Can L4 intervals be too intense?

[tdl123321]

IfI am able to survive L4 intervals for 20-30 minutes x 2-3 sets then I really don't need to worry that they are too intense, do? In other words I know I don't want to be doing them in L3, but I don't really have to worry about working too hard or else I wouldn't be able to survive the interval. Is this correct???

 

[whoawhoa]

IfI am able to survive L4 intervals for 20-30 minutes x 2-3 sets then I really don't need to worry that they are too intense, do? In other words I know I don't want to be doing them in L3, but I don't really have to worry about working too hard or else I wouldn't be able to survive the interval. Is this correct???

Are you asking "If I can finish the workout, are they too intense?" I would say no, as that gets you too around 60 minutes of l4, so by definitition they almost couldn't be too intense.

I'd be careful about riding too hard on the first interval or so though. One thing I learned with a pm is how poorly paced some of my interval workouts were (it's surprisingly tough to stay in l4 when you're in "hammer mode").

 

[SolarEnergy]

Agree with Whoawhoa.

I might add that the percived effort will vary a lot depending on how tired you are from past workouts. The effort may feel like medium hard for most of the duration, and hard but not that much at the end, with fresh legs. And it may also feel like way to hard to be finished at targeted power if it was a bad idea to schedule a L4 workout that day.

If you can always finish them easily, then you are either very talented or underestimating your L4 power.