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and my legs were definitely aware of it.
yer, took me a loooong time to get into todays 2hr session, probably through 40 minutes before anything felt normal,
with regards to weightloss, Empirical Podcast more or less echoed my thoughts during the early rambling in their podcast, linked here
Plugged through a 2.4 level V02 session yesterday – only 45 mins long as I didn’t have time for an hour but it was a slightly higher rated session than the hour suggests (both classed as productive). Wasn’t too bad.
I think the sweet spot scheduled for tomorrow or Thursday will be harder – called half dome with some 8 minute sweet spot intervals.
The TR VO2max stuff is light work in the main, have to get to quite high ratings before it really hits VO2.
Might not be such a bad thing, as true VO2 sessions are very hard and prob shouldn't be / can't be done without good reason. If you get close to 4 and are looking for VO2 work to pull you up then you'd see results by switching to something more classic.
When you say something more classic what do you mean please? Any input gladly received 😊
Most discussion on VO2 max I see emphasises the max part - percent of ftp not really important, you don't even need a power meter, it's just max effort over the work interval. Off time should be generous enough to complete the session without the last couple of intervals completely falling apart - some drop in power is to be expected.
Max power doesn't mean starting at 500W and desperately trying to hold it for as long as you can - it means there's a theoretical max power you're capable of over the interval time, that is what you are aiming for. The strongmen can do 5 x 5 but prob 4 x 4 is a better starting point.
These sessions are hard AF - ie feelings of trepidation ahead of time, breathing like a fish on dry land during. So I wouldn't be going out of my way to do them. But 4 Wkg isn't easy (so I hear) - it's going to involve some hard VO2max work at some point for most people.
VO2max is the maximum oxygen uptake, not maximum power.
(I don't even know what you mean by maximum power, you can do a lot more power for 30 secs than 30 mins.)
These sessions are hard AF – ie feelings of trepidation ahead of time, breathing like a fish on dry land during
Had to lol at this. I still haven't had the guts to try The Gorby on Zwift, as I know its going to be a horrendous hour.
I had a bad day yesterday. I had ample time to ride but was totally disinterested and couldn't even bargain with myself to get started (which normally results in a good session).
Then today was dreaded 5x3 Vo2 max intervals on the plan but the weather was making being cheery about the prospect impossible again. But, I guess I had recovered that little bit more and I found the motivation to at least get on the Turbo bike.
I had a few podcasts lined up so told myself hour one was just to ride and listen. No watt targets high or low. And by the end, I felt quite good.
I have to say, with a bit of thought, Zwift is actually a mint platform for self-styled training now (aside from the plans, pace partners and workout creator) so I went to the original little KOM to do hill reps 🤣 But even better, they have added that KOM shortcut round the back so you can session it as loops for added interest.
I had to start at the tunnel under the bridge where it loops around, then complete the KOM segment and do about 20 more seconds at the top to get my 3 mins in.
Power was 360, 370, 378, 380 and 393w for the work efforts but the main reason why I was able to pace them like that is because of the Segment Ghost feature which gives you a ghost of your best effort to chase! That was awesome as I could ignore everything other than just staying in front of grey me 👻
I cooled down for the rest of the second hour and then finally jumped on to a dead easy 150w pace partner for a final hour.
It sounds a bit of a whan-key Trainerroad Podcast Amber or Jonathon thing to say but I 'checked in' with myself during my interval set and I have to say- I felt incredible! Which was a massive contrast to Tuesday.
Hopefully I've shocked my system back to life and we can actually do some good work in the next three weeks.
I have sprints pencilled in tomorrow (5x10s but will spread them out over 90 mins) and then Saturday I am just praying the weather cheers up because I want to go and treat the fast shop ride as a C race. Proper full on smashfest.
If they choose a hilly route then nobody will even notice, and I'll be smashing whether I like it or not 🤣 but if they go longer and flatter then I'm hoping to dish out some hurt.
Sounds like you got through a decent session in the end even if you weren’t in the mood for it to start with. Nice!
I bottled the half done 1 hour sweet spot because I just couldn’t scrape myself out of bed early enough this morning. Did a 45 minute alternative which still felt fairly hard - 5x6min sweet spot intervals at 88-94% of my new ftp from a few weeks back. On the last set I’d ridden myself into the session so banged the power up from the 240 required to about 300w for the last 2 mins. Felt hard but do-able.
Not got a session scheduled tomorrow but I think I might pick a random endurance 1 hour ride to do on the turbo straight after work whilst I watch Bosch on the iPad.
Saturday morning I’m taking the hardtail out round the local easy trails that hopefully won’t be too muddy (Ashton Court / Leigh Woods / 50 Acre Wood).
Sunday will be a rest day.
Well done mate! I’ve got massive respect for anyone who trains in the morning 💪🏻 👍🏻
They mentioned that (sticking an extra endurance ride in) on the Matchbox podcast today- and how over the course of a week, month and then season, they have a huge cumulative effect on your volume. So I’d say that’s a good plan.
How do you activate the ghost segment feature?
Just re-ride the same segment again in the same ride I believe @john_l
It may even do it on the next ride if it’s within 30 days I can’t remember. It does it on any of the official zwift segments I think- sprints, koms, routes etc.
Each of the 5 times I rode the climb it had the latest fastest version. I know it was a feature people asked for from day 1 and fair play- they’ve implemented it well.
I am curious about Zwift but can’t bring myself to pay for that as well as Trainer Road and I’m ticking along nicely on TR at the moment. Maybe over the summer I might pause my TR membership and try Zwift out for a month or so. I tend to still turbo over the summer as it keeps my calorie burn going better than trying to get out on the bike for a quick blip.
Going to try and stick in an extra endurance session as often as I can - only issue is I’m on season 7 of Bosch which is the last 1. Think there’s a spin off but only 1 season made so far - so will have to find something else decent to watch on Prime!
The TR VO2max stuff is light work in the main, have to get to quite high ratings before it really hits VO2.
Might not be such a bad thing, as true VO2 sessions are very hard and prob shouldn’t be / can’t be done without good reason. If you get close to 4 and are looking for VO2 work to pull you up then you’d see results by switching to something more classic.
Most of TR's VO2 sessions used to be closer to 'classic' - 4 or 5 min intervals etc. I seem to remember they changed them a couple of years back after seeing some studies showing similar adaptations from the same time at high power but shorter intervals/rests. I can't remember the details but it was something like the same effect on 5 min power whether you did 5x5 or 5 sets of 10x30s. I think they see much better completion rates with the shorter intervals, and I've certainly used them on the path to 4 w/kg in the past.
I do quite like a 'classic' VO2 max session every once in a while too though.
I am curious about Zwift but can’t bring myself to pay for that as well as Trainer Road and I’m ticking along nicely on TR at the moment.
Why not just try the free month for a session and see if you prefer it ? I don't watch anything when Zwifting as i'm too involved in it.
@weeksy - I do t think I’d found a free month option when I looked a few months back. Maybe 2 weeks or something like that.
I’ll have another look at it and see over the next few weeks. Not quite sure how I’ll fit in a race - they’re all at set timed starts aren’t they? Guess it will be get my daughter to bed and try to get out and ready for one about 7.30-8pm or something like that.
they have set start times, but they're literally almost every 15 mins throughout most days/nights. If you have time for a TR session you have time for a race/event. It's rare to find a window where there's not an event of some description you can enter.
Seems like as good a place as any to ask this question, rather than start a new thread.
Just checked my ICU Intervals account for the 1st time in ages and noticed that only my Garmin Connect rides are uploading, nothing's uploading from Strava so none of my Zwift rides which get uploaded to Strava (and Garmin) not any or my runs which I capture straight into Strava.
Permissions all look ok. Any ideas?
Ok, think I've found the answer. ICU are limiting data from Strava to subscribers and Garmin only passes directly recorded activities, not pass through (i.e. Zwift to Strava to Garmin).
Is that right, so I'd need to support ICU to start seeing Strava activities again?
I wondered why my trainer road rides weren’t pulling through from Connect into intervals. I think I’m just going to use trainer road for checking on training stress etc
I thought I read on intervals icu that you have to pay now to be able to get Strava data.
Most of TR’s VO2 sessions used to be closer to ‘classic’ – 4 or 5 min intervals etc. I seem to remember they changed them a couple of years back after seeing some studies showing similar adaptations from the same time at high power but shorter intervals/rests. I can’t remember the details but it was something like the same effect on 5 min power whether you did 5×5 or 5 sets of 10x30s. I think they see much better completion rates with the shorter intervals, and I’ve certainly used them on the path to 4 w/kg in the past.
I do quite like a ‘classic’ VO2 max session every once in a while too though.
I like the TR progression and difficulty ratings in general, just not sure what sort of progression it is indicating for VO2max if they're a long way from max effort. I did a 5.1 session earlier this week that felt solid enough but only really tickled VO2.
Perhaps it is just necessary to incrementally build time in red zone before you can consistently train VO2. Like anyone can pull on the big pants and crush a one-off VO2 workout, but to do it consistently as part of overall training structure is different gravy.
I wouldn't fancy 5x5 right now, but have a couple of fast TT courses lined up in May. Would be good to be in condition for hard VO2max training the month before for a short term stimulus.
Isn't it hip and trendy to do 8min VO2 intervals at ~108% FTP with 2mins+ recovery per interval, starting with 4 sets per session and gradually increasing as weeks go by?
8 min intervals at 108% ftp sounds quite horrible
8 min intervals at 108% ftp sounds quite horrible
I'm not even sure it sounds possible 😀
Literally just finished exactly that. Quite hard. 3x10 is the next progression.
Ref intervals.icu - I just synced my Garmin connect account and that automatically uploads everything instead of Strava. Or you can download rides from strava and upload them manually to intervals if you don’t use Garmin connect. Both for free still.
Seiler’s study showed 4x8 are the best for adaptation. But I’m not sure on the intensity as I think it was as a vo2 percentage rather than an FTP based one.
I don’t honestly think it matters- just pick a duration between 30s and 8 minutes and accumulate as much time there as you can in a session.
All of it depends on how accurate your ftp is, what your ftp is that day, what you training load that week is, blah blah blah.
What is key is to have progressive overload. Once you can do your session of choice, do something harder each week.
So I’ve made a start with 5x3 @ what I’m guessing is about 110-115% but next week I’ll shoot for the higher power and switch to 4x4. Then the following week aim for 5x4. After recovery week I’ll then reassess and do something different to get a different stimulus.
Adam Hansen used to describe mixing them up in the same session even. So 5x five minute intervals but some steady state, some as 30/30’s and some as 40/20’s.
I’m not even sure it sounds possible
just imagine it's the first 8 minutes of ANY Zwift race 😂
just imagine it’s the first 8 minutes of ANY Zwift race
It's not the first 8 that would kill me... Well, not quite.
Trying to keep near the lead group in the quartet of Zwift Insider Tiny Races on Saturdays (ran at 0900, 1500 and 2100 GMT) would be a rough approximation of 4x8mins at ~108% most weeks, usually with more like 3-5mins recovery between races.
At ~254W FTP, 105-108% would mean 8min efforts of 267-274W, pretty close to what I did two weekends ago over ~33mins of racing while getting smashed by far stronger C riders.
Certainly shouldn't be a walk in the park to do as an ERG workout, but should be achievable if your FTP is in the right ballpark, your legs aren't dead from a z4+ workout/race in the last few days and you aren't coming down with or recovering from a lurgy etc.
The other thing to consider with vo2 max intervals is that the adaptations are quick to appear. It only really takes 8 weeks to build and maybe some marginal gains out to 12 weeks.
That’s where you need to consider the cost of maintaining it.
I’ve probably done the least amount of winter zwift racing ever so I’m very much starting from scratch with it 😭 🤣
Tonight was the opposite of vo2 for me. I finished sweaty - but heart rate didn’t feel particularly high and I didn’t really even notice I was exercising as I was watching the iPad. If I’d had more time I could have done another 30-60 mins quite happily I think - but I think my wife might have disowned me.
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Well done Joe 👍🏻 Great session’s those. Stash some Z2 gainz in the bank with no stress 😃
My wife threatened to disown me for *not* doing my session and hogging the remote instead 🤣
I like the TR progression and difficulty ratings in general, just not sure what sort of progression it is indicating for VO2max if they’re a long way from max effort. I did a 5.1 session earlier this week that felt solid enough but only really tickled VO2.
I'm sure I remember hearing on the TR podcast that it's not uncommon for people to have to nudge the power up or down on VO2 to get the best results. I guess using %FTP to set the power for these intervals is less than ideal. It sounds like you've got some scope to go a bit harder in those sessions - I guess you have to be careful to listen to your body a bit and try not to do yourself in though!
Seiler’s study showed 4×8 are the best for adaptation. But I’m not sure on the intensity as I think it was as a vo2 percentage rather than an FTP based one.
this one?
Yep that’s it 👍🏻
So skimming back through, it’s kind of more of a “Sweetspot” v “Threshold” V “Vo2 max” study.
I guess it’s expected that the 4x8’s around threshold give the best bump in threshold but maybe what’s surprising is that it’s better for vo2 max power than 4x4’s.
I managed to sprint at 10.5wkg to beat the others over the line” – i can’t even imagine figures of 10.5w/kg!
Me neither that's about 150w more than my max power on the turbo!
Interesting group ride today. First there was a crash. And (no joke) it was the Triathlete! Luckily he was fine with just some road rash and a bruised thumb and his old S-Works was good to carry on too! He made it round the rest of the 65 miles as strong as ever! Fair play but it shook me up a bit as it was only luck (and spidey sense maybe?) that I had left a huge gap behind him into the wet, muddy, off-camber bend.
From my perspective it was tough. Adding intensity to my week on both Tuesday and Thursday meant this was pushing the limit of what I know I can cope with. And of course, the dent on my mojo meant I didn't manage to maintain the volume I've been doing.
What I'm trying to accomplish now though is to learn to ride at other people's pace again. It's all very well going out and doing long, solo tempo rides that I'm proud of, or highly structured interval sets where I can see the intensity coming, and know exactly where it's going to end.
What today was about was throwing myself into the blender! The weather, the route, the road surface and of course the relative strengths of my ride buddies all meant that I couldn't always ease off when *I* wanted to (or I'd get dropped). I still did get dropped. A lot. There's no way around it at my weight but by the end of the next descent I could usually get back on again, or some helpful traffic lights would come to my aid.
I did have a goal power in mind. I looked at my power from a recent group ride I was pleased with- and my 3hr power was 236w and 264np so all I wanted to do was beat one of those. Preferably the latter. As it was, today came in at 231w and 273np but for 15 minutes longer so not a bad guess, especially as it was on a different power meter too.
There were a few times when my AP for the ride was dropping into the 220's so I'd hit the front and crank things up. Then the others would pop out of my draft, blitz the next climb and I'd be left dangling off the back. Then when they were coasting, I'd have to carry on down the other side in the 300's to close the gap again and pretty soon my little turn on the front had escalated into ten minutes at threshold 🤣
The finale was the A4. And the tailwind meant I got a nice PB. 8 miles at 28mph is pretty fun. It finishes with the ski slope (a 20s climb) and I managed to hold second wheel up there and then get a gap on the flat at the top with another guy. The traffic into town was way too busy for many games but I got such a good gap over the last flyover, that with clear roads I could have 'won' for sure. Which is a nonsense of course as had it been a road race, I'd have been dropped numerous times and been unable to be present to even contest the finale but did give a little glimmer of hope about my legs.
It's stupid to read too much into any one session- training is about consistency and a good body of work. Today was exactly that. Another solid entry in the diary with nothing remarkable to celebrate but a step in the right direction towards Tour of Cambridgeshire nonetheless.
Some of the group road rides / Zwift rides people are doing seem quite hardcore with people attacking and pushing the pace on. I w only been on one group ride before with the local triathlon club and was a bit disappointed that the fast group weren’t actually very fast. I ended up helping a couple of the ladies get back to the group a few times when they dropped off the back.
I’m mostly mtb-ing so either solo or with other people - with the latter it often breaks up on the climb and everyone gathers at the top again.
Rode solo just round easy xc-ish trail centre stuff at Ashton Court / Leigh Woods. Took the hardtail out for a spin - I’ve been riding the sentinel a lot the last few months and the Marino has been a bit neglected. After the first 10 mins thinking it’s very bumpy I really got into it - the 2.6” tyres do smooth stuff out quite well and it was really good on the trails that have been built like a pump track pretty much.
Fitness wise, considering it was the 3rd day on the bounce pedalling I felt pretty good still - maybe I should be training a bit harder!
On your triathlete comment I think there is a bit of a lack of skill in the cycling front with a lot of them - it’s cliche but it is true to some extent.
To be fair it was a bad corner 🤣 But once we knew he was okay we were able to rib him about it.
We had a couple of puncture stops and the crash so the pace was not mega fast (not when my Strava crush Harold Evans did 27mph this morning 😱 🤣) at 19.4mph but there were some fun moments.
Well done on your ride! I definitely notice it when I *don’t* have recent miles in the legs these days. I ride worse if I’m too fresh.
Got to rip it out of someone once you know they aren’t very broken 🤣
I’ve no idea if 19.4mph is that fast - but it’s definitely faster than the tri rides - most people seem to be aiming at 16-18mph average. But then I’d get my ass kicked by the lot of them running or swimming so I can’t say too much
2nd week of dirt destroyer (almost) done and it's feeling a bit too comfortable, if I'm being honest... None of the workouts have had me wishing for death over completing another interval, yet. 🤣
Hopefully that'll result in a decent uplift at the end of the 6 weeks, I'm tempted to get a race in as I'm currently able to enter cat C, my 74.6kg and 247w puts me at 3.31w/kg which is bottom end cat B but I've not done any efforts in the last few weeks that has put me up at that level.
Enjoying reading this thread. I’m a similar weight to you Joe and while 4w/kg is unachievable for me given work and family commitments I’m making progress and up to 3.4w/kg. Had some good sessions on trainerroad this week and hope to get 2/3 hours zone 2 tomorrow outdoors.
Enjoying reading this thread. I’m a similar weight to you Joe and while 4w/kg is unachievable for me given work and family commitments I’m making progress and up to 3.4w/kg. Had some good sessions on trainerroad this week and hope to get 2/3 hours zone 2 tomorrow outdoors.
What's your body type? It's definitely easier if you're an, ahem... 'Skinny get' like me, with little to no excess weight up top 🤣 I was 13w away from 4w/kg not that long ago, I'm 30w and 1.5kg off those figures as I speak but with some consistent training I reckon I'll be able to get to 4w/kg. Weight wise I'll need to be down to 73kg again, then get to 290w. Doing that on 4-6hrs a week training (with a real ride or 2 as well) should be doable for me. It's definitely harder if you're carrying any weight in your upper body, be that muscle or fat.
Yeah I’m going to struggle on the upper body bit - I’m 5’9 / 76.3kgs as of today / 40
or maybe even 42” chest / 32-34” waist in most clothes. I’m at 255ftp - so 3.34w/kg at the moment.
Still got some fat to shift off my stomach and rear end I reckon before I run out of fat to lose. Doubt I’ll get it all off because cake.