Frustrated by TCTP/Power Intervals

Rankles

Hi guys,

A couple of weeks into the TCTP it came to Power Intervals, involving three minute sustained bursts above lactate threshold, followed by three minutes rest in between. The aim in the first of these sessions is to complete six of these intervals in groups of three, with a six minute rest in between.

Now I'm by no means unfit, but cardio work is not something I've ever properly trained in this way before and with my past self being pretty much unfit, I can honestly say that now I've started using a HRM and learning about lactate thresholds etc I have probably NEVER in my LIFE had to go above my lactate threshold for more than a few seconds, as in normal every day life and lack of exercise your body is screaming at you to stop as soon as you hit it.

I've tried, and now failed twice to do these power intervals. I can maybe get one out of the way but by the time the second comes round I can't get above LTHR and even when I do I'm doubled over the handlebars of the stationary bike with my eyes closed giving it everything I can. I tried on my road bike tonight and obviously can't quite do that, but couldn't even reach LTHR and sustain it.

I'm getting really frustrated. Someone please tell me that I am not built for this yet and need to shorten the intervals and work up to it? I was thinking maybe by using the power meters on the stat bikes in the gym and doing a minute at LTHR, getting average power and working to that in short 30 second intervals instead meaning I'm training the same way slowly but not having to wait for my HR to catch up with my output?

ollie51

Firstly, how did you determine your LTHR, and what do you perceive it to be?

Rankles

I followed the test as in the book, so after a warmup on a long flat road do 8 minutes flat out as hard as you can and measure your average HR. Then rest ten minutes and repeat. Take the higher of both average values (169 and 171 as they were) and use that as your LTHR.

ollie51

I don't know what book you're reading, but you cannot establish your LT by measuring heart rate, even if you're trying to establish your Heart rate at LT, that's still a poor way. It is your LACTATE threshold, so you have to measure your levels of lactate in the blood, often you have to do a ramp test or suck like, where your lactate levels are measure and your baseline lactate level +1 is generally accepted as your lactate threshold. Furthermore, the Heart rate you can maintain for 8 minutes, will be significantly more than your lactate threshold, I can maintain my LTHR (as determined by said test) for circa 3 hours.

What you actually need to measure is your FTP (Functional Threshold Power) i.e. how many watts you can sustain for an hour, okay you probably don't have a power-meter so, you can use heart rate, as it is the next best thing.
Ways to measure this include, in order of accuracy:
-1 hour all out effort, or a race lasting around 1 hour and take the average heart rate.
-30 minute all effort - push the lap button after 10 minutes and use 95% of the heart rate from the 20 minute 'lap' as your FTP.
-Ramp test - they'll usually take your FTP when a concentration of about 4mmol of lactic acid in the blood is 'achieved'.


However... If you could average 171 during an 8 minute interval, you should be able to get above for 3 minutes, after raising you heart rate to the desired level - It may be a case of MTFU'ing!

Also your session, the description of the session you do is difficult to understand, as I read it, it sounds as if you're doing the following session:

3 min on, 3 min off, 3 min on, 3 min off, 3 min on, 3 min off, rest for 6 mins. Then repeat 5 more times.

If so, that's a hard session to do!

njee20

However... If you could average 171 during an 8 minute interval, you should be able to get above for 3 minutes, after raising you heart rate to the desired level - It may be a case of MTFU'ing!

+1

I read it as 3 on/3 off/3 on/3 off/3 on/6 off, repeat. So 18 minutes of efforts in 3 min bursts?

What's your max HR? Ollie's methodology for HR at FTP is possibly a better bet. A friend is doing the Time Crunched Cyclist and has said the intervals are beastly, but hasn't said he can't do them.

Rankles

njee20 wrote:

However... If you could average 171 during an 8 minute interval, you should be able to get above for 3 minutes, after raising you heart rate to the desired level - It may be a case of MTFU'ing!

+1

I read it as 3 on/3 off/3 on/3 off/3 on/6 off, repeat. So 18 minutes of efforts in 3 min bursts?

What's your max HR? Ollie's methodology for HR at FTP is possibly a better bet. A friend is doing the Time Crunched Cyclist and has said the intervals are beastly, but hasn't said he can't do them.

Yeah that's right.

I think you're both right - regardless of how useful the calculation is if I managed 8 mins averaging 171 twice then matching that or going above it for 3 mins should be doable.

I'm thinking that doing it on a stationary bike (I don't have access to a turbo) would be easiest.

I think I'm gonna abandon the TCTP for this season though and just use the time to get out on my bike more, cover more distance and do hill repeats. I'll give the sessions a go when I get chance but I think for a couple of weeks I'd benefit more from real world climbing and sprinting.

ollie51

Rankles wrote:

I think I'm gonna abandon the TCTP for this season though and just use the time to get out on my bike more, cover more distance and do hill repeats. I'll give the sessions a go when I get chance but I think for a couple of weeks I'd benefit more from real world climbing and sprinting.

This makes perfect sense, I think that doing intervals on a turbo trainer are only really worthwhile when racing at a high level and when you're already at high level of fitness, even then, If you can get the intensity riding outside, why would you pick the turbo?

Conversely, static trainers and turbos because of their nature, are probably the most effective method of training in terms of quality of the training (that's not to say training outside can't be of good quality too!). Just remember because of the intense nature of your session on the static bike, make sure you're properly rested beforehand and don't get too hung up on the whole heart rate thing, just go as hard as you can, that's what counts.

njee20

If you can't get your HR up to a level you previously could and you're struggling, then I'd suggest that you may well be overtrained.

blablablacksheep

one thing sounds a bit off
"involving three minute sustained bursts above lactate threshold, "
I have never heard of any training plan where you go above your LT and that doing so is a good thing, if anything i think it makes you go backwards in fitness.

The whole point of LT training is to increase your LT therefor you dont hit it as early as you were before doing LT training thus can go "harder for longer"..

So with this in mind you trying to stay just below your LT level for the duration of these exercises, NOT above it, doing so isnt going to archieve anything as once you go above the LT you gain nothin..0 kaput in muscle or VO2 or anything, once the latic takes hold you not getting anything from your exercise, thus only time you want to be going above LT is doing races and such where you not training.

From what i know, the idea is you either do short sharp sessions ie 30-60 secs x10 with short recovery in between ie half of the sprints, thus you never recovered before going off again,
Or
Longer sessions at high intensity below LT ie 3x5mins/5x5mins with 30-60secs rest between sets.

Point is, you never ment to go above LT as doing so just doesnt improve fitness at all in anyway as once the lactic is in the muscles nothing you can do pretty much is going to happen while it sitting there.

njee20

Of course you need to go above your LT, otherwise you'd never do any intensity :?

ollie51

blablablacksheep wrote:

I have never heard of any training plan where you go above your LT and that doing so is a good thing, if anything i think it makes you go backwards in fitness.

Conversely, I can't recall seeing a single training program where you don't go above LT.

The whole point of LT training is to increase your LT therefor you dont hit it as early as you were before doing LT training thus can go "harder for longer"..

No, the whole point of training at LT is so that you can push out more watts for the same length of time, thus riding faster, or the same numbers of watts for a greater length of time, thus riding for longer.

So with this in mind you trying to stay just below your LT level for the duration of these exercises, NOT above it, doing so isnt going to archieve anything as once you go above the LT you gain nothin..0 kaput in muscle or VO2 or anything,

Search 'improving Vo2 max' into google, and tell me this is still the case. Lots of interval training above your FTP and LT? I though so.

Longer sessions at high intensity below LT ie 3x5mins/5x5mins with 30-60secs rest between sets.

Doing Intervals of this length below LT are about as useful a glass hammer.

From what i know, the idea is you either do short sharp sessions ie 30-60 secs x10 with short recovery in between ie half of the sprints, thus you never recovered before going off again,

But you just said not to go above LT... (See below)

once the latic takes hold you not getting anything from your exercise, thus only time you want to be going above LT is doing races and such where you not training.

If you do it in races, you should train it. If you spend 40% of a race over LT, then you need to train at and above LT to be faster over that 40%. It's also worth noting that A LOT of an xc race is spent above LT.

Point is, you never ment to go above LT as doing so just doesnt improve fitness at all in anyway as once the lactic is in the muscles nothing you can do pretty much is going to happen while it sitting there.

Go and ask a Pro mtb racer, or any Pro Cyclist about their training, a lot of it is at LT, or above. As with my training, which is making me faster.

Rankles

^ That

So I gave them another go today. Since I posted this I've been out on my bike three or four nights a week doing 20km or so (just enjoying the road bike more than anything) and continuing with the exercises I've been given to sort my knee out.

Anyway after a session of overunder intervals on Friday (2 mins 92-94% LTHR then 1 min 95-97% LTHR three times for a nine minute total, then repeated three times) which was successful all round, I decided to give them another go today.

Instead of going all out and getting frustrated that my HR didn't shoot straight to 171, I decided to give it time and give my HR time to rise. I started out pushing myself as hard as I'd like to and once my HR plateud at around 165 1 minute into the first three I gave it another push and finished the interval at about 170. On the second interval I pushed that bit harder and used the power reading on the trainer as a guide (keeping it above 260 watts ideally). This time I got to 171 just shy of two minutes in and took note of the power reading. After three I was ready to quit.

However during the 8 minute rest between sets I manned up and started the fourth interval on time. With about two minutes left my HR was at 168 so I just upped the pressure and between that and just the right tempo song coming on my Ipod I sustained 171-174 for the final two minutes of the interval. I repeated this for the fifth interval but struggled to do the sixth and final.

What I've learned is that HR is pretty much useless for these kind of short intervals as the HR takes time to show what's really happening with your body. After a few intervals your HR is generally raised from all the exercise so it gets there quicker - so until then I'm gonna rely on power on the stationary bikes as well as RPE to gauge just how hard I'm working and trust that. So long as I'm sustaining 171+ on the final three intervals I'm happy and hopefully by the end of the next session I'll know how that feels enough to do it by feel.

That was probably very boring for most of you, ah well haha.

njee20

What I've learned is that HR is pretty much useless for these kind of short intervals as the HR takes time to show what's really happening with your body.

Spot on, that's where power is good. Your HR can be affected by so many things too, illness, fatigue, increased fitness etc, can all swing it either way.