Very low roof
Hi Peeps
Am just starting my OS and tested my bike 5 min and 20 min as per Coggan. Pnorm for 5 min was 239 and Pnorm for 20 min was 213. My max FTP (2 x 20 (2)) last season was 217 — so I am pretty happy with the quality of these latest tests.
239/213 = 1.12 — which suggests to me that my roof is very low. I have been using power for 2 years but only really started to "get it" in the last year. My FTP didn't really change much in the last OS, but that didn't really worry me as I was focussing on pushing up my Vdot. It also didn't change much all through the racing season.
I was going to use Coach P's OS bike hack thoughts to do one VO2 max session each week (from his thoughts in the Wiki).
Given the 1.12 result, I was thinking that perhaps I should do 2 VO2 max sessions a week?
What do peeps think? or should I start with 3 sessions?
Thanking you in anticipation!
Comments
Peter - I'm 15+ weeks into an OS which has featured 3 bikes/week: an hour FTP session, a VO2 Max session, and a Saturday ride with FTP intervals. I chose this as I had found myself getting burned out by a monochromatic program of 8 weeks FTP, 6 weeks VO2, etc. When I first started doing OS type work in 2010, I had a similar 1/1.12 ratio of my one hour and 5 minute power levels. A 4 week VO2 hack quickly moved that to 1.18.
As to your specific question, what's the best way to raise my VO2 max level, to allow more ("head")room to get fast in, I can give an intuitive answer, not based on any studies. I'd do two weeks of FTP work, just to build up some toughness in my legs, then do a 4 week session devoted to 2 x VO2 per week, and a Saturday ride with FTP intervals. The VO2 work can be done outside, and may be more fun there, by finding a short, snappy hill it takes 2-2.5 minutes to climb at full effort. Start @ 10' per session of work time, and increase by 2' per week: 10 > 12 > 14 > 16.
After that, I'd stick with the program I outlined in the first paragraph for the rest of the OS. Getting a full effect from VO2 work, for both running and cycling, seems to only require about 4 weeks for me. Then, during the non-racing portion of my season, keeping a mix of FTP and VO2 work each week keeps me saner and better rested than alternating between both for long blocks.
My suggestion would be that if you are going to do 2x a week V02 bike work, do it only for a limited time like 4-8 weeks and no more, as I think you are playing with fire.
I personally have found that my body responses much better to a small amount of V02 work only once a week but done year round. This does provide the big bump that everyone likes to see, but it allows me to slowly improve over the long haul without breaking myself down. The 5 week focused V02 blocks I have done in the past were kind of a crap shoot... they either gave me an ok bump and i was fine, or they gave me a big bump but then I struggled to recover.
Based on Al's and your suggestions, I am going to do a 4 week block of 1 x FTP and 2 x VO2 max — then test.
Then I was going to do 2 x FTP plus 1 x VO2 max as my OS hack.
Oh, also I am going to be manic about fueling and recovery as I recognise the dangers of digging myself into a big hole (as I did last OS).
I'm leaning towards doing only 2 interval bike sessions weekly next OS. This year 3 x weekly seemed a bit much while hammering the run too.
Of course as other have said before, the "right amount" of training is the minimum you can get away with and still improve.
For me as I said in the first post, my FTP only went up by about 10 to 15 watts from the start of the OS right across the season.
In addition, my max was 10 watts less than the previous season.
Which is why I am looking to change my training stimulus this OS — noting I am aware of the potential pitfalls of this approach.
I've also read about the 5 min/20 min test in Coggan's book fairly recently. Haven't tried that yet or used it as a training metric though. I wonder if it's a useful gauge that would be worthwhile including in the EN plans? I can understand the concept of a VO2 ceiling, but I don't think I've ever had a concept how to "measure" the height of that roof or how I can tell that I'm being limited by VO2.
I have an awesome opportunity to go on a hard, hammerfest ride with Coach Rich every week. Looking at my (max 5' Pnorm)/(max 20' Pnorm) from these rides, it seems that I'm around ~1.10. No idea my roof was this low until recently. It makes a lot of sense though, because I would routinely get dropped from the group when people started throwing in sprints. Also, it's been a while since I've seen an FTP bump so I'm not surprised that there's a clear limiter here (though I'll admit that I've blown off testing a few times too).
Anyway, I'm 6 weeks out from my first IM, and there's not a whole lot I can do about adding more VO2 work right now. Coach Rich advises I do that post-IM, and I'll probably take Al's suggestion and tweak the OS a bit to my needs once I get to that point.