Training regimen planning for spring 2014

[HillRPete]

Currently I'm on a 9 month hiatus from cycling, to put out a solid marathon debut in April. To that end I've been brushing up my training fu, and am hoping to transfer both fitness and knowledge to cycling, to put out a few good performances on the bike from July onwards.

The deprivation is showing first signs however, and the cycling training programming for April-June is already in the back of my head somewhat. So I decided to open this topic, and post a first interesting article I've come across.

Short v. Long Intervals
http://www.runnersworld.com/workouts/sh ... -intervals
The article cites a study on cycling interval length (although it's on a running website). Think the study or papers mentioning it have been posted before, but unfortunately I can't find them back at the moment.

The 30s short intervals with long recovery are definitely something I'll try in my training.

[jmorgan]

The simple reason why the 30sec at 175% helped was it was the only one pushing the riders at all. All the other ones were 100% or less for a couple of minutes which anyone can do when FTP is what you can maintain for an hour.

The intensity of the other times is to low to show improvement.

[devinci]

Those studies generally use Peak Power Output to prescribe intensities, not FTP.

The 30s very intense efforts followed by long rests target specific adaptations, like muscle buffering capacity of H+ ions.

The 100% intensity in the study is far above FTP if you roughly translate it that way. Even the 85% intensity should fall around and perhaps above FTP, so the reason was not becasue the intensity was too low. I doubt the intensity is too low to show improvement, a study is far more complexe then this and we'd need to have a look at the methodologies, which im far too lazy to do and research methodology class is way, way too far in my memory.

The article states 3-5 min is somewhat of a sweet spot for high intensity efforts. I agree with the point. Those durations are great to get Vo2 kinetics under way, allow O2 deficit to be caught back and reach max O2 consumption, if intensity is right.

[jmorgan]

Those studies generally use Peak Power Output to prescribe intensities, not FTP.

The 30s very intense efforts followed by long rests target specific adaptations, like muscle buffering capacity of H+ ions.

The 100% intensity in the study is far above FTP if you roughly translate it that way. Even the 85% intensity should fall around and perhaps above FTP, so the reason was not becasue the intensity was too low. I doubt the intensity is too low to show improvement, a study is far more complexe then this and we'd need to have a look at the methodologies, which im far too lazy to do and research methodology class is way, way too far in my memory.

The article states 3-5 min is somewhat of a sweet spot for high intensity efforts. I agree with the point. Those durations are great to get Vo2 kinetics under way, allow O2 deficit to be caught back and reach max O2 consumption, if intensity is right.

Looking into it 100% is "peak aerobic power" (VO2 max) so 85% is right around FTP.

[devinci]

Like ti said, it is around it, but we can't assume it is accurate. It also depends on PPO testing protocol.

[claude274]

Yeah, says here: "Cyclists performed a 25-kJ sprint test, an incremental test to determine peak aerobic power (PP) and a simulated 40-km time-trial on a Kingcycle ergometer."

Source: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10331896

But a 4 minute interval done at 100% FTP or even slightly above isn't what I call an interesting interval if you want aerobic adaptations. The 30 seconds done à 175% of my Vo2max -which would be an impressive 510 watts for me if I'm right- is an high energy workout though! I would really need the 4,5 minutes of rest between those. But I still prefer long intervals of 20 minutes done à 95% or full FTP and even the 5 minutes vo2max intervals. Even if I count the last minute and want to vomit!

[devinci]

4min at 105% of FTP with short rests (60-120s) is actually a good workout and would stimulate your aerobic energy pathway quite nicely. The rest intervals are very important. It's jsut another way to induce adaptations, there's no magic in longer intervals.

[devinci]

Depending on the actual protocol, 175% of PPO is pretty high, higher then 175% of FTP. PPO is NOT FTP

[jmorgan]

4min at 105% of FTP with short rests (60-120s) is actually a good workout and would stimulate your aerobic energy pathway quite nicely. The rest intervals are very important. It's jsut another way to induce adaptations, there's no magic in longer intervals.

As would 20mins at 105% of FTP. Are you saying longer intervals add nothing?

[devinci]

That's not what im saying...

Good luck with that 20min at 105% of FTP.... it's basically a FTP estimation workout, quite different from 4-5 x 4min with short recoveries

[claude274]

4min at 105% of FTP with short rests (60-120s) is actually a good workout and would stimulate your aerobic energy pathway quite nicely. The rest intervals are very important. It's jsut another way to induce adaptations, there's no magic in longer intervals.

With short rest periods, I agree!

[mrlobber]

4min at 105% of FTP with short rests (60-120s) is actually a good workout and would stimulate your aerobic energy pathway quite nicely. The rest intervals are very important. It's jsut another way to induce adaptations, there's no magic in longer intervals.

Short rests at active recovery, endurance or even higher pace? If they were even higher (at SST level), I guess, it all starts looking like a variation of a single overunder interval.

[devinci]

no, short active recovery pace

[HillRPete]

Now to the planning. Monthly change of programming has been working very well for me, so here's a first draft. I'm shooting for 4 weekly "payload" workouts, and then maybe one extra ride, depending on time.

April:
- Marathon
- Recovery
- Get back to cycling

May weekly
- Long ride > 4h
- Med. ride ~3h
- 10-12x (2+2min) has worked as base training very well for me in the past
- 3x (15+5min)

June weekly
- Long ride > 4h
- Med. ride ~3h
- 5x (5+1min)
- 2x (40+10min)

July: sharpen with some all out 3x (3+3min) or similar, TBD

Races are not totally fixed yet, but anything before July would be pretty much purely aerobically bound, such as longer hillclimbs >30min or vertical-heavy sportives. Comments would be appreciated, thanks.

[stefanot]

Plan looks good assuming you recover for your workouts.