Hour of Power- A Thank you

sbc205

Toks wrote:

Oh my gosh the inventor of the HOP, the legendary Bill Black is on the forum. What with Alex the training guru constantly 'droppin science' all we now need is the inventor of the ultimate threshold workout (2 x 20's) Dr Andrew Coggan to post...... AGAIN!.

:roll: If you say so, yawn...

KnightOfTheLongTights

just to dredge this up again ...

this would be tricky to replicate on a gym exercise bike wouldn't it?

although there is a 'cardio intervals' prog on the ones at my gym that might roughly correspond, assuming you ride the 'recovery periods' not as recovery periods!

amaferanga

I finally got round to doing a HoP last night and actually enjoyed it. I was quite conservative with a base level of 90% FTP and did 2:45 followed by a 15s surge to 110-115% FTP.

IF was 0.92, but I'm wondering if my 15s surges are a little too conservative?

Alex_Simmons/RST

amaferanga wrote:

IF was 0.92, but I'm wondering if my 15s surges are a little too conservative?

Yes
Try 150+%

amaferanga

Alex_Simmons/RST wrote:

amaferanga wrote:

IF was 0.92, but I'm wondering if my 15s surges are a little too conservative?

Yes
Try 150+%

Thanks Alex. 150% sounds painful, but I'll give it a go.

Alex_Simmons/RST

amaferanga wrote:

Alex_Simmons/RST wrote:

amaferanga wrote:

IF was 0.92, but I'm wondering if my 15s surges are a little too conservative?

Yes
Try 150+%

Thanks Alex. 150% sounds painful, but I'll give it a go.

Depending on a few things, it might be overly challenging or quite do-able, since it is starting to tap your neuromuscular abilities, and everyone is different. 150% might be quite hard for one, and easy-ish for someone else. But definitely get over L5 power.

Just try and see what happens. Not sure these need be a regular weekly thing, again that depends on what you are used to.

barry_kellett99

Holy thread ressurection Batman...

Lost my HOP virginity today.
http://app.strava.com/activities/40092621#z847|4426


Absolutely savage workout.

GiantMike

no, No, NO!

I've been trying NOT to do this and it keeps getting dragged up! So now it's back at the front of my brain and every time I don't do it I'll feel guilty. AGAIN.

Right. I'll do it next Monday. Maybe Tuesday. Happy?

barry_kellett99

No time better than right now mike

Bill Black

Take a look here (load the link and go to page 6 of the USA Cycling Newsletter to read the short article that I wrote, which article explains the rationale for the Hour of Power ("HOP"). http://www.usacycling.org/forms/newslet ... er0413.pdf ).
Best,
Bill Black

gubber12345

Bronzie wrote:

disgruntledgoat wrote:

followed by 2 minutes at 85% of max HR @ 90-95 rpm (about 165 in my case) with a 30 second all out "attack" @ 100+ rpm and repeat, then a 5 minute cool down after 50 minutes of that.

Just to clarify...............there is no recovery in the hour at all? Just steady pace @ 85% max with 30-sec blasts every 2 minutes?

can i ask what resistance are you doing so you can complete the hr.....sounds like just what i need since i can only get a hr 3 nights a week and then a 30 miler or so on a sat morning.

barry_kellett99

I followed Alexs advice and went for 90%ftp with bursts of 150% on every 3rd minute for 15 seconds.

Average power for the hour came out just shy of 95% so in theory I should be able to push just a little bit more?

jgsi

Bill Black wrote:

Take a look here (load the link and go to page 6 of the USA Cycling Newsletter to read the short article that I wrote, which article explains the rationale for the Hour of Power ("HOP"). http://www.usacycling.org/forms/newslet ... er0413.pdf ).
Best,
Bill Black

Hi Bill!
Just to clarify.. this is the 'Recovery on the Edge'?
I dont think I would be comfortable doing HOP more than once a week... but 3 weeks prior to a target race , putting this workout in twice a week and factoring in recovery prior to the event ( as a vet , I need a fair bit) might pay dividends.

Bill Black

The real meat of the HOP session is increasing the Base Level you can hold between surges -- just as in racing, if you are at your limit just riding to race pace then a couple of surges will put you off the back. It's a balancing process between making the surges harder (thereby harder to recover) and raising the Base Level. More later -- and fire away with any questions -- I now must go and shovel more snow, as we have 30 inches in our drive and a solid 6 foot high drift where the truck plowed us in.
Best,
Bill Black

Herbsman

I noticed that in my copy of Training and Racing with a Power Meter it says to ride for an hour at FTP and do surges every three minutes. Which is of course impossible!

I checked and double checked that I hadn't misread it.

I suppose there are load of variations of this that could be done... varying the length and/or intensity of the surges, and/or varying the frequency of the surges, and/or varying the baseline power....

oldhairylegs

Had a go at this crazy session this evening, but using HR as a guide as I don't have a power meter.

Tried to stay at 85-90% of my MHR throughout, then just gave it full gas for 30 seconds out of each 3 minute block - repeated x20.

Clearly not as tough as using a power meter as there was a short window of 'recovery time' after each sprint whilst my HR went back into the zone, which wouldn't be possible if maintaining power output, but it was still one hell of a workout and a great way to burn almost 1000 calories! :shock:

mclarent

Herbsman wrote:

I noticed that in my copy of Training and Racing with a Power Meter it says to ride for an hour at FTP and do surges every three minutes. Which is of course impossible!

I checked and double checked that I hadn't misread it.

That's funny. My copy is packed up at the moment or I'd check it as well, very surprised about that.

barry_kellett99

IMAG0879 by barry_kellett99, on Flickr

mclarent

That's clearly impossible, unless you average down your effort by recovering below FTP (which I would guess you would have to). TBH, riding 1 hour at FTP is a balls out effort anyway(!)

Wrath Rob

mclarent wrote:

That's clearly impossible, unless you average down your effort by recovering below FTP (which I would guess you would have to). TBH, riding 1 hour at FTP is a balls out effort anyway(!)

You clearly need to obey Rule 5

Or as Alex says, treat it as the Threshold Zone, i.e. 95-105%, and then surge out of that. By being in the zone but not at FTP, you should be able to recover a little bit. If you cant reach the end then see rule 5 or back of a little more next time.

Lightning

20min@91-105% FTP + 60min@FTP (incl. 105% FTP surges) would be pretty funny if it wasn't impossible. It's been a while since I last did this but I think I used to do them at 95%/150% (2min45sec/15sec). I think HoP is more about your ability to recover from surges at a high base intensity than anything else so you can probably vary time and intensity as you see fit, as long as it's good enough to produce the effects you want it to. I only do it closer to the racing season (once a week) and it does help me with recovery from surges.

GiantMike

Did it tonight: Well, 54 minutes

54 mins at 90% FTP with 150% bursts every 2:45. Horrible, but I'll do it again

Herbsman

I think I did mine at 90% ftp with 15 second surges about 140%ftp every 3 minutes. I thought it was easy until it started to hurt my legs :-( then my Garmin didn't even save the f*cking data so I couldn't even have the satisfaction of inspecting the power graph afterwards :-(

GiantMike

Herbsman wrote:

I think I did mine at 90% ftp with 15 second surges about 140%ftp every 3 minutes. I thought it was easy until it started to hurt my legs :-( then my Garmin didn't even save the f*cking data so I couldn't even have the satisfaction of inspecting the power graph afterwards :-(

Did you try using the 'start' button?

mclarent

Wrath Rob wrote:

mclarent wrote:

That's clearly impossible, unless you average down your effort by recovering below FTP (which I would guess you would have to). TBH, riding 1 hour at FTP is a balls out effort anyway(!)

You clearly need to obey Rule 5

Or as Alex says, treat it as the Threshold Zone, i.e. 95-105%, and then surge out of that. By being in the zone but not at FTP, you should be able to recover a little bit. If you cant reach the end then see rule 5 or back of a little more next time.

Don't disagree. It's not what the book says though.

GiantMike

GiantMike wrote:

Did it tonight: Well, 54 minutes

54 mins at 90% FTP with 150% bursts every 2:45. Horrible, but I'll do it again

Link now updated so it's correct!

Herbsman

GiantMike wrote:

Herbsman wrote:

I think I did mine at 90% ftp with 15 second surges about 140%ftp every 3 minutes. I thought it was easy until it started to hurt my legs :-( then my Garmin didn't even save the f*cking data so I couldn't even have the satisfaction of inspecting the power graph afterwards :-(

Did you try using the 'start' button?

Yes. Then the Stop button. Then the Reset button. Then the Off button.

GiantMike

Herbsman wrote:

GiantMike wrote:

Herbsman wrote:

I think I did mine at 90% ftp with 15 second surges about 140%ftp every 3 minutes. I thought it was easy until it started to hurt my legs :-( then my Garmin didn't even save the f*cking data so I couldn't even have the satisfaction of inspecting the power graph afterwards :-(

Did you try using the 'start' button?

Yes. Then the Stop button. Then the Reset button. Then the Off button.

Well that's ALL my questions answered!

Though I do have a point to make too. My Garmin records my sessions but, because there are so many workouts on it, they don't show up in the history on the device. I can download them to GC, but I can't see them on the 800. Just a thought.

Herbsman

When connected to the computer, the 500 shows up as a removable disk. All other rides are there, as .fit files; this one wasn't. Trust me, it's gone.

It's quite a common bug that's existed on this model since it was first released, and firmware updates have failed to rectify it.

Herbsman

http://twitter.com/captainbuckles/statu ... 12/photo/1