and some misinformation. If you read the research on Tabata, the papers show that they are mainly effective at increasing VO2Max. That's really the point of them. Increasing VO2Max can be helpful in shorter TTs (even 30-60mins), though it's probably not going to help a lot for long course triathlon.

I don't think Tabata's are all that widely used by endurance athletes. I'm speculating here, but I think the main reason is that they are so hard. Some people can bang out two sets of them (8 reps/4 minutes each set), but even two is pretty darned hard. And then you've only done 15-20 minutes of workout, so that seems like a bad tradeoff in the quality/quantity domain. Most people would prefer to do something like 6x4mins to work on VO2Max, which really isn't a long workout either. I honestly don't know which is better, and never seen research comparing those two workouts, but for what most of us do it seems like 24mins in zone ought to be pretty helpful, not to mention not as painful (though still painful!).

OTOH, if you only have 10-15 minutes to work out, I am pretty confident that Tabata's are about the best workout you could possibly do. There's tons of research supporting that.

170% of VO2Max in the original study. Which means that almost none of the people doing "Tabata" intervals are actually doing Tabata intervals.

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True. And in the original study a good chunk of the participants could not do 8 reps to complete a set. But even they saw remarkable improvement.

Which really underlines the key to the protocol; intensity. Sacrifice the reps to hit the output level. Pretty much the opposite of what most folks who claim to be doing these things wind up doing.

...and, let's face it; the vast majority of people simply can't complete a set at the prescribed output level. This stuff is hard.

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I can't even come close, and I'm usually good at VO2max intervals.

Tabata intervals are not useful for non-drafting triathletes of any distance. I actually can't think of a workout that has a worse cost/benefit ratio. Lets start with physiology.

We have two energy systems
aerobic
anaerobic

the aerobic system is more efficient. As endurance athletes, we want to train the aerobic metabolic system to produce most of our ATP throughout our event, because it is more efficient and will get us across the finish line faster.

the anaerobic system is less efficient. athletes who perform shorter events rely on this system to help produce power/speeds beyond what the aerobic system is capable of. The problem with this is that you will fatigue much more quickly once activating the anaerobic system due to its inefficiency.

Improving our aerobic system can be done by pushing up the aerobic ceiling (vo2max intervals) or by improving aerobic efficiency (endurance and threshold training)

When you do short explosive intervals you are activating the anaerobic system, prematurely fatiguing your body and thus not taxing the aerobic system for nearly as long longer sustained interval.

vo2max intervals should be done at your 8-10 minute power/pace
ideal lengths are 2-5 minutes, with equal rests.

I usually cut down the quoted parts of posts to only the relevant bits but almost every sentence of your post is misguided so I quoted the whole thing.

Tabata training has been shown to increase VO2Max.

Has it been shown to do so in an athlete population other than the original "Young male students majoring in physical education..?" (the most famous 1996 study) Or " Fifty-five untrained college-aged subjects?" (2015 study by Foster, et al.)

My PubMed skillz may be lacking, but I couldn't locate a study of Tabata intervals performed on highly trained subjects. Particularly those not foreign to other forms of high intensity training stress.

Laursen and Jenkins have done some studies on highly-trained cyclists and triathletes, though a deeper problem is that (as we've seen above in this thread) "Tabata" has been used to describe many versions of "high-intensity interval training". Tabata himself has used both 7-8 intervals and 5-6 intervals. I think he's used 170% of VO2Max for the intensity, but lots of other researchers have used intensities from 120% of VO2Max on up as "high-intensity interval training." Nonetheless, all the studies I found showed that HIIT (in whatever variation or flavor was being used) had effects both on anaerobic and aerobic capacity, either when supplementing or when replacing a portion of "standard lower-intensity endurance training."

The loose summary is that just cuz you train outside of the "aerobic" zone doesn't mean there's no "aerobic" effect.

Anyway, here's one link to a Laursen and Jenkins paper. Here's another.

There was a thread a few years ago re "the death of 2X20" I don't know if the study they referenced is publicly available, but I paid the 20$ for it.

In summary it was 3 sets of 13X30 sec with 15sec "float" or soft pedal/rest. vs 5X6 or something like that.

These guys weren't your average couch potatoes, IE VO2 from 4L to 6L IIRC.

Anyways even in highly trained (talking AG highly trained) VO2 increased for the majority.

Also power was low for that VO2 but increased quite a bit across the board (In Norway so I speculate that maybe these guys were Xskiers)

Would have to re-read to get exact details but that is the gist as I remember it.

Cheers,
Maurice

Tabata training is one of the most studied protocols (perhaps the most studied). It has been shown to increase VO2Max in everyone from highly trained individuals to the old and feeble. That's kind of what makes it interesting.

Another paper worth reading: http://journals.plos.org/...journal.pone.0073182

BTW, note that the subjects doing what would be closest to the Tabata protocol improved the least of the three groups. Those doing intervals ~2.5 min in length at a lower intensity improved more.

FWIW, in terms of driving improvements I think that intensity is more important than "dwell time" at/near VO2max. However, to maximize the cardiovascular training effect you still need go hard long enough, or go hard often enough. The latter effect shows up in the paper Robert posted, in which the group that recovered for 120% of Tmax (total 2028 s per workout) improved less than the group that only recovered to 65% of HRmax (total 1248 s per workout), even though the work intervals (of only ~2.5 min) were identical.

Fortunately, if you have a powermeter there are analytical approaches that allow you to estimate with reasonable accuracy just how much strain you're placing on the cardiovascular system. (In fact, with the right devices you can estimate all of the components of the Fick equation.)

Thanks for weighing in. I never stated that TABATA intervals would not increase VO2max. I stated that their cost benefit ratio was not very good for non-drafting triathletes. Furthermore, I think that for most triathletes, improving vo2max is less important than improving muscular endurance. Being able to put out 400+ Watts at vo2max power is useless if you can't run well off the bike.

Sometimes some people have a hard time figuring out when to stop digging so they can use a little help: now. Now is the time to stop digging.

Thanks to you, Coggan, Maurice et al, for being my defacto search engine. Why spend hours sifting through search results and trying to find the magic combination of keywords when you have world class-grade experts to be your personal search-biatches? It is a bit difficult because some of the research isn't branded as "Tabata" and there is some fluidity in the space between "high intensity intervals" and Tabata-grade intervals.

LOL.

I always enjoy when people who *think* they know what they are talking about, argue with people who actually *know* what they are talking about.
Those in the former group, never seem to understand that they are indeed in that former group, and not the latter.

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These are my absolute favourite threads, thanks for contributing.

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You are missing an energy system there. Creatine phosphate, I think? Too lazy to google, but I think that's a third.

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Wow, the Hickson study from 40 years back with 6 hard sessions a week for 10 weeks looked absolutely brutal. I bet those college students never signed up for another study again looking for easy money.

When I've done them ... per the "proper" protocol ... I've had difficulty riding the 15-20 minutes back home.

I don't know if it's the "proper" protocol but the original protocol was 7-8 sets of 20 secs @ 170% of VO2Max power with 10 seconds of recovery between bouts, for a total of 4 minutes for the workout (ignoring warm-up and cool-down). This was done 5x per week, for 6 weeks.

Every one is different but as a rough rule of thumb for most people 170% of VO2Max power is likely to be around 200% of FTP. That's just to put them in the right ballpark: 20 secs @ twice FTP.

I find them unpleasant but not debilitating, so I usually do them only when I'm short on time.

Here's the thing I don't get about that. It's only 4 minutes, but it works out to an average power of 133% of FTP and a normalized power of about 180% of FTP. The first one is just barely doable for most people at constant power, I think. The second one is, AFAIK, not doable for most people.

I'm curious how they worked out VO2max power because, from what I've read, there is no such thing as "VO2Max power". Basically, there's a minimum power that will eventually elicit VO2Max, and then a range above that that will also elicit VO2Max, but requiring less time. However, even if they used 170% of the minimum power to elicit VO2Max, I'm pretty sure I couldn't do it. I'm not even sure I could do it at 170% of FTP. In fact I'm pretty sure I can't.

Random trivia: the subjects were actually mostly Holloszy and his post -docs. Some of them continued for a few more weeks (and continued to improve) before they said "no mas." Hickson had been a football coach before going back to school to study ex phys (and later was an early leader in applying molecular biological techniques to study exercise, until he passed away at an early age). The protocol became the standard used in numerous subsequent studies from Holloszy's group, although no one was ever quite able to match the improvement reported in the original study (although the group that I trained at OSU came close).

Hmmm. Now you've got me wondering, too. I always presumed they did it by back-solving from VO2 in liters to get the power.

"VO2max power", "power at VO2max" generally means one of two things:

1. The power at which somebody ultimately fails during an incremental exercise test to determine VO2max, or

2. more commonly, the minimal power theoretically required to elicit VO2max, based on measurement of the power-VO2 relationship during submaximal exercise.

Depending on the rate of increase in power during the test as well as the person's resistance to fatigue during supra-threshold exercise, the value you get for #1 can be greater than, equal to, or sometimes even less than #2.

To illustrate using my own data: WKO4 currently estimates my current VO2max as being 3.67 L/min, and my power-VO2 relationship based on previous testing is:

VO2 (L/min) = 0.0104 * power (W) + 0.4

In theory, then, it should require a power of (3.67-0.4)/0.0104 = 314 W to elicit my VO2max.

That's really interesting stuff! Good thing they pay post-docs slightly better these days.

Looking at a couple other Hickson projects, it's really apparent he was into athletic performance. Definitely a coach. Then seeing names like Holloszy, Coyle and some Andy guy and you're in the middle of the heavy hitters. Such cool stuff. I always appreciate your literature shares. I really wish I had appreciated this stuff more in school instead of just trying to get my research done and get out of there.

For all of you who do these tabatas, when, within the yearly macro cycle, do you incorporate them? Winter? Base? Does it depend on the discipline?

Thanks!

I do use them, mainly over the winter when I want to get in a good hard effort but not take much time. Endurance comes easily, and it's enjoyable. Power is painful to get. I find these to be highly productive even in the "off season" while not having the cumulative fatigue of a long workout.

Most of my races are long and I've found these to help with surges when I want to reel somebody in who is up the road.

Plus, the mental fortitude it develops if phenomenal. By #3 I wonder if I can finish the set. The last few are brutal. When I'm finished, I am so glad I did it!

Ray

Thanks for the response. I do competitive MTB, and even for long races you need allllll the power levels, even if the average overall is 2/3/4. So, similar in that respect.

I’m building some workouts for 2019 and want to give these a shot, probavly just start in the winter to see how it goes!

So how is the "all out" effort paced?
By definition I would of thought "all out" is just that, so a 20s sprint.
For my feeble abilities that would be around 1000w with a bit of a fade before the end.
That is significantly more than 170% of my VO2 max and also with only 10s to recover I would be on a pretty quick downhill spiral as far as watts for subsequent reps.

I don't use watts or anything fancy, but "all out" means exactly that... it's not "hard," and it's not "really hard." It is AS HARD AS YOU CAN POSSIBLY GO. 20 seconds. 8 times through.

I tend to find 1:1 work ratio more applicable to my riding and racing than a pretty crit specific workout.

Not even crit, it’s probably a carryover workout from the elimination race in track racing. About 10 sec a lap with a sprint every other lap.

I like the 3x3min for two sets at 120 to 130%. Or pursuit intervals (about 4min). Much closer in time to a RR attack (for local racing to me).

Not having seen it discussed, I created a thread about that protocol:

https://forum.slowtwitch.com/...._P5668479/#p5668479

Haha,

We had a chat in that thread.

Cheers,
Maurice

I use these (40/20) in close proximity to an event that requires similar ability but I also generally respond to them well so I use them year round. I also use the format but with a lower power for lactate clearing.

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I thought about this more and wanted to ask, is that your beginning peak or an actual average over all 20 seconds?

I'm pretty sure the local Cat 3 or even faster crit boys aren't doing Tabatas with an average for a 4min (8x 30sec) set of close to 400w including the 10s rest and 20s peaks.

A consequence of the well studied Dunning Kruger effect...

It works well for swimming as well, assuming you can swim 25 repeats in 20 seconds or faster.

I bastardize it a little and usually do my 25m freestyle repeats on 25 swimming each rep in 15, which allows 10 seconds rest.

Texas men do a variation in this workout.

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I started doing 30x25 (15s) in 19+s in early December, USRPT style. Not quite the work:rest ratio quoted above, but close.

That same week, I was also doing USRPT 30x100 (20s) at 1:39pace.

Fast-forward to today:

I've dropped 1s off the 25s (~18s), and 5s off the 100s (1:34). That includes the impacts of not swimming for 6 days from the 23rd to the 29th (I did use chords a couple times in that span, though).

I don't think I'm particularly good at Tabatas (I do more like 150-160% of FTP) but my experience was actually pretty similar to the above. First time around I started at around 600 (for the on periods) and fell to mid or even low 400s, while I died a painful death. Now I do ~525 for the on periods and keep it up the whole way. AP ends up somewhere near 400w for the 4 minutes (my off periods are not zero because I do them on a hill).

Nice work.

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___________________________________________
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cerebral_palsy
2020 National Masters Champion - M40-44 - 400m IM
Canadian Record Holder 35-39M & 40-44M - 200 m Butterfly (LCM)

Then you guys are beasts. I know very few people local with ~350w ftp's.

ST being a bit of an anomaly versus the local scene.

If you do these right, I don't think it's possible to do them safely outside. By the last few you should almost literally be falling off the bike and unable to safely ride a straight line.

Yup, that was my impression. I was asking since my trainer at the time (Tacx vortex smart) could not add nearly enough resistance rapidly. Even my current Elite Direto takes a few seconds ramping from 150-450 for a 15s interval.
Although, I'm not sure I'd want it much faster. If I'm not paying attention, I may miss the jump. That is bad.

Cameron Wurf FTP was recently tested around 360w...

Average over 4mn with Tabata will typically be around or higher than max VO2 power (because heavily relying on anaerobic glycolysis).

400w average on Tabata, probably max VO2 power lower than that, and FTP lower than 300w.

Tabata is essentially oriented toward lactate resistance.
Usefull for :
Km TT
Pursuit
Track endurance races (Elimination, point race, ...)

Little impact on VO2 (much less efficient than 8x 3mn at Vo2 / 1m30 rest, for exemple).

Impact on FTP and LD Tri race pace ?
If any, much less than many other workout

Maybe, if you follow the Tabata with one hour race pace, to educate your body recycling the lactate :-)

I'm gonna do mine outdoors on my MTB. I plan on doing it not on the road (next to cars and what have you) but rather on carriage trails / fire roads early in the morning when there are no horseback riders or hikers with dogs around.

To my view, the worst that can happen is I fall on the ground, which generally happens on MTB rides when i really push it anyway :)

On the trainer, it takes too long to ramp up, sprints like this spray sweat everywhere, and the trainer eventually will move on the ground far enough to unplug itself from teh wall. On balance, it seems better (for me, anyway) to do it outside.

How are people doing Tabatas on a smart trainer?
I have a kickr snap, ergo mode would be no good, it sometimes has a few seconds delay in adjusting to the interval. Do you turn the resistance up high and slow pedal the short rest periods?

Please read the first two pages of this thread, Tabata does impact VO2max. It is not strictly for short distance stuff.

Please read my post : "Little impact on VO2" .... I do not say it have no impact, I say it have LITTLE, being much LESS EFFICIENT than most other workout for VO2. And this is even more true for LD training.

More importantly, read the studies brough by competent people (are you ?) such as A. Coggan showing (not simply affirming) that the VO2 impact of Tabata Protocol is much lower than most other workout.

Because it is MOSTLY efficient for very short and short distance, and pretty much NOT EFFICIENT for long distance.

Not zero efficiency, but not far.

Or, you can stay happy in your fantasy world

On the contrary, I've *only* done these outside, as it's the only way I can hit the indicated power %.

Link the study, bro! Happy to read contrary evidence

Do you have a power meter as well? Whenever I use Zwift I always use my power meter as the 'control.' This makes the trainer feel a bit more like what my old trainer was like (Kurt Kinetic) in that you need to shift on your own to adjust the power. This way it seems a bit easier to jump back and forth from easy and hard efforts.

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Since the Tabata Protocol is an all-out, L7 workout, check out this table:

Read previous posts, bro
And have a good read.

Yes, that's because Tabata is not meant to be "all out". All out would be an Wingate protocol.

Really, not all-out? Here is a link to the protocol itself: https://www.tabataprotocol.com/

From the link above, the original Tabata Protocol Workout requires the following:

• 5 minutes of warm-up
• 8 intervals of 20 seconds all-out intensity exercise followed by 10 seconds of rest
• 2 minutes cool-down

If you are not doing it all-out, then you are not doing it correctly.

The link you mention not seems to be serious.

1) all out make no sense. Power will drop rapidly, 1 set you evacuate PC generated ATP (L7), and after 3 repeat you are only drowning in lactate, the rest is just.... what ?

2) A Coggan (more serious than the content of the page referenced) indicate it is 170% of max VO2 power - more intensity 6 than intensity 7. Make more sense as 170% of MVO2P can probably be handled for 2mn, so 8x20s (total 2mn40s) with small rest interval make sense.

3) Burn fat at high intensity..... is a joke. Look at Cameron Wurf measured fat consumption. It is zero from 380 watts :
https://forum.slowtwitch.com/.../?page=unread#unread
And... with Tabata you burn little sugar, as exercise stop quickly.

Seems like a typical L6 workout. Core training for track sprinter (Km specialist mostly) and high end for track endurance and other short intensity races
With a lot of big bullshit around.

Here is a link to the abstract for Tabata's original 1996 paper. Would you please write him and tell him he wasn't administering his own protocol correctly?

Yeah, could have at least gone to google scholar and searched for Tabata and then Wingate. But no.

Sometimes some people have a hard time figuring out when to stop digging.

Snap here, too. I do them but 40/20 vs 20/10. High cadence ==> Up power ==> Hit lap timer once trainer catches up ==> 40 seconds ==> drop power ==> vomit ==> repeat

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Slightly off topic, but perhaps related,

Are you aware of evidence that doing very short, MAX effort intervals at low cadence with a lot of rest in between for the purpose of developing neuromuscular pathways to increase muscle recruitment when cycling at more reasonable race powers - i.e. it makes it easier for your body to get more muscles involved in cycling at efforts from 70%-100% of FTP.

The protocol would be something like 8-10 of maximum effort for 12-15 pedal strokes (a stroke being 360 degrees), starting out at around 50 rpm, then 5 minutes rest. When I do these, it's around 750 watts, FTP is 275.

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Got it, didn't realize you were referring to studies already linked, thought you were talking about something new.

Okay, so I've read these all, and they are good reads. However, I am not convinced you can draw unqualified conclusions from any of these materials and the reason for that is the power duration curve.

Remember when there was that whole debate about caffeine, and there were studies that were like "too much caffeine is bad definitely limit it," other studies that said "lol no caffeine is fine have as much as you want" and then there were still others that were like "caffeine is great drink as much coffee as you POSSIBLY CAN"? It was hard to make sense of it, but then finally it was discovered that there's a gene that determines how fast you metabolize caffeine: if you're a fast metabolizer caffeine will basically never have a negative impact on you, but if you're a slow metabolizer then it really can negatively affect you. But bottom line is, all those prior studies were confounded by the fact that there was a big variable that was not accounted for.

So, how does this relate to endurance training? If i understand one of the lessons of the PDC, it is that each athlete reacts differently to training stimulus in a reasonably systematic way, hence the concept of athlete "phenotypes". Say for simplicity you separate them into two groups, high-end punchers vs. diesel roleurs, tabatas might be very beneficial for the high end punchers, but so taxing for the diesel roleurs that each of these study protocols might actually have set them back rather than advancing them. If you have a study of only a small number of people, there's a very good chance that one type or the other might predominate (just like how your coin flip can turn up "heads" 8 out of 10 times), which would goof with your results.

it's probably the same kind of thing for sweet spot training, but reversed. For the high-end punchers it's too taxing and they're in the black hole, but for the roleurs it's just right.

Assuming people naturally gravitate towards disciplines that complement their abilities, then it's probably correct to say that these are good for track athletes etc., but I would guess there's actually plenty of variation within each discipline, especially given how with, say, road racing, there are all sorts of race strategies people can use to play to their respective strengths.

My takeaway here is that you have to figure out whether they work for you, in other words they are beneficial (except to the extent they're not) / they are not beneficial (unless they are).

So, i am going to give them a shot, but cautiously. My (relatively) strongest durations have always been the 5 to 30 minute range, and going above that has always been very taxing on me; i don't recover easily from VO2 max intervals on up, and never have. This winter, therefor, i am going to "train my weaknesses" so to speak, but sparingly, with VO2 max (or higher) intervals about once a week, with every other week being a tabata week. Meanwhile, i'll be slow-building the zone 2, 3, sweetspot and 4. And i'll reevaluate after i do it a little while and see how it goes! I expect the lactate clearance aspect will be very beneficial for my discipline, but we'll see I guess.

PS, i doubt these really fall into the "zone 7" category of adaptations despite the power level of the intervals. Maybe the first 20s does, but after that, it's going to be something else, because think about it: after a certain point you're no longer being limited solely by, for example, neuromuscular coordination

Yes, you are right, 170% of Max VO2 power is zone 6 (anaerobic glycolysis), not zone 7.

My good friends track sprinters working 5s or 10s or 15s then resting 15mn are working zone 7.

Here it is clearly a long / splitted zone 6 training.

I'm far from AC, but I'm not sure 'why' this would be desired. When you say muscle recruitment, are you talking about motor unit recruitment? The amount of muscle fibers contracting is not a limiter during aerobic exercise like your 70-100% FTP example.

You're correct in thinking that high force is a way to recruit more motor units. Or low resistance and high velocity. Or simply fatiguing some fibers so that others have to jump in.

I would refer you back to the post already above that demonstrates how a level 7 (or even 6) benefits your aerobic performance. I think that actually came from AC himself in his (and Hunter Allen's) Training and Racing with a Power Meter book. I have it somewhere so maybe I can look and see where that figure was sourced. I don't think increased ATP/PCr Stores, increased lactate tolerance, hypertrophy of fast twitch fibers, and/or neuromuscular power contribute significantly for the cycling effort you're describing.

The reason is for when muscle fatigue, not aerobic capacity, is the limiter as I believe it often is for me in longer distance events. The idea is that if I can get more muscles involved, then they can each work a little bit easier to produce the same power. I would assume the aerobic stress would be equivalent.

In 70.3 and 140.3 races I never feel aerobically stressed, but my legs can certainly get fried. If I want to run well in a 140.3 I have to ride no harder than 68% to70% of FTP. If I can get more muscles involved, then the hope is muscle fatigue will be reduced and either I can run even faster, OR I could get that power up to 72%-73% at the same fatigue level.

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The same AC would say, "Fatigue is biochemical, not biomechanical."

It's not easy to study ironman type performances in a lab. There's no evidence that high resistance, low velocity cycling sprints a couple seconds long improve 70.3 or 140.6 performance. These are probably things you're aware of and I'm not trying to be argumentative or condescending.

This might be an interesting read, but further discussion merits its own thread or a continuation of another.

I'm not taking you as being argumentative or condescending - this is how interesting conversations are had!

So if fatigue is not well understood and impossible to measure other than with self reported perceived fatigue, it's not surprising that there has not been a study that shows very short intervals to increase muscle recruitment improves Ironman performance. But the lack of evidence does not mean it is not helpful.

So far, logically it seems to me like for someone who experiences muscle fatigue as a limiting factor, this kind of thing could help (just as a small part of more "traditional" IM preparation of course).

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Ed O'Malley
www.VeloVetta.com
Founder of VeloVetta Cycling Shoes
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