30 second intervals - Page 11

I never said anything at all about research showing that low cadence training wouldn't increase power at VO2max. What I said was that there are literally hundreds of studies showing that strength training doesn't increase VO2max.

Is that the main reason for doing these? I do them last because they are the hardest part of the ride and there is value in choosing to do certain intervals at the end of a strenuous ride. The sprints end up being in many ways similar to the end of a criterium and a points race sprint.

I don't know why you do them, but since you brought them up in response to a comment about intramuscular buffering capacity I thought I'd simply point out the obvious, i.e., if you wait until late in a ride when your glycogen stores are reduced, you won't drive pH as low during each interval, and hence are less likely to induce an improvement in buffering capacity.

Doesn't seem to correlate with what you said in the "My take on SE intervals" thread, but we can pass that by for now. What benefits or reasons do you think the SFR training could offer for improving power at intensities around Vo2max?

Okay, thanks. I didn't know about that. The most strenuous intervals I do where buffering is part of the objective are done near the end of the first hour of the ride.

Trust me...that didn't escape notice for me. However, as someone with relatively high 5MP (>6W/kg) and horrible 1MP (<8.3), it's appealing to do a workout that should help my anaerobic capacity, yet still have *some* benefit for other energy systems. I'm guessing that there are some other guys like me with a sloping to the right TT power profile that could be helped by this protocol.

Also, I have to wonder if those with lower anaerobic capacity may be the most helped be this protocol--and I apologize in advance for speculating when I have a sample size of ONE...still, I wonder.

That's just a summary. The PPonline stuff is OK but you'll do better at the original source, or failing that pubmed:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/q...=pubmed_docsum

WarrenG: The group doing 12X30s @ 175%PPO w 4:30 rest do better than anyone except the 8X4 minute at 85%PPO. There are also two groups that don't respond to the training withn improvements in TT performance.

A simple answer is that a lot of Pros do SFR, SE or Low Freq training on hills or on ergs with high resistance and have to work at vO2max to keep some momentum going on the bike. I need to see some real evidence that this is of any greater advantage than doing similar efforts at a normal cadence.

Hamish Ferguson
Cycling Coach

It's very interesting. One of the things I've learned from my coach in the last three years is about using variety in training. I think the body responds better to a variety of stimulii better than just giving it the same type of stimulii week after week after week. I think that's why this training with 30" sprints was fairly effective-because it introduced some new stimulii, and even though it doesn't sound perfectly appropriate on the surface, it appears to have helped.

I see these people who say they want to be good at TT's so they go out and do 2x20 and 3x20 2-3 times a week for week after week after week. They say they want to train "specific" for their event. My coach works with some excellent TT riders, like Chris Baldwin and Christine Thorburn who have both won US Elite TT Nat's, and previously Karen Kurreck (Brems) who won the Worlds TT, and a bunch of pros who can/could TT pretty well too. They do not go out and do 2x20 or 3x20 over and over again, especially not before they are close to peaking for a TT. They use a wide variety of stimulii in training and in racing by doing everything from criteriums to stage races. Variety, it's the spice of life!

I don't have concrete evidence for you except that year after year riders and their coaches choose to do it because it helps. For the reasons, maybe this will help. A key element is the _time in tension_ during these intervals. Think about what that does to the muscle fibers and their blood/oxygen supply.

Think also about the pedaling motion that must be maintained in order to overcome the lack of momentum (on a hill).

Consider also the amount of force with each pedal stroke. While it may not be really high, I think it's similar to that occuring when power is very high, and it is possible to do the SFR for 30+ minutes, but you can't do 30+ minutes at 500+ watts.

At the end of a race when power is short little bursts at 500+ watts, similar to some of the things occuring during the SFR interval. Other ancillary benefits are the strengthening of the lower back and glutes, and tendons and ligaments that need to be prepared for hard sprint training.

Yep. I think aerobic endurance --> LT --> steady state style style training forms the backbone for road and TT riders, but variety is clearly crucial and many different things need to be trained.

As far as SFR being beneficial, I would be interested to know why Testa advocates it rather than having a list of people he says do it. What is his rationale? Particularly if "everyone" does it, it's hard to say its beneficial - it would be much easier to say it was beneficial if some did it and others didn't, and the ones that did it rode better. Finally, I think it's worth noting that I wouldn't say it was of no or negative benefit (and I don't think many of the anti-SFR types would say that), just that it would be no more effective than doing equivalent power intervals at a normal cadence, and that normal cadence is more specific to racing, may allow higher powers to be attained and therefore might lead to faster adaptation. That is, training with long moderate-high power at a normal cadence may be more effective than SFR, even though both improve fitness.

Thoughts?

There are so many other things at work here that I don't even know where to start. I guess the bottom line is: what makes you attribute those riders' success to their training *variety*?

Training is what leads to your race performances. They have all improved significantly. They are very succesful with this approach. They would not have improved as much as they did and race as well as they do if their training was not excellent. I can provide many more examples like them.

Is this usual procedure to allow subject to interfeer with the effect of the protocol, by letting them train "business as usual" during the whole study?

That is bull sh.. in my opinion. Or at least, it is not very rigorous.

I think our posts overlapped. See my post in reply to Fergie above.

As for specificity, if you only have 5-7 hours a week to train, yeah I don't know if you'd fit in SFR instead of something else. This year I'm doing SFR in the same session as uphill sprints and some short sprints, so the SFR doesn't realy reduce the amounts of other training I can do.