I’m increasing weekly volume on the bike by adding Zone 2 time to my interval workouts. What is the best way to add Z2 time to an interval workout to increase endurance? Should I:
a. increase the length of the warm-up (say 60 minutes of zone 2 before doing 2 x 20 minutes @95%)
b. put the zone 2 riding between the intervals (so w/u, then do first 20 minutes @95%, then do 60 minutes Z2 then do second 20 mins)
c. increase the cool down (so w/u, then 2 x 20, then 60 minutes of Z2 to finish)
d. add some Z2 time to all three sections (w/u, between intervals, c/d)?
Yes to all.
If you put the intervals later in the ride you’ll get there expending more kJ’s. As you extend the duration, the same exact power output becomes more demanding physiologically.
Intervals after you’ve ridden a 1000kJ of work will feel different than after a 20-25min warm up where you might have expended 200-250kJ.
But if you’re out of shape/time pressed doing the intervals early in the ride may be the smartest to insure you get the work done.
if you’re on a 5h ride doing 10-20 min every hour at whatever effort level is a great way to increase the overall stress of the ride. Let’s say you’d normally expend 2600kJ on a 5h zn2 ride, with 15min at threshold every hour you might bump that to 3000kJ and I suspect you’ll find that interval in hour 4 and 5 to be more taxing, you’ll be breathing harder etc than in hour 1 and 2
It’s often more important to do the work than worry how the work is organized. If you normally ride 6-8h/wk and suddenly start riding 12-13h/wk I would bet you’ll get a power bump across just about any duration you wanted to test after 3-4 weeks of that just due to the increased volume and physiological adaptations without any increase in intervals (which would actually decrease the total % of your riding time spent doing intervals)
Hope that helps
Thanks for the response, it is much appreciated. It pretty much confirmed what I suspected would be the case. I’m way beneath the hours you mentioned: I’ve been riding 3.5 hr/wk through the winter and am aiming to get up to the 6-8 hr/wk range over the next month (my total training volume maxes out at 10-12 hr/wk, including swimming and running). I guess I’ll add the Z2 stuff to the front end of my rides to start with and then adjust that if I struggle with the FTP repeats later in the ride.
I also found a video where one of Pogacar’s coaches was saying that the body takes 30 minutes or more to return to the predominantly fat burning state after hard efforts, so he also seemed to be recommending doing the zone 2 stuff first, since that allows the body to be using fat for fuel for longer.