Turbo Workout that really works: "easy" sub hour Alpe D'Huez

bahzob

I posted details of my favourite turbo workout here a while back. http://www.bikeradar.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=40011&t=13013497

It didn't get any responses which tbh I found a little disappointing since it really is imo the single best turbo workout that you can do and, if done once per week, is a great way to get fitter, measure your improvement and work on techniques that will make you even better.Which at the of the day are what this forum is about.

By way of example I did my third criss-cross of year yesterday.. Here are the headline numbers, (Strava https://app.strava.com/activities/249537733/overview)

Latest session
Interval Time 4*9:25 + 1(last) 13:15
Interval Power under 283W/over 328W avg 300W (FTP c. 310W)
Hour stats: 279W/290NW HR avg 152bpm HR peak 161bpm

First session
Interval time 5*9:11
Interval power 280W/325W avg 294W
Hour stats 259W/278NW HR avg 152bpm HR peak 168bpm

So power up and HR down. Also the latest session also felt a lot less hard. The main focus was my calves, making sure they were activating correctly and "scraping the mud off the sole" at the bottom of the stroke. Just worked them a bit harder on the "overs" at a variety of cadences and this proved very effective.

By way of comparison the hour power, even including the rests, is sufficient to comfortably record a sub 60 minute ascent of Alpe D'Huez.

Further improvement from here is straight forward, just a matter of nibbling away at the rest time and adjusting the under:over ratio.

I really love this workout. I would strongly recommend it to all, especially those training just to get fitter or for events with long mountain climbs.

handful

Looks interesting bahzob but difficult without a power reading. Is this one or a similar workout on Trainer Road that you know of?

Grifteruk

Bazbob I read your last post with interest because this time last year you and I exchanged posts (positively) upon turbo training for Alpine climbs/week in the Alps. Those posts did have a positive effect upon my training and got me up Alp Dhuez in under an hour, although also some negative connotations for me (see below).

I did not respond to your 2015 post on "crisscross" post because I have been following a slightly different training regime involving more base mileage over previous weeks and months and am only now (last 7 days) looking to up the efforts into Zone 4/5 based on power (like you I also compare HR). Interestingly some of those sessions I am looking at undertaking this year (from a coach) are not very different to your "crisscross" session.

I am by no means well read on these topics, but one point of interest from both posts is your take on how the increase in numbers you have seen (power and/or lowered HR) are reflected not only by improvements in the physical numbers but also by becoming "acclimatised" to the sessions in question. Reason I query this/throw out an issue is as follows:

1. Last year I undertook various 2x20 minute efforts or even 1hr efforts on the turbo, with about 2 a week but rarely (and ideally never) on consecutive days;

2. I found an improvement in power numbers and reduction to some extent in HR for those style of efforts, going from around 260w starting off to up to 294w for an hour session. I was pleased with this;

3. At the same time, I reached a plateau both with HR and power which became extremely difficult to break;

4. I suspect part of the reason for this was because I became accustomed to the effort/session such that my body knew what to expect and fell into a bit of a trap of a lack of variety. Not a bad thing in some respects when looking at an Alpine climb, but I got the feeling that I became good at these types of sessions to the detriment of other aspects of my riding. It was a bit "all or nothing" in terms of effort if you get my meaning.

So I suppose my question to you would be given that you have identified undertaking your criss-cross session once a week, what training (if any) are you doing (or do you advocate) around that session to build on the gains made?

birdy247

bahzob wrote:

I really love this workout. I would strongly recommend it to all, especially those training just to get fitter or for events with long mountain climbs.

This looks like a great workout. Would you mind If we overlayed this to the actual Alpe Dhuez GPS route so you can perform this workout whilst also climbing Alpe Dhuez on your turbo?

norvernrob

Really encouraging reading that, as it's very close to a program I'm already doing on the turbo - 3 minute under/over intervals once per week mixed in with some longer effort sessions. I really need to pick up an Ant+ key now so I can customise the workouts to exactly how I want them.

birdy247

I have plotted this workout on the Alpe Dhuez course. http://www.turbotraining.co.uk/virtual-training-stage/9

If anyone wants to give it a try for real, let me know.

bobmcstuff

handful wrote:

Looks interesting bahzob but difficult without a power reading. Is this one or a similar workout on Trainer Road that you know of?

I've done over/unders based on threshold HR before, or if you use a fixed resistance on your turbo (varying the difficulty using gears) you could work it out using equivalent wheelspeed?

shazzz

handful wrote:

Looks interesting bahzob but difficult without a power reading. Is this one or a similar workout on Trainer Road that you know of?

There are a few variations on over/under workouts on Trainerroad.
Warlow
Palisade
Leconte
Mary Austin
... are ones that I know of. There are probably others.

It's all good stuff, but I find them a lot harder than Bahzob seems to!

DeVlaeminck

I do a similar session on the wattbikes Bahzob - in fact I failed to complete one just last night ! Tired legs after the weekend hopefully - did first long ride for a while on Sat albeit fairly steady and then Sunday was down as a rest but did about 4 hours hill walking which wasn't much of a rest. Planned session was 4*10 minute blocks of alternating minutes 330 watts plus with 300 watts plus off an estimated ftp of 318 (off a 20 minute test the other week).

I find it a tough session and unless I'm fresh I'm just not going to get anywhere near it - would you say that is normal or is my ftp perhaps optimistic - it is off a recent test but I understand some think 95% of a fresh 20 minute test can give a reading that is a little high.

Newlife

Glad I saw this as picked up as I picked up a copy of The Time Crunched Cyclist last week and set my training zones yesterday so will start the program proper next week. Bahzob can I ask what you over/under ratio tends to be? From the Strava link it looks like 3 over 1 under, but I could be reading the data wrong.

Dodger747

shazzz wrote:

There are a few variations on over/under workouts on Trainerroad.
Warlow
Palisade
Leconte
Mary Austin
... are ones that I know of. There are probably others.

It's all good stuff, but I find them a lot harder than Bahzob seems to!

There's also South Guard, which I found impossible to do with a correctly set FTP - tried it twice and failed miserably both times... :oops:

robbo2011

I am doing an over/under workout as part of the Strava 30 min climb training program 5 x 8 min, 3 min under/1 min over. It's pretty hard going, and my power drops towards the end although the notes say that if you don't tail off at the end, then you aren't working hard enough.

Not sure whether my claiming is improving yet, the weather is too bad to find out.

Tom Dean

bahzob wrote:

it really is imo the single best turbo workout that you can do and, if done once per week, is a great way to get fitter...

Blimey, it must be good

matt-h

I'm doing an OU tonight. Fang mountain on Trainer Road

birdy247

I mentioned it above, but you could try riding this on the real Alpe Dhuez course... (http://www.turbotraining.co.uk/virtual-training-stage/9) It might give a little added extra motivation :-)

We have only just launched this functionality, so if anyone wants to try it, let me know.

As another example, here are some box hill repeats :-) http://www.turbotraining.co.uk/virtual- ... g-stage/11

This is what it looks like when you are on the turbo

mamba80

bahzob wrote:

It didn't get any responses which tbh I found a little disappointing since it really is imo the single best turbo workout that you can do and, if done once per week, is a great way to get fitter, measure your improvement and work on techniques that will make you even better.Which at the of the day are what this forum is about.

what else do you do? a 90min w/o isn't going to do jack on its own, so how can you determine what has bought about this improvement?

bahzob

Thanks for the comments. Responses to questions:

Available on Trainer Road? Afraid I don't use that so can't say. I would imagine so though, the key thing is alternating below/above threshold during the effort. I know from my VR that there are routes that force this if you keep cadence constant then the changes in gradient make it happen.

Need a power meter? No. For turbo training speed a simple speedo is just as good. Even that is not needed: find a gearing that keeps you in the sweetspot zone, this will be "under" then for the "overs" change up 1-2 sockets or keep gear constant and turn legs 5rpm or so faster.

Avoiding plateau/getting acclimatised: One reason I prefer OU vs flat power for thresholds is that for me at least this it makes this less of an issue. Part of this is my belief that at the limit the prime reason for not being going harder at the limit is as much mental as physical. OUs give you more to think about than flat intervals and simply this makes it less hard to improve.

As an e.g. Say you are topping out at something like 3*2mins@300/2mins@330, especially the last 2 minutes. Then you can try doing something like 305/335/305/333/300/325 which helps get over the mental block that you know the last 2 minutes will be agony. And/or make a special effort on the "overs" to focus on something like breathing, smooth pedalling, relaxed upper body, whatever gets your mind off the pain. It's difficult to keep this focus up for 20 minutes while training (which is the main reason I think that in races you go harder, you have to think about other things).

Overlay Alp GPS route: Not sure I understand this but sure. Will need weight I guess which is 70kg. The real thing is a bit like OU, except the sectors are much less constant.

Basing on HR vs gearing: For turbo if no power I would always recommend using speed in preference to HR. So long as set-up is consistent then speed:power ratio will be pretty reliable. HR can go all over the place.

Other training: Atm this is the most intense session of the week. Other days are more in endurance/sweetspot zone, mostly VR climbs. As well as upping the intensity of this session each week next month will add another but with U=threshold and O=VO2, starting with 3-5 intervals around 3 mins with aim of extending some by extending to 6 mins others by keeping time constant but upping under and/or over power.