Micro rests during L4 intervals

peterwright

I have an elite athlete that I coach that when doing a routine 3 x 20 L4 session is doing something akin to micro rests during the latter intervals. This looks like 10-12 short (around 6-12 secs) periods of coasting prior to ramping it up again. Effectively these become more prevalent in the later intervals (presumably as he fatigues) and the interval therefore has a higher VI. Average power might drop from 331w to 318w for almost the same NP.

Has anybody come across this or experienced it before ? If it was simply fatigue then I would expect to see a drop off in both AP & NP as time passes - rather than a higher VI ?

Markster

Is he getting sore? i.e. a position related problem?

peterwright

Interestingly enough he has reported a sore hamstring during L4 on one side - so this may be a clue..

Thanks

ric_stern/RST

presumably these rides are on an indoor trainer... i find that indoors (where people rarely rest or stand) tends to excaerbate any positional problems they might have. Plus you've also got the heat build up to worry about.
ric

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peterwright

No - he does these outdoors (in Sunny Cape Town don't forget ;-)

Alex Simmons

Data drops?

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peterwright

Nope - checked this. It is definately a pattern with this rider. I have seen it in all three of his intervals at times but more often than not only when he gets fatigued.

ric_stern/RST

i suggested it was indoors, simply because virtually everyone i coach (and lots of other files from other riders) tend to have 'rests' outdoors because of topography or traffic etc.

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peterwright

Topography could be playiung a role, but when I ask him about these rests, he says "I tend to stop pedalling when I am feeling tired in my L4 intervals" which kinda sounds like an obvious statement excpet for the fact that his NP stays pretty much bang on target.

Terry Ferguson

I would ask if it is pain and if he stands or changes postion when coasting. Sounds like positional - nerve/circulatory. Is with me. - TF

Alex Simmons

They're not long enough to "untrip" the NP algorithm. IOW - the physiological cost of both types of effort is effectively the same.

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peterwright

Sure - but I am still keen to understand what is causing him to do this, as in a race situation on a long climb this inability to ride at threshold when tired (even for 20 mins) could be costly.

rmur17

specializing in the simple answers I'll say: his power target across the interval set is just too high. He stops pedalling because he needs a short break.

Personally i'm not sure that NP == AP when it comes to threshold training.

By "==" I mean exactly equals or is strictly equivalent to.

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jeff828

I do the same thing as the posters athlete, I call mine "muscle releases". I take about 20sec, 3-4 times during each set of my 3x20s. I do these on rollers & the reason is because my private goes numb a little from sitting in one position so long & it gives me a chance to get a drink. Also when fatigue starts to set it I find when I do this little release my HR drops 30-40 beats and I have a new set of fresh legs for a few minutes and can ramp up the power even higher until the fatigue builds up again. I have run this by my coach (who is on these forums) and he has no answer.

I would like to ask you guys your opinion, what is happening, is the muscle release allowing more blood/fresh blood it the muscles to rejuvenate them, is the flood flow clearing the lactic acid more? I don’t know what its doing but it works for me, I can even go 20watts higher for those few minutes than I was doing during the workout.

My second question is what is actually fatiguing, the muscle fibers, the cells etc? since during the 3x20 we are not going anaerobic. Is it maybe a slow build up of lactic acid over that period of time, unlike an effort less than a minute which floods the system with lactic acid almost immediately