Intenisty v's Endurance

DeltaOneSeven

I want to increase my 20 minute power. This is my first year with a PM and I managed 280 - I would love to get 300 next year.

I'm only riding 3 times a week at the moment. This will increase to 4 in Jan and probably 5 in Feb and March. Currently my rides are built up from a couple of turbo sessions (from the Time Crunched Cyclist) and some zone 2 stuff at the weekend.

I am mainly doing Over and Unders at the moment. 1 min 30 secs Over and 3 minutes Under - recovering for 5 minutes. To help me achieve my goal should I increase the duration to say 4 min U and 2 min O or shorten the duration to 2 min U and 1 min O and push for a little more power?

I will end mixing up the turbo sessions with some SEPI and OU with SEPI at the end

Alex_Simmons/RST

Fitness is an integral of all your training, not one specific session. I've no idea what SEPI means but what sessions are right for you and how you progress them is a function of many things, and it's not possibly to sensibly answer your question with such limited information.

JayKosta

Choose a power level that is slightly greater than you can sustain for 20 minutes.
Ride at that level for 5 minutes and then rest for 1 minute.
Then increase the power level a bit (e.g. 5-10 watts) and repeat the 5 minute effort - 1 minute rest.
Repeat the cycle until you cannot sustain the next power level, then reduce the level for a 5-10 minute cool down / recovery.

Or perhaps, start at a moderate power level and then increase the level each minute until it is very difficult. Then reduce back down to the starting level, and repeat. Choose the starting level and 'intensity increase amount' so that each group of 'up then down' takes about 5-8 minutes.

If you cannot achieve the same (or better) results at the next exercise session, then you need more rest between sessions, or you need to reduce the intensity of each session. I think that a minimum 'work' session time would be about 30 minutes, and a maximum of about 60 minutes - which doesn't include warm-up and cool down time.

Be careful to not injure yourself by over enthusiasm - the goal is to place a high but manageable stress on your body and then allow rest time for recovery and strengthening to happen.

Jay Kosta
Endwell NY USA

DeltaOneSeven

Thanks Jay - some good advise

supermurph09

Alex_Simmons/RST wrote:

Fitness is an integral of all your training, not one specific session. I've no idea what SEPI means but what sessions are right for you and how you progress them is a function of many things, and it's not possibly to sensibly answer your question with such limited information.

SEPI is Steady Effort Power Intervals, I'm doing the time crunched plan myself. Essentially for the 3 minute interval you bring the power up for the first 30-45 seconds and then keep it as high as possible for the remaining time. So it differs from going all out at the start. You can read about it here in my blog: http://supermurph.wordpress.com/2014/12 ... on-nailed/