Winter power training

Quoted post said:

Originally posted by peterwright
I have just finished my race season and am moving into winter here in SA. I have my race season starting again in Sept and a five day stage race in August.

I have to increase my overall ability to ride at a higher power for longer as I am getting dropped on the rollers or hard flat pace.

I figure that I should be doing lots of hard tempo at around 90% of threshold power (say 60-80 mins) to increase all round power over winter without the intervals.

Any comments here as I need to increase that power in the next 4-5 months.

Thanks

Peter

I would suggest alternating 4 to 6 weeks of threshold or tempo with 3 to 4 weeks of VO2max work. This will give you both a mental break and keep things progressing.

Personally, I would add one VO2 max session/week during the threshold cycle and one threshold/week during the VO2 cycle.

Quoted post said:

Originally posted by beerco
I would suggest alternating 4 to 6 weeks of threshold or tempo with 3 to 4 weeks of VO2max work. This will give you both a mental break and keep things progressing.

Personally, I would add one VO2 max session/week during the threshold cycle and one threshold/week during the VO2 cycle.

What sort of V02 sessions would you recomend ?

Thanks

Peter

Quoted post said:

Originally posted by peterwright
What sort of V02 sessions would you recomend ?

Thanks

Peter

The standard is 6x5min at about 110~115% of threshold.

I've also done two day blocks of first the 6x5on/3-5ish off on day one followed by two sets of 5x2:00on 1:45off with a 10 minute break between sets at around 130% threshold. I'm not sure if the second workout is really appropriate for winter training though as it really moves into level 6. Seems to be working for me though as it's springtime where I live.