Ohhhhhhhhh, helllllllllllll no!!!! Oh wait, are we not talking about food here???????????

Tom_Hampton--now we are talking!!

That's better (and tastier) than that cake analogy.

I've never actually had pecan pie. We do have butter tarts up here, sometimes they have pecans in them. Similar thing?

2nd cousins maybe.

I've never actually had pecan pie. We do have butter tarts up here, sometimes they have pecans in them. Similar thing?

Very misleading thread. A 4-5 hour ride or 2 hour run on Zone 2 is harder for a lot of us to recover than a bunch of shorter intervals on a 1 hour session . I have overtrained myself doing too much "easy" training. Zone 3 effort instead of Zone 2 on long rides/runs is another recipe for disaster. Not sure what level you are nor what your goals are, but most athletes would not be able to time trial for 60 mins on 300 W by training on 200 W nor run a sub 1 20 half marathon by running at 8 or 8 30 min/mile all the time. You have to teach your body how to swim, bike or run, fast by going even faster/harder, hence need for intensity.

..... A 4-5 hour ride or 2 hour run on Zone 2 is harder for a lot of us to recover than a bunch of shorter intervals on a 1 hour session .[quote/]

In many respects very true. Mostly bc this type of training lacks the endurance building benefits that lots of longer yet much less intense training offers. This is basically a 4 cylinder engine with some tuning.



I think you misunderstand how training works. For instance the person who TT's at 300w who does a lot of short fast training isn't going to be able to finish a workout like 5x(10min @ 102-105% FZTP + 4 min easy) The same FTP person who does a lot of higher volume training has put in the background work to complete that set and recover from it.

No one is saying avoid doing intervals.
What the research seems to indicate is that a lot of high volume work is extremely important to maximizing your physiological ability.

Even in an 80/20 plan the amount of time actually spent doing an interval is usually going to be <9% of the total amount of training time for the week and probably closer to 7.5%. In a 10h (600 minute) training week that's < 60 min of actual interval work.

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Brian Stover USAT LII
Accelerate3 Coaching
Insta

7.5% ???

That's some pretty thin icing!
Must be vegan icing or something like that :)

To bring it back full circle, training is like baking a pie. You need all the ingredients, in the right proportions and layered together properly, and let it cool off a bit (but not too much) before it's perfect for serving.

That's better (and tastier) than that cake analogy.