Recovery intervals on bike OS workouts
I think I've avoided asking this question because I'm afraid of the answer - but what is the rationale with having recovery periods between intervals in the OS workouts being @ 65%. Or maybe it's 60%. I don't remember exactly, and I can't find reference to it at the moment - but I know that in multiple threads, I've seen that inter-interval (is that really a phrase?) intensity is somewhere in that range.
Reason I ask is because I typically do my recovery intervals at closer to 50%. For one reason, I feel like it helps me recover more quickly and get the HR back down. Second reason is that it is just convenient to plop the big chainring down to the smaller sprocket and leave the rear one in place - and typically when I do that I end up at a reasonable cadence and closer to 50% of FTP.
On one hand, a recent thread on VO2max workouts that indicated that the idea is to accumulate time @ VO2max intensity. Extrapolating from that - if I allow for a more 'complete' recovery between intervals by having those rest periods be < 60-65%, am I short changing myself because of the time lost to ramp-up?
On the other hand, most resources I read on doing intervals indicate that rest time doesn't really matter. Then again, those resources tend to be run specific, where perhaps there is a difference on the bike because you can push yourself farther.
So I guess in the end, I'm wondering if I'm really doing myself a disservice by having recovery segments at lower intensity than 'prescribed', which I put in quotations because nowhere in the actual plan do I see 60-65% listed. I could see it affecting VO2max intervals more significantly than FTP intervals, simply due to the time involved during the work efforts - but that could easily be compensated via longer intervals (ie, 60/60 instead of 30/30's).
Comments
My understanding is that we are trying to maintain a certain level of fatigue going into each interval, NOT trying to rest/recover fully. This aids the training effect. The physiololgic reasons behind this I do not know , but I accept that it's the goal and I follow it. I have found that a good check on whether I am actually doing it the right way is to make sure (a) I am hitting the intervals at the prescribed 120% of FTP and (b) the total IF of my work+recovery is 1.0, meaning that for the ten minutes of 5 x (60/60), my normalized power is the same as my tested FTP.
Hi Ryan, I believe Al has taken up this topic before, somewhere.. I'll need to look for it..
Here is my understanding, ** insert usual disclaimers here:
It has to do with how VO2 intervals, a form of HIIT, are supposed to work.
V02 Max measures the rate at which your body can take in oxygen. It's a function of lots of things, from how many mitochondria you have floating around in your cells to your vascularization to how well hydrated you are to your RBC count to ...
The general idea, whether biking, running, swimming, rowing, elipsing... is that you don't fully recover from each session before starting the next - you get enough rest that you're able to keep the intensity above the 120% threshold, but you don't let your body fully recover, thereby maximizing the amount of time that you're stressing your system at the super-threshold level. By keeping your RI intensity at ~65%, you're resting enough to make the next interva,l but you're keeping your HR at near-max so that you're inducing a VO2 boost.
In other words, stress at a certain level for a certain period of time across a regular schedule of a few months will result in your body making more RBC's, more mitochondria, ...
A few observations:
Here at EN the emphasis seems to be that the rest interval is all about setting you up for the next work interval, and that the bottom line is making sure you spend the right amount of total time at prescribed intensity. At EN, if you need more rest, rest more. Longer rest intervals make the VO2 workout actually more of a strength/power-capacity workout than a true VO2 workout.
In cases where you need less ress than the prescribed, it is indicated by EN that you can slide right into the next interval; reducing rest intervals is one way of pushing fitness (the others: increasing volume, increasing intensity).
In non-EN settings, I have seen the rest interval managed closely to try to push VO2M. Tabata intervals are an excellent example - intent is to boost VO2M through a very-short-very-intense work interval and a rest-interval at 60%+ for half the work-interval time. This is much more aggressive than our own VO2 bike workouts.
For long-course, the goal is ultimately threshold and then endurance near threshold, of course, and while strength (capacity to generate power) is very important to endurance performance, VO2M may be less so (from what I've read). Also, while strength and threshold respond very well to training, VO2M is less responsive (Ed Eyestone, Runners World: "If you want a high VO2 Max, choose your parents carefully).
My own opinion - try the 60-65% rest-interval. If you're still able to hold let's say 125% on your work interval, stick with it. If you're not, take your rest intervals down to easy spin - maybe 40% - and emphasize the quality of your work intervals.
If you plateau at some point and need to change up the stressors looking for a boost, build in a tabata day in the discipline of your choosing to see if you get a deep aerobic benefit. My own belief is that you need to do something completely new every so often if you want to continue to grow. This is a much more moderate view than cross-fit, which says you should never do the same exercise twice...(minor hyperbole to make the point..)
This useful?
And speaking of Al...
By the way - the article: http://www.runnersworld.com/race-training/how-improve-your-vo2-max
He references Billat, who gave us the 1/1
Everybody makes their small contribution to the world...
@Russell (or anyone else for that matter) - if you go look at your power files in GoldenCheetah or PowerAgent or whatever and look at Thursday VO2max workouts, how much time (as compared to the prescribed time, which is typically 15') do you see your HR getting into the VO2max range?
Never. The highest my HR gets (@ the end of the last 1 min interval) is 139; my VO2 HR is 147/8, and it takes me 4-5 minutes into the 5 min test to get there. For comparison, it takes me 14 minutes to get up to that HR in an FTP 20 min test, and I max out @ 152. Using HR to tell you if you are working hard enough during the bike "VO2" max intervals must be very frustrating.
But then the mild 4W FTP bump halfway through the OS started making me think that even though I went to 60/60 after the first week of the OS, that perhaps I'm doing something else wrong - like resting too much in between intervals for the VO2 sets to be effective, or maybe the VO2 value is off. I just haven't brought myself to test for VO2 in leiu of a scheduled workout, and I don't want to try it on a day off. So I'm just trying to get as many data points as I can. It's also very possible that I need a tad more time than others to see a sizable gain. I've been running long enough to know how my progress jumps from one plateau to another, but I haven't been cycling that long - so it's like figuring out how I progress all over again
I'm probably over thinking it. I tend to do that.
Also, how is your fatigue going? (The reason I ask is that I have doner 2 EN OSs and have blown myself up both times around week 9).
A reasonable fatigue indicator for me is whether I can do the midweek brick at HMP/MP — if I can't hit those targets usually means I am toast!
I don't actually have a 5 min power that I've tested. My FTP @ the start of the OS was based on a 2x20' test I did at the end of the GF program in the beginning of October. Since October was largely a rest month, and since I was travelling the first week of the OS, I just went with the FTP number from that and used 120% of that for VO2. At the time, there were still a lot of questions about the new testing protocol, and a number of people were still getting odd results until it was determined how to execute that properly. Plus, the 5 min test is just an estimate of VO2max anyway - so I figured with all the error built into the system, and the fact that 120% was used in previous OS's - it was just as good a number to go with as anything.
Regarding fatigue - none that I can really speak of. No red-flag problems with any workout - the only workouts that have been a consistent bugger for me was the first half of the OS where the Saturday runs were progression runs - MP out, HMP back. I've never been able to quite hit the HMP target for that workout. Close, but not quite. And that was with running first, biking second. The bike portion of those days have never been a problem, and the following day's long run with TP intervals, followed by big doses of time between MP and LRP have gone well also. In this version of the OS, there isn't a midweek brick (well, there is - Tuesdays run, but it is easy pace with a few strides). So I don't feel that fatigue has been an issue at all for me. Plus, I took a week off during the mid-OS test because I was travelling again for work - so that would have let some fatigue dissipate. I did manage to squeeze in a new FTP test, but I did the TR version which doesn't have the 5 min @ VO2max. That is where the 4W bump came from. Granted it's from a different testing protocol, so it's not apples to apples, but having gone through big FTP jumps in a short period of time before - I knew before I did the test that my FTP wouldn't have gone up all that much. So even though it was a different test protocol, its results aligned with expectations based on experience.
In GC, there is a performance graph that shows long term stress and short term stress. During the GF plan, where there are longer weekend bike rides, the short term stress was much higher than it's been in the OS. The short term stress from this OS has consistently been about 30-50% of that I saw during the GF program. So while I don't know how the raw numbers on the graph correlate - thats another indication that fatigue likely isn't an issue here, since I've gone through deeper fatigue before (both the GF and this OS were adv plans).
The more I think about it, the more I think that I may have very well made many of the OS gains during the GF program - that it set me up on a plateau that will just take a while to work through. But - thats why we do work, right? I also think that perhaps some of the gains I'm getting aren't necessarily expressing themselves in raw power numbers, but instead in endurance and ability to do things like 45' total @ FTP on one day without being toast for the following days long run with 3-4 miles @ TP. Hopefully that'll express itself during the long ABP rides, where I'll see overall increased speed over a long period of time.
I agree with your assessment that at the end of the day, your only option is to keep faith with the plan and continue to do the work — because you have eliminated fatigue as a limiter.
Allen and Coggan 'Training and Racing with a Power Meter (2nd ed)' define VO2 max as a zone from 106% to 120% of FTP — meaning that (according to Allen and Coggan) work in this zone will induce the adaptions necessary to improve your VO2 max power.
However, potentially there is a slight problem with this, IMO.
Each person's VO2 max power is different (with VO2 max power defined as your best effort over 5 to 8 minutes) relative to their FTP. It appears that the majority of peeps have a VO2 max power that is around 120% of their FTP, but I have seen some being more than 40% of FTP — in this case, two thoughts present themselves.
First, in this case VO2 max power doesn't appear to be a limiter so I would probably drop the VO2 max session and substitute another FTP session.
Second, if VO2 max work was going to be pursued, then there is an argument for selecting the VO2 max power as tested as the power to use in those intervals.
The other extreme case is where the VO2 max power is just above the FTP — in my case, I usually see my VO2 max higher than my FTP by around 10%.
Which suggests that my low VO2 max power is limiting my improvment in FTP, and I don't expect to see my FTP increase much until the OS.
The other thing about my low VO2 max is that because I am very susceptable to blowing myself up with fatigue, I think there is a good case for me to limit the VO2max intervals to my tested power.
And to finish with an observation that supports your thoughts about the FTP work not expressing themselves as raw power — my FTP at the moment is probably around 190-195 because I have just done 4 bike wkos since before Christmas. But today I did an APB ride for 120 mins where my NP was 172 (and 182 for the work part of 100 mins).
My assessment of where I am with my bike fitness is that I can't push much more than 195 for FTP intervals but at power levels just below that, I seem to be able to maintain that power for long period — which the standard model of bike fintness would not predict.
@ Peter ... I'm wondering how much of the "low" VO2 max is due to lower Testosterone, HGH, etc as we get older. I am able to do the VO2 workouts @ 120% when the intervals are less than about 80-90 seconds, but my tested VO2 has ranged between 112and 118% of my FTP over the past four years I've been in EN.
I'm going to start a thread on this in the Boomer forum to see if there is anyone out age who has a high VO2/FTP.
This is probably true for "full recovery" intervals at IP or RP (stuff that we don't do in EN), but it definitely matters at TP and vo2 (and HMP, when the time comes, in my opinion). One of the bigger takeaways I had from re-reading Daniels last year was the recovery time (or interval duration) provided the most suitable places to tweak (as in "make harder" tweak) the prescribed workout.
You may have hit upon a subtlety that I didn't really pay much attention to - the 'full' recovery. There are IP runs, at least in the OS, and it does specify 'with full recoveries' between each.. On the other hand, for TP runs and VO2 intervals on the bike, there is no such qualifier for 'full'. But then we come back to an aspect of the original question - the plans don't mention that the rest intervals during the VO2 sets on the bike should be at a particular % of FTP. However, the 30/30 section on the wiki does - specifying 60%. I knew I had seen it somewhere, just didn't remember!
So - crappage. That means I've kinda been buggering up my VO2 sessions on the bike this whole time because I was going @ less than 60%. On the other hand, I've been doing either 60/60 or 90/90's - so hopefully the extra time prior to a break helps balance that out - though probably not completely.
Oh well - I have the bike focus SBB coming up to remedy this.
Here's where you saw it - in the italicized portion of the description of each Thursday VO2 workout (emphasis added):
These are Vo2 sets, as equal parts "ON" and "OFF" time, where ON is done at your Vo2 power, Z5 heart rate, or Very Hard effort, and OFF is at 65% power, Z1 heart rate, or Easy effort. For example, for the 1/1's, you will do 1' ON, then 1' OFF, repeating this for the specificied set.
Wow - my eyes really just skim over stuff.. how did I miss that?!