interval training

rhyko7

i want to plan my interval training, obviously the length of hard and rest recovery rates and lengths varies from person to person based on that persons fitness etc.

There are two types of interval i want to find out about and have struggled to find what im looking for on the net, so hopefully you guys can explain this to me????

i know my HR zones, have no power metre tho, have read friels book and have basic understanding of exercise.

1st type Lactic threshold training
what i need to know, i would like to understand what physiological changes/actions take place within the body and how to train to enforce these changes best. from what i gather about lactic threshold training its about training into a state where your body starts producing lactate for a period of time, then reduce the work rate and let your body get rid of all the lactate and go again-therefor improving the bodies efficiency at coping with lactate.
so my question-what determines or how do i go about determining the length of the intervals, and the length of the training session-how hard should it be?

same question for Vo2 max intervals-how do i know how long, how hard etc?

any insight would be helpful cheers-i think the answers to this may benefit a lot of other ppl too

doyler78

Take a look here:

http://home.trainingpeaks.com/articles. ... by=Cycling

Yes it is power meter centric however physiological changes are physiological changes irrespective of how you get there. Training in level 5 with heart rate monitor or a power meter tries to hit the same changes so the method is irrelevant when seen purely in those terms. However heart rate training isn't as precise a power training and for that reason you are less likely to get the results you expect if you rely on heart rate alone especially once you get into the threshold and beyond intervals that you are seeking to train. That doesn't mean you can't use a heart rate monitor or that's ineffective it's just that you need to understand its limitations, recognise them and get on with it

I would have linked to this in the past:

http://home.trainingpeaks.com/articles/ ... oggan.aspx

The second table explains to you what changes you expect to get if you trained effectively in any training zone (in as much as any training zone exists) however that table is now blank however read the article anyway and then use this thread which represents the table (the more blocks in the table the more effective it is for helping to bring about that physiological change).

Unforunately I can't link to the exact post so if you search within the tread for "expected phy" that will be bring you to the blank table only this time it will be filled.

http://www.beginnertriathlete.com/discu ... etcookie=1

You should read the other articles in that archive that I linked to first as they contain a lot of good information.

BeaconRuth

rhyko7 wrote:

i want to plan my interval training

First things first: What are you doing interval training FOR? i.e. What performance gains do you want to achieve by it?

Ruth

rhyko7

doyler78 wrote:

Take a look here:

http://home.trainingpeaks.com/articles. ... by=Cycling

Yes it is power meter centric however physiological changes are physiological changes irrespective of how you get there. Training in level 5 with heart rate monitor or a power meter tries to hit the same changes so the method is irrelevant when seen purely in those terms. However heart rate training isn't as precise a power training and for that reason you are less likely to get the results you expect if you rely on heart rate alone especially once you get into the threshold and beyond intervals that you are seeking to train. That doesn't mean you can't use a heart rate monitor or that's ineffective it's just that you need to understand its limitations, recognise them and get on with it

I would have linked to this in the past:

http://home.trainingpeaks.com/articles/ ... oggan.aspx

The second table explains to you what changes you expect to get if you trained effectively in any training zone (in as much as any training zone exists) however that table is now blank however read the article anyway and then use this thread which represents the table (the more blocks in the table the more effective it is for helping to bring about that physiological change).

Unforunately I can't link to the exact post so if you search within the tread for "expected phy" that will be bring you to the blank table only this time it will be filled.

http://www.beginnertriathlete.com/discu ... etcookie=1

You should read the other articles in that archive that I linked to first as they contain a lot of good information.

thanks very good links with lots of information, as i said ide rather understand it than just be told what to do, and these are very helpful, cheers.
on my turbo trainer if i put a speedo on the rear wheel or cranks- thats the equivelent of a power meter anyway as its just another way of keeping a constant output =cheaper option


Ruth-
I am training for a 75km mtb race, i have been unable to ride my mtb due to injury and surgery 2 months ago (will be just about ready by race date i hope) so most my training has been on the turbo trainer, did my 1st road ride today tho as im slowly healing up. its a case of making the most of the little free time i have, i can do an hour or so most nights but not much more, so zone 2 long rides is only going to happen on wkends.

Alex_Simmons/RST

rhyko7 wrote:

thanks very good links with lots of information, as i said ide rather understand it than just be told what to do, and these are very helpful, cheers.

Here's another item with chart summarising the physiological adaptations and training level:
http://alex-cycle.blogspot.com/2008/01/ ... ining.html

Good luck with rehab/return.

BeaconRuth

rhyko7 wrote:

I am training for a 75km mtb race...........

Perhaps you want to give some thought to whether lactate tolerance and developing your VO2max are important aspects of fitness for a long endurance race then? Perhaps your turbo work could focus more on aerobic muscular endurance which is what you're likely to need most of?

Ruth

jibberjim

rhyko7 wrote:

i want to plan my interval training, obviously the length of hard and rest recovery rates and lengths varies from person to person based on that persons fitness etc.

Not really, there's little point in doing different durations, it's the durations that drive particularly energy systems and they vary little between individuals.

rhyko7 wrote:

coping with lactate.

lactate is something you want your body to "cope with" it's not a bad thing, it's an essential energy source.

For general cycling there are three systems that matter to you - the fat supplied go all day pace, the fully glycogen supported "threshold" that you can do for maybe 40-60 minutes (depending how trained you are and if you're fully stocked up) and the Oxygen limited VO2max efforts.

The first you train by riding all day, but it doesn't need much training as it's the main one you use all the time anyway. working as hard as you could hold for an hour. You can break that up however you want into an interval to make it more bearable, but don't drop the on period to less than 10 minutes and don't have very long breaks in between.

VO2max can be trained with all out efforts lasting 4-8 minutes or so. Or the same intensity broken down with some on/off intervals where the on intervals are above VO2max so your just averaging the oxygen demands of a steady effort out.

There are minor differences between intervals at the lower intensities, but they're pretty unimportant unless you genuinely know what your limiters are, and just doing the same would be fine.

rhyko7

Alex_Simmons/RST
-thanks another good illustration
im still struggling to set out actual intervals though, i.e how long to go hard, how hard, then how long to rest.

BeaconRuth
- i think your right i do need to work on muscular endurance too, i kind of do this by long rides on the wkends (over 2 hours on turbo trainer)-however are there intervals i can use to do this also?
i do want to be fast over one and two hours aswell as there may be some races in October i can do

jibberjim
-surely an experienced elite athlete is capable of training for longer and harder than an average joe and has to work harder to enforce the same sort of progress.

i have had a really strange year, i spent the winter working on my base fitness to race enduros in the summer, then bought a DH bike and got really into that and was going to start racing, then sprained wrist really bad and had a month off. got back on the bike with the intention of racing DH and enduro xc. then had an horrific injury that has kept me off the bike for the last 2 months and DH is out of the question now so training for enduros agin. its hard to train with different focuses.

my plan breaks down as followed-i have 1 month until race
on the weekends i will do the long zone 2 rides
in the week i can do 2 or 3 training sessions n the evening which will be interval sessions of up to 2 hours:
someone want to be precise on what intervals i should be doing?
i have a HR monitor and my zones are as follows from friels book based o what i believe to be my lactate threshold from doing various fitness tests:
zone 1<144 BPM
zone 2 - 144-156
zone 3 - 157-163
zone 4 - 164-174
zone 5a -175-178 (threshold 175)
zone 5b - 179-184
zone 5c - 185 - 193 (max 193)
please someone tell me, which zone to train what, how long is the hard interval, how long is the rest interval, how long is the session (how many reps?)

so far i have been doing 8 mins hard in zone 4 with 3 mins rest and the session will last between an hour and 90 mins
i tried doing intervals in zone 5b-did 8 minutes hard then 5 minutes rest for an hours which i really struggled with-think it was just a bad day and i was low on energy

so please can someone be really specific using my zones as guidance?

Anonymous

Based on your HR -

Longest rides z2 (with Z3 if necessary on hills)
Longer rides up to 2hrs I would do at high Z2-LowZ3
Threshold (10-20min intervals or longer) I would do at about 168-178
Anaerobic (5-8mins) - difficult with HR due to cardiac drift but I'd be aiming to be in the 180s by the end of the interval.

Just my inexperienced tuppence worth...

jibberjim

rhyko7 wrote:

jibberjim
-surely an experienced elite athlete is capable of training for longer and harder than an average joe and has to work harder to enforce the same sort of progress.

Nope, all training is relative to your fitness, and the limit for the elite and the amateur is much the same - available glycogen for anything above very slow training. And whilst the elite will have a little more glycogen stored compared to the untrained, they'll have very little more compared to the average club athlete. Of course the difference between the two is the speed that is generated by the two athletes, but "work harder" is a fallacy, both groups will be working just as hard (subject to motivation which may be higher in the elite).

Of course because of the fueling limits, most elite athletes will spend an awful lot of time spending time training easy - so they're mostly utilising fat - which isn't available to the amateur due to the time constraints. So in many ways you'll see elite athletes actually training easier.

rhyko7

NapoleonD wrote:

Based on your HR -

Longest rides z2 (with Z3 if necessary on hills)
Longer rides up to 2hrs I would do at high Z2-LowZ3
Threshold (10-20min intervals or longer) I would do at about 168-178
Anaerobic (5-8mins) - difficult with HR due to cardiac drift but I'd be aiming to be in the 180s by the end of the interval.

Just my inexperienced tuppence worth...

thanks NapoleonD
thats the information i needed,

however you havent mentioned rest periods? for instance say i do threshold intervals and i go hard for 12 minutes, how long should my gentle spin recovery last- i tend to spin gently and wait for my HR to drop into zone 1, leave it a minute or 2 in zone one then go again-is that ok, normally 3-4 minutes total easy period?

lasttime i did the anearobic intervals it destroyed me, i may have gone too hard, but as you mentio its difficult to monitor using just HR, im hoping my cheap speedo will arrive soon then i can use cadence as a guide.

i just did 2hrs 20 on my turbo trainer in zone 2, waiting for new bits for bike before i can take it out on the road and ride for longer.

next question - how do i work on muscular endurance, is this about using high resistance, i know how to work on muscular endurance in a weights room so i guess same philosophy on a bike?

thanks to everyone though, i have learnt a lot and have a much better understanding now, i'm almost there

Anonymous

'Muscular endurance' is similar to the anaerobic intervals.

I use 5 minute rest periods but YMMV. Don't take what I said as gospel btw, it's just what I roughly use (based on your HR of course...)

jibberjim

NapoleonD wrote:

Anaerobic (5-8mins) - difficult with HR due to cardiac drift but I'd be aiming to be in the 180s by the end of the interval.

This is not an anaerobic interval, that's vrey much an aerobic interval, not that it's a bad workout, indeed it's likely a much better work out for cycling performance than any anaerobic intervals.

Murr X

rhyko7 wrote:

jibberjim
-surely an experienced elite athlete is capable of training for longer and harder than an average joe and has to work harder to enforce the same sort of progress.

Yes absolutely an experienced athlete has to work much harder to gain progress than an average Joe (largely depending on training background). A beginner will progress rapidly without much work of effort while an experienced athlete will often have to work extremely hard to maintain what they have got.

A beginner will generally not be able to sustain the same level of training either. As a purely hypothetical basic example for simplicity's sake take the following;

The elite rider will ride as hard as he can at a steady pace for one hour (100% FTP) on Monday he manages 350 watts. This will be very tough and will tire him considerably, though he gets back up, recovers well, comes back 24 hours later and does exactly the same training session again on the Tuesday. He will perhaps be slightly more tired this day although the power will usually not be considerably lower than the previous day. He rides hard again at 100% FTP and gets a power reading of 345 watts for the hour. Not bad.

Contrast this with the untrained beginner who on this occasion trains in the exact manner and with the same mental effort to the elite rider and rides at 100% FTP for an hour on Monday. Just like the elite rider the beginner finds this extremely tough but only manages to sustain 180 watts for the session. Again on this occasion he recovers using the same techniques to the elite rider, comes back 24 hours later and repeats the same session. He rides hard again at 100% FTP gets a power reading of 130 watts and will likely feel significantly more fatigued after the effort than the elite rider, it will also take him longer to recover.

The reason that the beginner will have such a reduced power output the following day is that he will not recover nearly as well as the elite rider even with the same recovery time and methods. As you become a better rider recovery times will greatly decrease.

Now comes the next bit. The elite rider will recover from the two sessions much quicker HOWEVER the elite rider when recovered will replicate the session on Friday when fully recovered and will get a power reading of 355 watts (if lucky) . Contrast this with the beginner who will replicate the session again on Sunday when fully recovered and will get a power reading of 200 watts - significant improvement!

You can see from this the elite rider recovers quickly though improvement is difficult and the beginner who is not accustomed to intense training will recover slowly but improvement is very quick (and is much easier too).

Also the experienced athlete will usually but not always be working harder than the beginner during hard training. It tends to take a while to realize and appreciate how hard some elite riders work. Yet even with a greater effort level recovery can still be quicker than with the untrained.

Ouch sore typing fingers after that one.


Murr X

jibberjim

Murr X wrote:

Again on this occasion he recovers using the same techniques to the elite rider, comes back 24 hours later and repeats the same session. He rides hard again at 100% FTP gets a power reading of 130 watts

For the completely untrained rider, perhaps, however within a few weeks of training the fall off between the two will be similar, indeed could even be less than the elite. No untrained rider loses 40% of their sustainable power in a day!

Murr X wrote:

Also the experienced athlete will usually but not always be working harder than the beginner during hard training.

Often this is the case yes, but that's because of all the training mythology and misunderstanding that is clear in this thread rather than any actual limitation of the ability of the rider to do the same volume. Also of course as you said, the poorly trained athlete won't need to since they'll get improvements with much less intensity.

Anonymous

jibberjim wrote:

NapoleonD wrote:

Anaerobic (5-8mins) - difficult with HR due to cardiac drift but I'd be aiming to be in the 180s by the end of the interval.

This is not an anaerobic interval, that's vrey much an aerobic interval, not that it's a bad workout, indeed it's likely a much better work out for cycling performance than any anaerobic intervals.

I thought it anaerobic as it was above your lactate threshold...

jibberjim

NapoleonD wrote:

I thought it anaerobic as it was above your lactate threshold...

Nope, even by just over a minute aerobic energy systems will be dominating, by 4 minutes there'll be very little contribution from anaerobic sources it'll be almost pure aerobic, just like exercising for 60 minutes or 4 hours although the source of energy that is being burnt with the oxygen is predominantly different in the 3 cases. Which is why how hard you can go for the three situations.

Anaerobic training is pretty irrelevant for the endurance cyclist (ie everything but track sprinters)

Murr X

jibberjim wrote:

NapoleonD wrote:

I thought it anaerobic as it was above your lactate threshold...

Nope, even by just over a minute aerobic energy systems will be dominating, by 4 minutes there'll be very little contribution from anaerobic sources it'll be almost pure aerobic, just like exercising for 60 minutes or 4 hours although the source of energy that is being burnt with the oxygen is predominantly different in the 3 cases. Which is why how hard you can go for the three situations.

Anaerobic training is pretty irrelevant for the endurance cyclist (ie everything but track sprinters)

Yup, good points.

RG

Alex_Simmons/RST

jibberjim wrote:

NapoleonD wrote:

I thought it anaerobic as it was above your lactate threshold...

Nope, even by just over a minute aerobic energy systems will be dominating, by 4 minutes there'll be very little contribution from anaerobic sources it'll be almost pure aerobic, just like exercising for 60 minutes or 4 hours although the source of energy that is being burnt with the oxygen is predominantly different in the 3 cases. Which is why how hard you can go for the three situations.

For a 4-min all out effort, around ~ 20-33% of the energy will be via anaerobic metabolism. How much depends on the individual's anaerobic work capacity and aerobic fitness.

jibberjim wrote:

Anaerobic training is pretty irrelevant for the endurance cyclist (ie everything but track sprinters)

Well I don't quite see it as being irrelevant, just less important overall. Perhaps for a sportive / social rider but anyone that races will still need to consider some anaerobic efforts in their training. How much depends on the nature of their event.

Bronzie

BeaconRuth wrote:

Perhaps your turbo work could focus more on aerobic muscular endurance which is what you're likely to need most of?

Ruth

What sort of turbo sessions would you do to improve aerobic muscular endurance? Presumably solid sessions (ie around 1 hour) at L3/tempo intensity?

jibberjim

Alex_Simmons/RST wrote:

For a 4-min all out effort, around ~ 20-33% of the energy will be via anaerobic metabolism. How much depends on the individual's anaerobic work capacity and aerobic fitness.

Yep, but for 4 minute intervals in a session it will be less than that as they won't be all out, not least because the AWC contribution in the average generally comes from a sprint start or finish and not an evenly paced effort such that you would do in a rep - and of course after the first rep your AWC will be less able to deliver the same power.