I’ve been doing 2x20 pretty regularly the last few weeks. Last week I did 4 sessions of 2x20 at between 95-100% FTP, and struggled for my rides near the end. I decided to take this week a little easier and reassess. I’ve seen some pretty great results, but I had been quite a bit behind and only now am feeling myself. I’d like to be faster than I was.
How often do you do your 2x20’s? How long did it take you to see great tangible results?
I’ve been riding/racing for the last 6 years, but I’ve always had something in my life come up and interrupt my training - and never really got much better over the years. There is nothing on the horizon for me, so I’m focusing on training for now.
I’ve been doing 2x20 pretty regularly the last few weeks. Last week I did 4 sessions of 2x20 at between 95-100% FTP, and struggled for my rides near the end. I decided to take this week a little easier and reassess. I’ve seen some pretty great results, but I had been quite a bit behind and only now am feeling myself. I’d like to be faster than I was.
How often do you do your 2x20’s? How long did it take you to see great tangible results?
I’ve been riding/racing for the last 6 years, but I’ve always had something in my life come up and interrupt my training - and never really got much better over the years. There is nothing on the horizon for me, so I’m focusing on training for now.
Tangible results, I usually see tangible results in 2-3 days again when I repeat it but then again I get lots of rest and very little outside stress.
I do 2x20s often, but I’m doing them as a stepping stone workout, not as the destination. I want to be able to do 2 x 30, 3 x 20, 1 x 60-90.
When 2 x 20s are easy, I do one of 3 things:
Bump up the power
Make the rest intervals shorter (30 seconds)
Add another interval or make the interval 50% longer.
IMO if a 2 x 20 minute session is easy, you’re doing it wrong. Power should be much higher. 30 seconds is awful short for 20 min intervals, that’s just basically a tempo ride, slowing down for a stop sign in the middle. I typically take 10 min so I can hammer the 2nd one.
4x20 or 6x20 is a different workout at probably a lower FTP % (say 95% instead of 100%).
To answer the OP, I do a 2x20 once every couple of weeks in addition to intervals and tempo rides.
I do 2x20 very intermittently. Excellent for raising FTP / being serious about your training. Like you, my efforts are interrupted to the point of fitness setback so much that 2x20 seems like unnecessary suffering. Not due to obligations but due to injury and illness. Every season past 8 seasons! Got PF 3 weeks before A race this year. Foot got better, started training again, and immediately got a cold or flu or whatever this is. Fuck me…
30 seconds is awful short for 20 min intervalsNot really. You should be able to hold steady state (88-92) for 40 minutes without much difficulty, doing them closer to FTP is not necessarily easy but it’s not exceedingly difficult, inserting a 30" rest in there is nothing more than a mental break.
I do them twice a week during my build phase which is longer preseason and shorter after a mid season break. They are great for raising FTP, but my experience has shown that the incremental gains for road racing top out after a couple of week. I do them to rebuild threshold before moving on to super threshold intervals and finally v02/anaerobic work. The blocks become more polarized as they progress.
For the 2x20s, I structure them differently within the week. One set is right below estimated ftp with the goal keeping things smooth. Rest is 5-7 min between efforts. The second set has the first one much harder than the second. It’s an effort above cp60, but not nessecarily a cp20 test. I use this as a test of fitness. The second 20m interval is sweet spot. 10m in between.
Week over week I seek to set up the power for all the efforts by 5w. This seems to be a predictable way for me to boost my threshold by 30ish watts in advance of race specific intervals.
Rest/easy days are important to me during these blocks. I try not to do an interval day with a TSB below -15. If I start and can’t do them or are unmotivated then I bail or soft pedal and do them the next day.
Here’s an interesting post about 2 x 20 by (IIRC) Tim Cusick @ Training Peaks. It was snagged it from the WKO4 user group:
Jumping in here with an “observational” answer. Having been racing and coaching for a long, long time it has been interesting to watch training methods over time and how they are shaped by “culture”. It is my observation that when power training was introduced, it brought a lot of focus on time and intensity relationship management in training (as expected) and as we began to understand some functional numbers like FTP we did what all cultures do, attempt to create easier routes to success or shortcuts. In training this shortcut, to me, is why people struggle more then ever to related their FTP to 1 hour. Here is why, the introduction of the thinking that 95% of 20 minute power is statistically accurate but has shaped the culture of training FTP as it built a shortcut in the work that is being done as we focused on 20 minutes. Think about it, so few people seem to ever do SST or FTP intervals over 20 minutes now and the 2 x 20 minute workout seems to be the new standard. So people do a lot of 2 x 20 work all winter long then seem amazed their curve begins to drop at around 20 & 40 minutes. Andy Coggan and Kevin Williams give great answers in the physiology, my point is that we also need to think about training FTP again (after working with the PD model and tons of observation last 2 years) as we are creating the “40 minute FTP” event. For ANY athlete I work with, building FTP means quickly working up to 60 minutes of time in zone (SST or FTP) to build the length of time they can hold “FTP” (fatigue resistance) and this pays off. I would bet you $20 that everyone that has a good 20 minute effort but thinks their FTP is too low would… A) not beat the model estimate for 1 hour by more than 2-3% in a 1 hour full out effort. B) significantly benefit from increased time in zone as threshold focused levels (SST& FTP). Don’t get me wrong, doing 20 minute intervals is fine but you need progress the total time past 40 minutes quickly; 2 x 20 leads to 3 x 15 leads to 3 x 20 and more. Once you get to an hour, start reducing rest (or build to1:20) and progressing. Try 2 x 30 then try, dare i say it, 1 x 60. Our bodies are amazing adaptation machines and they quickly adapt to the stimuli we introduce; for better or worse. Just my observation not saying anything negative to anyones points.
30 seconds is awful short for 20 min intervalsNot really. You should be able to hold steady state (88-92) for 40 minutes without much difficulty, doing them closer to FTP is not necessarily easy but it’s not exceedingly difficult, inserting a 30" rest in there is nothing more than a mental break.
I agree with being able to do 90% FTP for 40 minutes. However, I would call that a tempo ride, not a 2x20.
To me a 2x20 is at 100-105% FTP. So I may be a wousy, but 2x20 at 105% FTP with a 10 min rest in between is a real biatch of a workout.
IDK, I talk with/have gotten many athletes over the years who have been doing them in that 88-94% range then wondering why they aren’t getting faster as the season progresses.
they either ride at 65-70% or they do 2x20 at 88-94%. They start he season riding 2:27 and finish the season riding 2:24 for a half IM. 3minutes…meh
I know people can get faster doing them, but imo there are ways to get faster faster.
IDK, I talk with/have gotten many athletes over the years who have been doing them in that 88-94% range then wondering why they aren’t getting faster as the season progresses.
That’s an intensity/execution issue, i.e., nothing specific to the workout.
imo there are ways to get faster faster.
Sure: do 2 x 20 min as intended, i.e., at true level 4. Doing them at 88-94% of FTP is really training at level 3.* That’s fine up to a point, but only up to a point. After that, you need to increase either the intensity or the total volume of such training, or both, to induce further adaptation.
*For steadier efforts - as this sort of workout is likely to be - the IF scale is a better indicator of relative exercise intensity. Typical IF for level 3 is 0.85-0.95.
30 seconds is awful short for 20 min intervalsNot really. You should be able to hold steady state (88-92) for 40 minutes without much difficulty, doing them closer to FTP is not necessarily easy but it’s not exceedingly difficult, inserting a 30" rest in there is nothing more than a mental break.
I agree with being able to do 90% FTP for 40 minutes. However, I would call that a tempo ride, not a 2x20.
To me a 2x20 is at 100-105% FTP. So I may be a wousy, but 2x20 at 105% FTP with a 10 min rest in between is a real biatch of a workout.
x2. If I’m at 95% it’s probably a sweetspot workout and there will likely be a lot more work than 40 mins. I aim for a 2x20 (or something similar) once a week.
I’ve always found 4 sessions of 2 x 20’s done properly plus a long ride too much, I always dig myself a hole if I do that. Are you doing a long ride in that as well, say 4-5 hours?
My staple over the years for good FTP progression has been 6 weeks of 3 sessions of 2 x 20’s at 100% FTP plus a long ride of 4-5 hours with some climbing and intensity on those climbs, my legs usually feel shattered at the end of the long ride.
Then after the 6 weeks I do a lighter week to recover, then move into a 4 week block of 3 sessions of 5 x 5 min at 115% FTP, again with a long ride as well. One lighter week for recovery, then back into the 2 x 20’s with a higher power as a result of an FTP increase. If I follow that program consistently for 6 months or so I get a really good bump in my FTP.