I’m looking at a workout from a training plan. The workout has two “sets”. Each set has 15 intervals. Each interval is 30" at 120% of FTP followed by 30" rest. The total workout would have two of these sets for a total of thirty short intervals.
I have been doing a workout that I took from “Optimized Intervals” from WKO5. It is, currently, (6-8) four minute intervals at 108%-120% of FTP with four minutes of rest in between.
I’m not sure that I get the idea behind the first workout. Why so many 30" intervals?
Better would mean which workout would most improve maximum aerobic capacity? What criteria do you use to judge?
“The result, now known as Billat 30-30s, involves alternating between 30-second surges at vVO2max, and 30-second jog recoveries, and doing it for as long as possible. What’s interesting about this workout is that during the recoveries, your metabolism is still ramped up to VO2max for a significant amount of time”
I am in the “time at VO2 max” camp, which involves longer intervals. I find 5:00 just about ideal. The problem with :30 on / :30 recovery is that it takes a whole lot of intervals before you are even at your maximum O2 consumption. Now for running, speed itself can be a potent teacher, so I would be more inclined to use this on the run. When I prescribe 30/30s on the bike, they are generally well over 120%, and more anaerobic, or even more commonly a warm-up set before we get to the main set. I like 8:00 - 12:00 of 30/30s building from 90% to 150 - 200% of FTP.
I cannot remember where I read the article, but very recently someone wrote about the history of VO2 Max sessions.
The Billat 30/30s were kind of the first HIIT workouts…
The longer sets are now more widely adopted.
Personally, I really enjoy 2 - 3’ at 120 - 125% of FTP on equal rest. Total work time in the 15’ range. These sessions are hard, but I can do them 2 - 3x per week.
I cannot remember where I read the article, but very recently someone wrote about the history of VO2 Max sessions.
The Billat 30/30s were kind of the first HIIT workouts…
The longer sets are now more widely adopted.
Personally, I really enjoy 2 - 3’ at 120 - 125% of FTP on equal rest. Total work time in the 15’ range. These sessions are hard, but I** can do them 2 - 3x per week.**
Then they’re only “kinda hard”. Really not enough time at VO2max to stimulate gains. You’d be better off doing 3x 8 minutes for the same total time but with significantly more time at VO2max.
I’m looking at a workout from a training plan. The workout has two “sets”. Each set has 15 intervals. Each interval is 30" at 120% of FTP followed by 30" rest. The total workout would have two of these sets for a total of thirty short intervals.
I have been doing a workout that I took from “Optimized Intervals” from WKO5. It is, currently, (6-8) four minute intervals at 108%-120% of FTP with four minutes of rest in between.
I’m not sure that I get the idea behind the first workout. Why so many 30" intervals?
Better would mean which workout would most improve maximum aerobic capacity? What criteria do you use to judge?
These types of intervals are good during the early part of a cycle. I like to think it is getting your body used to the strain of the future target power for your 3 min intervals. Most of the tr plans will progress like this and it sounds like dan lorang does something similar. Start out short but fast, build up to longer intervals.
According to a popular seiler study, 8 min intervals were the best at improving vo2 max when comparing 4, 8, and 16 min durations. They think the 4 min sets were too hard for some and weren’t paced correctly. 4x 8 minutes had the most duration around 90% of hr max.
I am in the “time at VO2 max” camp, which involves longer intervals. I find 5:00 just about ideal. The problem with :30 on / :30 recovery is that it takes a whole lot of intervals before you are even at your maximum O2 consumption. Now for running, speed itself can be a potent teacher, so I would be more inclined to use this on the run. When I prescribe 30/30s on the bike, they are generally well over 120%, and more anaerobic, or even more commonly a warm-up set before we get to the main set. I like 8:00 - 12:00 of 30/30s building from 90% to 150 - 200% of FTP.
With that workout I think it’s important not to go too easy on the :30 recovery.
I get better results from the longer VO2max intervals, such as 6-8 x 4-min @ 112-120% FTP with two minute rest in between.
I’ve done both the 30/30 variation of 40/20, as well as the hard 3-5mins @ VO2 efforts, as an athlete who have trouble touching 200% of their FTP in a sprint, i find it takes me a lot longer to recover from the hard 3-5mins efforts, and find that those workouts leaves me more tired throughout the week as opposed to the 40on/20off efforts.
After 4 weeks of these shorter sets I progress to over/unders with work to rest ratio that start out at 1:1 but build to as as much as 3:1 with up to 18’ of work if I recall correctly… the set comes from time crunched triathlete.
Through each of my builds I have been getting stronger / faster over last bunch of years, but I don’t do them year round. Not sure if the short sets or the over/unders are more responsible for fitness gains. Sounds like it might be the over/unders.
I am game to try something different… maybe I’ll replace the 2-3’ with some 8’ sets.
What % of FTP would you target for the 8’ sessions?
