Home› General Training Discussions

Confused with the training shorthand for bike workouts

mikebmikeb
in General Training Discussions

I am a little confused on the shorthand description of the bike workout. 

I have a 60 minute bike vo2 workout

MS: 10' of "ON" time. Remainder of available ride time at 80-85%/Z3/Mod-Hard

I am assuming it means  10-15 minute warmup, and 10 minute cool down.  The main set will be 35-40 minutes at 80-85% with 10 minutes of that at 100%.

Or does it mean I should only be doing 10 minutes of 80%-85% work and the rest be warmup and cool down?

Thanks,

Mike

 

 

 

 

Comments

  • Joe MatchetteJoe Matchette

    Mike,

    One of the first things you will learn about the workout notations are that RnP are terrible at math.... They have stated in the past that the only reason they put a 'total time' for the workouts is that people wig out if there is not a number there....never mind that it is irrelevant, especially in the OutSeason.



    What the notation means is this:

    -do whatever warm-up you need to do in order to be ready to do:

    - 10 minutes of *ON* time, broken up however you need in order to get it done. It could be 20 times of 30" ON (120%FTP / Z5 HR / Really Hard), and then 30" OFF; or it could be 5 x 2' ON / 2' OFF, or 4 x 2'30" ON / 2'30" OFF...

    - Any time remaining based on your schedule should be done at 80-85%

    - Cool-down as you require.



    Bottom Line -- warm-up as required, do 10 minutes of VO2 work, extra work if time/life/SAUs allow at 80-85%, cool-down. IF that takes 60 minutes, perfect. If not, don't sweat it.



    Joe

  • John WithrowJohn Withrow
    x2 on what Joe said.
  • mikebmikeb
    Ok, that makes sense.
    thanks,
    Mike
  • jhbinscjhbinsc

    Don't worry Mike, my first year I went nuts trying to figure out the same thing as have many, many others! You're not alone.

  • cgres123cgres123
    Good post , I'm in grey area now waiting for JOS, always nice to learn how to read our plans.
  • DanielaDaniela
    The "ON" description is very vague in the training plans and is supposed to be updated shortly to at least mention that the "ON" time is 120%.
  • Keith WickKeith Wick

    @ mike-- I don't know if you've ever done any vo2 max work before, but I would suggest the following progression if you haven't. I'll base this on the 10' part, so you may need to adjust the # of sets accordingly as the "work" time increases



    2 x [5 x 30"/30" at 120%/60%] (1')

    10 x 1'/1' at 120%/60%

    5 x 2'/2' at 120%/60%

    4 x 2.5'/2.5' @120%/60%



    I think the goal is to increase the length of the "on" interval. The team is across the board on where they find their sweet spot on these. For some it's the 30' for others its 4'. Use this to find your comfortable spot, then try one notch higher.

  • Gordon CherwoniakGordon Cherwoniak

    Also take special note of the 60% off time this is different than the FTP interval breaks of 2-4 minutes where you can to whatever pace you like to rest up.  Holding this 60% makes the last VO2 intervals much harder than going easy like I typically do between FTP sets.

    Gordon

  • Coach RichCoach Rich

    This has been fixed and you should now see more detail in the comments section of every workout with these intervals.

Sign In or Register to comment.