Interval Progression: Add More Watts or More Time?

Interval progression: when do we add more watts, and when do we add more time?

Let’s talk about 4 scenarios: FTP, vo2max, over unders and tempo.

My former coach, Tom Bell, just spoke about this on That Triathlon Show. He talked about his strategy (which was used when I worked with him last season as an athlete)

25:50

* If only some workouts are optimal for the athlete, I think repeating the same workout design for a period is helpful.

* You might add an arbitrary amount of repeats to a single interval, but no one knows if that is the right thing to do.   if you did 4 x 10, who knows if you could have done 4 x 12….

* We ask athletes to repeat the same protocol, with the difference of going long on the last interval (let the athlete find the right level of progression).

We trained vo2max from a physiological aspect, not just adding watts.

Progressive overload with steady state intervals is fairly obvious and what we were doing a lot of in 2009-2010

For the following examples, let's assume athlete has an FTP of 300W

FTP intervals:

4 x 10m @ 300-315W, rest 5m between.

Do we add more time?   max around 1hour. Other coaches will add more, I just don’t find the fatigue to create any more success for athletes.

american athlete, listen to grant koontz 8-12m power is a big decider in road races.

When do we ride at 330W? Higher level athlete, or one-off effort when feeling good. If you can knock out one, can you do two? Then what is the third?

where does the athlete get dropped?

is it at the end of the race on a 10m climb….then more important to get those repeats in.

is it a random just lack of power, I want more watts! 4 x 8m over and over with higher watts until we hit 110%….

When do we PR?

VO2max intervals:

5 x 5m @ 360W?

How do we look at repeatability?

When do we do longer but lower watts? (Variety and slow component…race specific, very supra threshold!)

When do we PR?

When do we focus on shorter and harder? (before races, super hard starts are nice)

Over Unders:

3 x 12m with 30s @ 120% and 2m @ 75-85%

Most hit a homerun with this

Just elongating to 45s makes it much harder.

Or: 4m @ 110%, then 1m @ 106% and 1.5m @ 70-80%

let’s talk over unders: if it’s 3 x 12m, If they absolutely crushed them, I’m NOT going to 15m, i’m going to a little longer over….i might start them with a 3m min over, and then the work.do they have a big anaerobic capacity? we might really need to make the overs harder

ATHLETE SPECIFIC….what is their event?

TEMPO

maybe 80m-100m over a 3-4h ride, 15-20m chunks, actually quite tough.

Great muscular component

quite fun

ride really goes along quickly

Email me with questions or comment below! Brendan @EVOQ. BIKE 

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