IF vs. Z4/HR
My IF (NOT TSS) is usually in the .90 to .98 range (only my test was .98, the rest were in the low .90 range).
Am I working hard enough during these intervals? My heart rates are averaging aroung 137-140 during the actual interval, which is close to my HRmax of 147.
I almost puked during the 3rd interval today....
-Robert
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Your TSS or your IF ? Are you asking about total workout or the intervals %
90 TSS is about right for the total hour+ of these types of workouts. My IF will be will be around .90-.95 depending on how hard I do the Z3 stuff and how long.
The Intervals I try and hit 100+% for FTP focus and really try and stay at 120% for the Vo2m stuff as anything higher I'm likely to pop and not finish them.
Oops! I meant IF. I just finished, so my brain is still addled.
My TSS today is .79. IF is .90.
Those are for the total workout.
-Robert
Robert- don't worry about the IF for the total workout at this point. Just concentrate on getting the IF for each interval correct. For the OS, that's all ya need to worry about. The IF for the OS workout sis gonna vary a bit from person to person depending on how much warmup/cooldown they do. If you are doing 4x10' intervals at FTP (40 minutes) but do 20 minute warmup and another 20 minute cooldown at .80 IF or less, your total workout IF is gonna be a lot longer than mine if I just hope on the bike, do 5 minute warmup, 4x10, and hop off again. Make sense?
Once you start transitioning into race training and your rides get longer, you'll start looking at the IF as a bigger clue 'cause then you want to make sure you are not spending too much time noodling around.
That's very helpful Beverly. MY IF was 1.034 for the first interval, .94 for the second one, and .912 for the last one. I guess I went out too hard?
These were 3 x 10 minute FTP intervals.
-Robert
Yes, makes sense. Many thanks!
I was simply trying correlate a 95-100% effort with IF.
Apparently, my average IF for all three was OVER .95 (about .96 or so), so I guess I'm in the ball park. Those puppies really hurt....And the first 5 minutes of the brick run was VERY SLOW.
I may have aged up the first mile....
-Robert
I hope IM SWISS is great, given the exchange rate, $1100 airplane ticket prices to Zurich and $200 a night hotel charge!
I might need to do the race twice to get my money's worth.
-Robert
Robert - If you have not yet done the short VO2 max workouts, this may help when you get there. An IF of .95-1.00 is NOT the same thing as an "effort level" of 95-100%. It represents rather how hard you are working relative to the maximum effort you can sustain for an hour - your FTP. The VO2 max intervals will be @ "120%", or an IF of 1.2, which of course you can't hold for an hour, or even 10 minutes, but you can for 1-2 minute intervals with equal amounts of rest.
One other thing, regarding wanting to puke. If your 34, working till nausea may be OK. At our age, I worry about it being an alternate symptom, specifically excess stress on the heart. If your HR during these intervals is 140, and your max HR is 147, which it very well could be, then you are really pushing the envelope, and might want to make sure via a stress test that the ticker can handle it. Silent MIs are not a cool thing.
Finally, if you've got a power meter, why are you paying attention to HR? I'm guilty of the same thing, but the power reading, not the HR, is what we're trying to hit. Out on the road, and in a race, the watts are what we want to key our effort to.
Al!
Thanks for the input.
I had a thallium stress test and passed, lasting 15 minutes + before they stopped the test.
I watch heart rate because I think it still has validity, especially indoors in a cool environment with no wind and hills. Oddly, the cardiologist watches the same metric....
Re wanting to puke, I seem to recall the same feeling running 440 repeats on 1:10 in high school.
Anyway, at my age if I die trying, well, I died trying! At least I didn't go like Nelson Rockefeller....Oh, wait....!
So, what does the IF of .95 mean in this context? Does it mean I'm working above 95% or below 95%? I'm not sure I understand the correlation. Am I doing these intervals right?
-Robert
First, always make sure that you're working with an accurate FTP. Assuming that, then you should be at an IF of .95-1.0 for each interval. I then believe you should establish goal IF's for the total workout, or rather benchmarks/baselines/expectations that you try to match each time. I have many routes that I've done many times and I have informal IF expectations for each of them. I ride with a Joule and display IF on the main screen = I always have a whip to encourage me to not slack.
Short answer, you want to pay close attention to the IF's of the intervals, but you also want to watch the IF for the session, as an IF of .90 vs .85 for the same ride time = more TSS accummulated = mo' betta
Rich!
I ride with the CycleOps Pro300PT. MY FTP I'm using is my 20 minute power from my first bike test in the OS program, Week 1.
I have been using heart rate as an adjunct guide (plus RPE) to get into the ballpark for these intervals, but I agree pure wattage is probably most helpful.
Based on what you are saying, then I'm probably riding not hard enough, as my 3 x 10 minute efforts should probably be at least, what, 5% over my 20 minute FTP?
Thanks,
Robert
There are some folks who have used a 20 minute test, and taken 5% less than that (remember you can go harder if you go shorter), however, it's not the language we speak around here.
Do you mean the Normalized Power for BOTH 20 minute sessions, plus the rest interval? Use that number as my FTP?
-Robert
Robert, that's correct, NP for total 42 min.
Dave
Great information! I was actually using Coggin's power numbers from WKO and they are slightly higher than my tested FTP. Thus, my 3 x 10's I did yesterday are actually about 1.25 efforts on average, or in that ballpark. I wouldn't think that would make much difference, eh? My fear was that I wasn't working hard enough, but I appear to be close to target.
-Robert
I see people following their PMs right into a brick wall all of the time whether it's when racing or training.
There are many factors that affect our bodies on any given day (especially when we're training in a non-tapered state). I believe the right interval power is always a range and it likely varies from day to day. There's absolutely nothing wrong with targeting your L4 intervals at 90% of FTP (IF = .90) and use your RPE to guide you higher as appropriate (if at all). It is extremely rare when I execute a single L4 interval higher than 95%. I might finish the interval at around 100% but I most certainly never start it there.
There's no perfection to achieving the right training stress. The one downside to a PM is that a lot of people tend to get overly obsessive with achieving the "right" number. There is no right number.
Thanks, Chris
My concern was mainly with getting the math right, not obsessing about exact power levels, though I can be as obsessive/compulsive as the next guy. Simply the existence of
WKO+ suggests a high degree of OC, no?
My view is to try to do all the workouts as close to their description by the coaches as I can do them. Whether that is always optimal for me is a question beyond me and this site. I'd have to move Joe Friel into one of my spare bedrooms to get close....
-Robert