What about this training method?

A workout consisting of higher intensity* periods separated by recovery periods is called an interval workout. They work. 🙂

* higher than the intensity which could be held for the entire duration of the workout.

frenchyge said:

A workout consisting of higher intensity* periods separated by recovery periods is called an interval workout. They work. 🙂

* higher than the intensity which could be held for the entire duration of the workout.

Hi Frenchy. Sure, I know about intervals, and use them. But I've always understood an interval to be done over a preset distance, or a preset time. But what I'm doing is different: it's a preset speed for as long as it can be held. The resulting distances and times will vary. And it's that kind of "interval" that I've never seen discussed. And I wonder why.

Pendejo said:

Hi Frenchy. Sure, I know about intervals, and use them. But I've always understood an interval to be done over a preset distance, or a preset time. But what I'm doing is different: it's a preset speed for as long as it can be held. The resulting distances and times will vary. And it's that kind of "interval" that I've never seen discussed. And I wonder why.

An interval is typically denoted by duration (or sometimes distance) and intensity followed by a rest or recovery period.

In your case you are simply using speed as a proxy for the intensity side of the equation. Hence the variable time/distance you experience.

Problem with that is speed is a poor proxy for intensity, even in relatively benign conditions.

Alex Simmons said:

An interval is typically denoted by duration (or sometimes distance) and intensity followed by a rest or recovery period.

In your case you are simply using speed as a proxy for the intensity side of the equation. Hence the variable time/distance you experience.

Problem with that is speed is a poor proxy for intensity, even in relatively benign conditions.

Pendejo,

Try it out. I think there's nothing wrong with breaking up the 10k into intervals, then trying to increase their duration until you are doing the entire 10k at that intensity. But related to what Alex is saying, I think you should be using the term 'watts' instead of 'mph'.

That's exactly my take on Pedejo's "new scheme". It'll work if he exchanges the term "Speed" with "Watts". Otherwise the weather and terrain would highly interfere and would make his "intervals" highly variable. And this is what he doesn't want as he wants to be able to go with a specific power - which translates into a certain speed at a certain time in TT's - over a specific distance in the end.

So, as I see it, no new invention 😉 but only intervals meant to increase his max 20 min power (if I have calculated this correctly from miles to km and assumed the correct power of his).😕

I'm no expert on training - but I'd assume that you'd want to raise your FTP at this point. A 10k TT would still require a great deal of aerobic contributions, so I'd focus on that. [ie. Lots of SST/FTP intervals]

If you're flattening out - you probably need more volume.

Corrections? [looks to the panel of judges]

Pendejo said:

Hi Frenchy. Sure, I know about intervals, and use them. But I've always understood an interval to be done over a preset distance, or a preset time. But what I'm doing is different: it's a preset speed for as long as it can be held. The resulting distances and times will vary. And it's that kind of "interval" that I've never seen discussed. And I wonder why.

I was just messin with ya. 🙂

Seriously though, people have brought this kind of approach before, or a variation thereof, ie. I want to someday be able to do this for that amount of time, so my training will consist of repeatedly doing this until I can finally hold it for that amount of time. Your approach uses distance rather than time to measure the intervals, but I think that difference is largely academic.

My feedback on that approach is that it's not really as targetted as it could be for better results. IOW, if I repeatedly do this then I'll get better at doing this and not necessarily better at doing that. If this and that are distinctly different, then I may not be making any progress towards my goal at all (for example, doing 100m sprints in an effort to someday do a 4-minute mile). Physiologically speaking, a 2 minute (.5 - .75 miles) maximal effort doesn't resemble a 15 minute (10k) maximal effort all that closely, and that's why most folks stick to longer intervals to train for longer performances. Repeated 10min intervals might fit the bill better, and even longer if you want to see improvements in longer rides as well.

In your case, you want to improve your 10k TT speed from 24 to 26mph, which represents about a 27% increase in power for that distance. Depending on your current state of conditioning, 27% improvement might represent the culmination of years of training, so a few intermediate goals might be in order.

I understand what y'all are saying: it would be more "scientific" if I tried to hold a certain number of watts for as long as I could, because my speed will vary with conditions, even given the same watts output.

I have a big problem with that. Namely, I don't have a watts meter. However, given my rather unique environment I think speed is a reasonable proxy for watts. The wind here is almost always going directly west to east (the Gulf is nearby). And my training road runs exactly north-south. So there is seldom much of a wind vector against me. Plus I also do my "speed intervals" in both directions, so that helps cancel out whatever wind bias there might be.

So the question really is whether doing ballbusting "watts intervals" lasting a little more than a minute will eventually allow me to extend the time at which I can hold them. And a few of you have addressed this specifically and are negative about it.

I will try them for a while and see what happens. There is another factor that might come into play. And that is, sometimes we all get stuck in a rut of what we think are the limits of our abilities, when the reality is that we have a lot more just on the other side of our mental wall of resistance. And this might be a good way for me to break through that wall and see if there's anything on the other side.

Pendejo said:

....So the question really is whether doing ballbusting "watts intervals" lasting a little more than a minute will eventually allow me to extend the time at which I can hold them.....

Well you know my answer 'cause this is where we started this discussion over a year ago. You'll be targeting anaerobic tolerance with minute and a half ballbuster repeats. That's a great way to bring on a peak before an important event and awfully useful for a road or track racer looking for snap and on demand speed for crits, road races, etc. But it's not the best energy system to target for a time trialist focused on 15 to 30 minute events.

If you really want to target speed for time trialing and feel you've hit a plateau on SST work then consider stretching those ballbusters into the 3 to 5 minute range. Do these very close to your best intensity for the duration and rack up 20-30 minutes of time at effort per session and you'll at least be targeting VO2 max which is much more closely related to your events than anaerobic metabolism. This is also a good way to bring on a peak for an important event and most folks won't do these year round but with your events coming up in the fall it's probably a good time to introduce a day of VO2 max work each week.

Sure there's nothing wrong with holding the efforts as long as you can and then trying to extend them, just try to moderate the pace so that you don't blow up before 3 minutes if you want to target aerobic processes. These will still be plenty fast and they're not easy by any stretch. It's VO2 max work so by definition you'll be exchanging oxygen at your maximal rate by the end of these, IOW you'll be breathing as hard as you can when you finish these. If you're not, you're not going hard enough, if you go too hard you won't get to 3 minutes.

-Dave

I did 8 weeks of what the OP has described. Around 1min ball-busters during a 30km ride. I lost 50W of FTP - which means - not very good for any cycling contest.

I hit higher PEAK* speeds [+10kph] but I can't necessarily attribute that to only doing those intervals. It can be because I was more comfortable on the bike @ higher speeds, favourable winds, new gear [new wheelset], weight loss, etc. What I did was probably train to a peak for TOO long.

A good proxy is getting on a trainer with a rear wheel sensor.

*Akin to lighting a match/attacking.

Pendejo said:

sometimes we all get stuck in a rut of what we think are the limits of our abilities, when the reality is that we have a lot more just on the other side of our mental wall of resistance. And this might be a good way for me to break through that wall and see if there's anything on the other side.

There's a lot of truth there for many people. If you take the pain level of your ballbuster repeats and use it in your longer efforts then you might find a few tenths (of a mph) that you didn't know you had before. Continue doing your longer intervals at that level until it becomes easier and then take it up another notch. Good luck! 🙂

daveryanwyoming said:

...If you really want to target speed for time trialing and feel you've hit a plateau on SST work then consider stretching those ballbusters into the 3 to 5 minute range. Do these very close to your best intensity for the duration and rack up 20-30 minutes of time at effort per session and you'll at least be targeting VO2 max which is much more closely related to your events than anaerobic metabolism...
-Dave

Hey Dave. I have been doing this for a couple of years (about once a week, or every ten days), in the form of (approximately) two-mile intervals, quite close to as fast as I can do them. I do three such sets (actually comes to a total of about seven miles). Total time would be somewhere around 20 minutes, I think.

But, as I mentioned, my progress has really flattened out. So I need to try something different. (One problem might be that my training regimen is the same all year round. And it's possible I've never built up enough of an endurance base to carve up with the intervals I do. It might be like a sculptor trying to carve a figure without enough clay. So now I've dedicated myself to more sweet-spot miles, and fewer interval miles. When time-trial season approaches in the fall, I'll start doing more intervals again. But I am going to continue doing my "speed intervals" now to see what happens.)

This is all what I find so fascinating about trying to get faster. It's like a continual scientific experiment.

Pendejo said:

.... it's possible I've never built up enough of an endurance base to carve up with the intervals I do. It might be like a sculptor trying to carve a figure without enough clay....

Yeah, that's what that CTL we debated a while back is all about. Even if you don't do big grueling races it still pays to have base....As a noted doc around here has said: "the more you train, the more you can train".

Quoted post said:

...So now I've dedicated myself to more sweet-spot miles, and fewer interval miles. When time-trial season approaches in the fall, I'll start doing more intervals again.....

Music to my ears.....Dang you won't live down to your forum handle with a sensible approach like that. 🙂

-Dave

daveryanwyoming said:

... Music to my ears.....Dang you won't live down to your forum handle with a sensible approach like that. 🙂 -Dave

Well, I don't think you appreciate the stress involved in continually underperforming in order to meet everyone's lowest expectations.

Sounds very similar to Tmax or Pmax -based intervals. I think Ross's Maximum Perfromance for Cyclists book discusses these and could be worth investigating.

Im sure that Bicycling magazine has a few simplified articles as well.

In general, when one plateaus out, it's a good idea to try something new.