How much is not enough power?

ali_baba said:

Anyone have any guidance or rules of thumb on when to give up on a training session with regards to power output. I'm currently in week 3 of my training period and found I simply could not produce the same power during my intervals as I could a couple of weeks ago in week 1 (no power meter in week 2) when I was obviously fresher having just come off a week of reduced time/intensity.

I've read Hunter Allen's advice on percentage power drop based on the third interval but I'm trying to determine if it's better in the longer term to persevere with a planned workout even though I'm not producing the watts I'm aiming for or, should I do as I did today where I simply stopped very early after I determined I wasn't going to get close to the output I was aiming for and reschedule for tomorrow, or drop the workout for this week to ensure that I don't become too fatigued in the short term.

What sort of power reduction, if any, is worth persevering with in order to continue physiological adaptations in the right direction rather than simply grinding yourself into the ground and possibly underperforming for an even longer period?

The power drops in the Allen/Coggan book are pretty good indicators. If you're dropping below the specified training level designed for that particular adaptation, then call it quits right away. If training outdoors, then spin real easy and go home. You do yourself no favours by continuing.

The converse can also be true, particularly at the high end, where repeatedly doing PBs in training can also do more damage than it's worth.

Would you therefore expect to be able to hold or improve average power output in every session over an 8 week/2 training cycle period where each session builds through the number of intervals for 1 to 2 min intervals or through increase in time for 6 to 10 min low cadence intervals and quit any session where power does not hold or improve no matter which week of the training cycle you are in.

ali_baba said:

Would you therefore expect to be able to hold or improve average power output in every session over an 8 week/2 training cycle period where each session builds through the number of intervals for 1 to 2 min intervals or through increase in time for 6 to 10 min low cadence intervals and quit any session where power does not hold or improve no matter which week of the training cycle you are in.

If you put a fullstop after "8 week training cycle", I would say not necessarily but the rest of the paragraph makes little sense to me. Interval training is mostly about making physiological adaptations, not riding PBs.

Whether or not you can increase the intensity of your intervals over the course of a training cycle is a factor of many things including, inter alia, your acute and chronic training loads.

I must work on my punctuation. Hopefully this will make my questions a little clearer -

Interval training is mostly about making physiological adaptations, not riding PBs.

I would read this to mean that a positive effect on performance may still be gained even though my power produced is down on previous interval sessions. If this is what you mean, would you then use similar percentage drops to the Allen/Coggan book in terms of power achieved from the first interval?

I had slowly built up to achieving around 390 watts in the first of my 2 minute intervals and 370 watts in the third interval, I would quit if my power dropped below 333 watts (10% drop) before the session ended. Today I found that I could only achieve around 370 watts in my first interval and so decided to stop and try again tomorrow. I'm trying to determine whether I would have still made a physiological gain by seeing what wattage I achieved in the third interval and applying the same 10% drop rule. This would have kept the rest of the weeks training schedule in tact where as I will now probably have to drop a training session.

Whether or not you can increase the intensity of your intervals over the course of a training cycle is a factor of many things including, inter alia, your acute and chronic training loads.[/QUOTE]

Unfortunately I find it quite hard to keep track of my ATL and CTL due to having to travel constantly for work and often having to do my training sessions on very average hotel gym exercise bikes with only heart rate as a guide(the wattage readings tend to vary enormouslyo on these bits of equipment). I'm pretty much forced to make guesstimates of TSS based on heart rate and percieved exertion - hopefully I'll get better at this when I've been using my power meter for a lilttle longer than my current three months.

I guess the only way to really find out what works is to try different methods and look at the results.

ali_baba said:

I must work on my punctuation. Hopefully this will make my questions a little clearer -

Interval training is mostly about making physiological adaptations, not riding PBs.

I would read this to mean that a positive effect on performance may still be gained even though my power produced is down on previous interval sessions. If this is what you mean, would you then use similar percentage drops to the Allen/Coggan book in terms of power achieved from the first interval?

I had slowly built up to achieving around 390 watts in the first of my 2 minute intervals and 370 watts in the third interval, I would quit if my power dropped below 333 watts (10% drop) before the session ended. Today I found that I could only achieve around 370 watts in my first interval and so decided to stop and try again tomorrow. I'm trying to determine whether I would have still made a physiological gain by seeing what wattage I achieved in the third interval and applying the same 10% drop rule. This would have kept the rest of the weeks training schedule in tact where as I will now probably have to drop a training session.

Whether or not you can increase the intensity of your intervals over the course of a training cycle is a factor of many things including, inter alia, your acute and chronic training loads.

Unfortunately I find it quite hard to keep track of my ATL and CTL due to having to travel constantly for work and often having to do my training sessions on very average hotel gym exercise bikes with only heart rate as a guide(the wattage readings tend to vary enormouslyo on these bits of equipment). I'm pretty much forced to make guesstimates of TSS based on heart rate and percieved exertion - hopefully I'll get better at this when I've been using my power meter for a lilttle longer than my current three months.

I guess the only way to really find out what works is to try different methods and look at the results.[/QUOTE]the training zones for an addapations are fairly wide 30-40W... you are still getting benefit towards that addapation as long as the intervals you are doing fall within the training zone... whether your power is tending up or down is irrelavant as long as you are still inside the training zone for the addapation. if you fall 10% below that zone then you might as well go home.

what you should try is starting at the lower end of the zone and work your way up... that way you can get a much better feeling for the inensity inside that zone you should be working at and what intensity is repeatable for you... so being inside the zone for the addapation is what's important, not being at some specific power value...

Thanks to you both for the advice. This certainly gives me a better idea of the flexibilty in terms of power output that I can use while still recieving the gains I'm trying to achieve.