Fartlek vs Intervals?

So if Fartlek aka self induced intervals is so good, why does interval training exist?    Is it really so we can ensure we can measure the “right amount of time in the right zone” which of course might be more random with Fartlek, or something else?

It seems that riding an hour at lunchtime in the sun as Z2 with some hill smashes or sprints is a lot more fun than sitting in an outhouse with a turbo…. so why are we doing the latter?

I always assumed intervals were more structured and better suited for tracking progression, either through increasing work interval or decreasing the rest (or indeed both).

Fartlek a bit more freestyle and maybe suited to outdoors riding and changes in environment?

But there’s no reason you couldn’t do these on the trainer, though I guess my winter training (which is predominantly indoors apart from the longer Z2 stuff) features more structure and race season (predominntly outdoors) is generally maintenance.

From personal experience – ‘Fartlek’ appears to be just mucking around going hard for a bit then easing off, which i guess many people just do automatically anyway.

For proper interval training though, I find it impossible to replicate outside. Running may be/is different, which is where the Fartlek stuff seems to come from, but for cycling anywhere other than a Velodrome, you can’t interval train effectively.

I’m far, far from a pro athlete, but my experience in ‘training’ is that you need the easy bits to be far easier, and the hard bits to be far harder, than is possible outside of a controlled situation (for a cyclist, a spin bike, turbo, or velodrome).

Anything done in ‘real life’ hovers to much around the equillibirum mark, and thus, your fitness stays at that equillibrium.

Fartlek came more from running/athletics training didn’t it? 

Structured interval training on a bike (indoors our outdoors) can address a number of things as I understand it. You might be trying to increase sprinting power, ability to endure long duration events at a steady level of effort, ability to recover from big efforts multiple times over the course of a ride/race, or just the ability to exert lots of Strength over a relatively short duration the types and frequency of intervals will change with what you’re trying to achieve…

Some of us do both indoor and outdoor “training” to varying degrees depending on the impact of weather and personal routines throughout the year.

But your question sort of lacks context, what exactly are you training for? Lunchtime interval sessions on the bike probably are great, but they can’t cover all possible goals can they…

I think of Fartlek training as getting some of the benefits of interval training while ACTUALLY REMEMBERING THAT YOU STARTED DOING THIS SHIT FOR FUN AND NO ONE CARES ABOUT YOUR NUMBERS SO SHUT UP AND GO AND ENJOY YOURSELF INSTEAD OF BORING ME TO DEATH WITH YOUR POWER NUMBERS ?

Someone’s got a little FTP….

Someone’s got a little FTP…., there’s supposed to be a smiley face there but seems the great upgrade is still in process!

But yes your not wrong – another smiley face

You could do fartlek’s on a trainer, say listening to some music you could go hard until the chorus starts or the song ends.

I think the advantage of fartlek’s is that they are of an indeterminable length, so you have to adapt in a fartlek interval as the end of the interval becomes clearer you adapt your pace accordingly, trying to hold on if it is longer than your pace would normally allow, or sprinting to the end of the interval if it is shorter than initially estimated. It is something I used to do on dumb trainers before we all got hooked up to computers. go hard for a song, then easy for a song etc, can be quite hard when a random song comes on that is 7 minutes long and you start at a 3 min interval pace.

They also teach you to evaluate your own effort without relying on power meter or heart rate.

Also, smashing hills on an hours zone 2 ride, pretty much absolutely makes it not a zone 2 ride.

Well, this:

I think of Fartlek training as getting some of the benefits of interval training while ACTUALLY REMEMBERING THAT YOU STARTED DOING THIS SHIT FOR FUN AND NO ONE CARES ABOUT YOUR NUMBERS SO SHUT UP AND GO AND ENJOY YOURSELF INSTEAD OF BORING ME TO DEATH WITH YOUR POWER NUMBERS ?

Yesterday I’d did a ride for 1:15 not above 150w as a recovery ride.  Today I did the same route 59 mins pushing on the climbs, TTing a 5km straaaaaava section, and hitting the local 30s 10% hill sprint.   Today was fun, more so than a sweet spot training session in my mancave currently showing 42 degrees.  Yet, my TSS is double that of the prescribed workout.   Am i fitter, or have a compromised fitness at a specific point for a general level all over?

Fartlek came after intervals, so thats why we have both.

Fartlek while running isn’t really to train for running (maybe fell racing or orienteering) but to train for football/rugby/whatever. Random changes of effort and duration.

I guess very applicable for XC mtbing too, but I think hard to train to it on a road bike unless you live somewhere with short but sharp hills (cornwall maybe). Will take a lot of mental fortitude to acheive the training goal riding alone and not to a set of numbers*

Intervals are easy to do properly on a trainer or road bike.

*can you get like a random fartlek program for your garmin, that will just give you “ride at xWatts” and not tell you whats coming up?

there’s supposed to be a smiley face there but seems the great upgrade is still in process!

Still not working!

Wow, it must be at least 10 years since I’ve heard anyone talking about Fartlek training. I think intervals was just an easier way to programme workouts. Both work.

Also fashions in training changes.

Fartlek ((Swedish for “speed play”)).

Run for fun – chasing a tennis ball through the woods, doing an effort based on your mate’s random shout.

More of a chance to clear the head than obsess about numbers.

It seems that riding an hour at lunchtime in the sun as Z2 with some hill smashes or sprints is a lot more fun than sitting in an outhouse with a turbo…. so why are we doing the latter?

For me it always comes down to 3 things..

– if I’ve my kids, I can cycle for an hour but still ‘be here’s

-i don’t trust myself to work as hard/easy on the road, as it’s up to me… O. The turbo I’m just a slave to the trainer!

-i undoubtedly get fitter using a turbo. For me, fit = fast = fun!

DrP

It seems that riding an hour at lunchtime in the sun as Z2 with some hill smashes or sprints is a lot more fun than sitting in an outhouse with a turbo…. so why are we doing the latter?

Efficiency. Precision. And because doing, say, VO2 Max intervals is deeply unpleasant and without structure, most people simply wouldn’t do them. And because to an extent, you need to train your weakness as much as or more than your strengths and who’s going to focus on ths stuff we’re not good at?

It depends on whether your aim is training efficiency/performance or ‘fun in the sun’. If it’s the latter, then why are you training at all… I know it’s not actually that simple divide, obviously. Maybe doing structured intervals in the sun is the answer… 😉

Aren’t you supposed to be resting up a bit?

It seems that riding an hour at lunchtime in the sun as Z2 with some hill smashes or sprints is a lot more fun than sitting in an outhouse with a turbo…. so why are we doing the latter?

I’d say anything outside is more enjoyable than being on the turbo. I prefer hill reps as a compromise i/o the turbo – it’s pretty much the same structure as intervals and it’s more real, I enjoy going hard on hills esp. knowing I’m only a few miles from home and relaxing afterwards. I like the 45 mins ride out to the hill as a way of gauging how I feel that day better than the turbo warm-up. The turbo is good for being more specific or for the fine-tune sort of work that I rarely need (or want) to do.

Fartlek vs Intervals .. idk, I’d take a guess that interval or hill rep work is a more effective way to get to the point where you’re fit enough to be thinking about adaptive/reactive race pace prep which is what farlek sounds like. If fartlek to someone is ‘just riding with a few efforts here and there’ .. sounds like a normal non-structured ride – enjoyable but rarely an effective fitness-builder?

I think there’s some self discipline here also – yesterday I was able to compete three threshold intervals and 1 x 8 minute sweet spot on the road, but of course much depends on knowing the route and of course the recovery valleys between intervals will likely be inconsistent.

Especially for MTB there’s also a strong argument that the turbo doesn’t engage other muscle / muscle memory required.   My feedback – nothwistanding the very wet year we’ve had – is about to be that I needed more semi-structured MTB in my plan.

Aren’t you supposed to be resting up a bit?

I saw a doc, turns out it’s psychological rather than physical.  I’ve knocked off the structure/pre defined hours in favour of doing what I want to do and my resting HR is down 10%, I’ve lost 1/2lb, eating and sleeping is better and I’ve enjoyed riding over the last week or so.   I’m continuing with this until end of August after the family holiday for the meantime.

Whether running or riding, I find I’m more likely to carry on pushing hard if I’m working to a number on a screen. The “randomness” of Fartlek therefore just doesn’t get the same results. That being the case, indoor trainer work allows that structure more than any road or trail near me, with traffic, hills, people etc all affecting pace and effort.

Someone’s got a little FTP

how did you know sadface

It’s exactly what you describe Kryton ..  Fartlek is a phrase applied to unstructured intervals by Paavo Nurmi and co.

Although it wasn’t nearly as random as some of the above ie sprint the length of the football pitch, jog the end was an example

Not for cycling but I used a lot of interval training for my kayak racing, different length intervals work on different specific fitness which you wouldn’t get with Fartlek training, Tuesday was 8 mins on 2 off target pace is always as fast as you can manage for the whole interval.

Yesterday 2min on 30 secs off, that works on your specific ‘not doing a sick’ fitness.

All of my bike riding is fartlek training, until I bother sticking a different bike on the turbo now I’ve sold my roadie.

Rather than referring you to Noakes ‘Lore of running’ this isnt too bad https://www.scienceofrunning.com/2016/08/a-brief-history-of-interval-training-the-1800s-to-now.html?v=47e5dceea252

By the way, – got my Finns and Sweden mixed tho’ as I understand Swedish but do not read Finn at all so Fartlek as ‘speed play’ bothered me as it shouldn’t have translated

And more by the way, good you’re getting to the root of your problems . Big weight off your mind.

I think there’s some self discipline here also – yesterday I was able to compete three threshold intervals and 1 x 8 minute sweet spot on the road, but of course much depends on knowing the route and of course the recovery valleys between intervals will likely be inconsistent.

Especially for MTB there’s also a strong argument that the turbo doesn’t engage other muscle / muscle memory required.   My feedback – nothwistanding the very wet year we’ve had – is about to be that I needed more semi-structured MTB in my plan.

I think ‘semi-structured‘ is the thing there. It’s quite easy to suck the joy out of riding with too much number watching, at the same time having data available when you want it and/or to review after a ride is generally useful.

I’ve just discovered the ‘splits’ function on veloviewer that automatically finds your best 5s/5m/10m/20m for a given ride. I Did a road ride yesterday with virtual power on my Garmin, largely useless as a data field (IMO) but looking at the 20m split it roughly aligns (up a little) with my (Zwift derived) FTP number which is a reassuring little bit of confirmation.

On the ride itself, I was using HR to manage my unstructured efforts a bit, intervals don’t really work on the road for me. But at one point knowing I had a bastard of a climb coming in a couple of miles, and noting that while I felt good my HR indicated I was pushing a bit hard into a headwind, on a hot day. That prompted me to back off and not burn so many matches. It just wasn’t the time to beast myself with intervals.

I’ll admit to doing Zwift workouts precisely because they’re structured intervals and stress specific things and are based more around measuring power than managing your response. Basically you can bollox yourself and you’re only 20ft from a shower and bed, learning you limits in the garage is better than discovering them 15+ miles from home with a fist full of trail mix and half a bottle of water to get you back.

“Organised Chaos” workout on Zwift makes me think of fartlek, albeit probably not enough z4+.

https://whatsonzwift.com/workouts/baby-on-board/15-organized-chaos

*can you get like a random fartlek program for your garmin, that will just give you “ride at xWatts” and not tell you whats coming up?

You don’t need to, you can introduce randomness. This interval wills start when I next see a crow and will go until I see the next one. Then I will go easy until the next junction, and then sprint hard until the next car overtakes me, easy for five fields, and then hard until the next farm entrance