Convinced of interval training... What's maximal exertion?



sogood

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Aug 24, 2006
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Just read the comparative study b/n interval training and volume training by the McMaster's group. I am convinced on the time efficiency of this method and would like to give it a go.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/..._uids=16825308&query_hl=2&itool=pubmed_docsum

My question is, what's considered to be adequate effort for those 30 seconds bursts? Should I be dancing on the bike? Should I try to push a high gear? Should I try to increase cadence dramatically?

Any tips here? Thanks.

In the meantime, I'll have to find a course that's safe for this training regime.
 
sogood said:
Just read the comparative study b/n interval training and volume training by the McMaster's group. I am convinced on the time efficiency of this method and would like to give it a go.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/..._uids=16825308&query_hl=2&itool=pubmed_docsum

My question is, what's considered to be adequate effort for those 30 seconds bursts? Should I be dancing on the bike? Should I try to push a high gear? Should I try to increase cadence dramatically?

Any tips here? Thanks.

In the meantime, I'll have to find a course that's safe for this training regime.
Would you consider yourself as being an "active man" or a trained cyclist?

Also bare in mind that these "All out efforts" were compared to 60-90min of time waisting at 65%.

I see nothing relevant in this study, at least not for most folks frequenting Cyclingforums.

That being said, their protocol seems to correspond to a fair L6 training session, with plenty of rest in between the reps. If you want to try it, I guess you could easily go up to 45s of work (instead of 30s), and "not so easily" go up to 60-75sec of work. Therefore these sessions are still valuable, at least for anaerobic metabolism improvement.

Now to answer your question, these are all out efforts. It doesn't matter if you do them off the saddle or not, big gears small gears etc... It's all good. The goal is to generate as much power as possible over the duration (30-60s). Perform each rep as if it was the last one.
 
Thanks for the clarification. I am neither a trained cyclist nor an excessively "active man". But just getting back in cycling and have laid down 500+km of base. Presently looking for some kind of a scheme to make the exercises more interesting and to generate some goals. Reading elsewhere, the telegraph pole interval scheme seemed to be quite doable, will give it a try early in the morning when there's no traffic.
 
amartinez said:
This one seems interesting since deals with trained ciclists and compares (what seems to me) L5 intervals and sprints intervals wrt base training:

http://www.ausport.gov.au/fulltext/2001/acsms/papers/LAUR.pdf

I would like to know your opinions.

Thanks!

Ale Martinez.
Ale, is it me or does this protocol looks more like a taper protocol than a training protocol?

The difficulty I have making sense of these studies, is that most (if not all) would like us to believe that the results are only linked to their training protocol. I think we know it can't be true. What was done prior the training protocol also have a lot of importance but yet, we know nothing about it.

Question would be : Can we expect those 65ml/kg/min cyclists to improve over 40k, compared to their previous year results, by training only twice a week totalling maybe what(?) 100 TSS/w maybe? CTL under 20 TSS/d maybe (I donno I am just gut guessing here)?

I don't think so.

- - - - - -

PS - Still; I added this one to my favorites Ale. Thanks !
 
The test was a muscle biopsy. If that is what you're trying to improve, then go for it.

It perhaps would have been more relevant if they did a VO2Max test or MAP test after to see what changes.
 
Disclaimer: I've posted the article for discussion purposes, I don't tried this approach and I don't have the knowledge to justify or refute the approach.

Anyway...

SolarEnergy said:
Ale, is it me or does this protocol looks more like a taper protocol than a training protocol?
Yes, I agree that it looks more like a peaking protocol.

SolarEnergy said:
The difficulty I have making sense of these studies, is that most (if not all) would like us to believe that the results are only linked to their training protocol. I think we know it can't be true. What was done prior the training protocol also have a lot of importance but yet, we know nothing about it.

Question would be : Can we expect those 65ml/kg/min cyclists to improve over 40k, compared to their previous year results, by training only twice a week totalling maybe what(?) 100 TSS/w maybe? CTL under 20 TSS/d maybe (I donno I am just gut guessing here)?

I don't think so.
Billat work on Tmax speaks of 4' to 4'30" for cicling, then 60% of Tmax would be between 2' and 3' then G2 training would be 8x2/3' at Pmax Pause4/6', more like Level 6 than Level 5 (as I written).

What was a new finding for me was the effect on TT40k, PPO and VO2peak (5-6% in 4 weeks) of the more like Anaerobic Capacity workouts, but, my disclaimer was;)

SolarEnergy said:
PS - Still; I added this one to my favorites Ale. Thanks !
As a long time lurker and infrecuent contributor I appreciate this:)
 
sogood said:
Just read the comparative study b/n interval training and volume training by the McMaster's group. I am convinced on the time efficiency of this method and would like to give it a go.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=pubmed&cmd=Retrieve&dopt=AbstractPlus&list_uids=16825308&query_hl=2&itool=pubmed_docsum

My question is, what's considered to be adequate effort for those 30 seconds bursts? Should I be dancing on the bike? Should I try to push a high gear? Should I try to increase cadence dramatically?

Any tips here? Thanks.

In the meantime, I'll have to find a course that's safe for this training regime.
All depends on what you're trying to improve/achieve.

Is it me or does it sound like everyone is looking for the next short cut... bit like weight loss pills.

While there is no doubt training smarter is effective, there ain't no substitute for putting in the time and energy required to develop the adaptations required.

A junior once asked Eddie M whether he should first learn to spin fast, or to push a big gear. Eddie's reply was "learn to spin a big gear":)
 
Alex Simmons said:
All depends on what you're trying to improve/achieve.

Is it me or does it sound like everyone is looking for the next short cut... bit like weight loss pills.
Nothing wrong with harmless short-cuts. The worst short-cuts are those drug cheats, and so we can say that there's plenty of examples.
 
sogood said:
Nothing wrong with harmless short-cuts. The worst short-cuts are those drug cheats, and so we can say that there's plenty of examples.
Fair enough - anything that motivates us to actually train at all is a good thing. It's just with interval work - no one interval type is the "silver bullet", IMHO.
 
Alex Simmons said:
Fair enough - anything that motivates us to actually train at all is a good thing. It's just with interval work - no one interval type is the "silver bullet", IMHO.
Yes, I appreciate the advice. I'll still do the regular rides but will try this to add a bit more flavour and focus in my regime.
 
sogood said:
Yes, I appreciate the advice. I'll still do the regular rides but will try this to add a bit more flavour and focus in my regime.
What part of town are you located? Intervals are best performed on uninterrupted roads which as you know, can be hard to find our way. But a loop like Centennial (or maybe even Parramatta) Park is perfect for this sort of work. Of course there's always the trainer - but living where we do, who'd ride indoors?:)
 
Alex Simmons said:
What part of town are you located? Intervals are best performed on uninterrupted roads which as you know, can be hard to find our way. But a loop like Centennial (or maybe even Parramatta) Park is perfect for this sort of work. Of course there's always the trainer - but living where we do, who'd ride indoors?:)
You are absolutely right, it's terrible hitting traffic lights, stop/give way signs in the residential areas. Centennial Park would be ideal. Alternatively Hawthorn Pde beside the canal is straight and flat quiet very early in the morning. Turning around via the roundabouts should make life a little easier.
 
sogood said:
You are absolutely right, it's terrible hitting traffic lights, stop/give way signs in the residential areas. Centennial Park would be ideal. Alternatively Hawthorn Pde beside the canal is straight and flat quiet very early in the morning. Turning around via the roundabouts should make life a little easier.
Hawthorn Pde is excellent for sprints, it has a smooth flat surface, there is little traffic risk and its close to home for you. The end near the bay is best, up the other end, you get a little traffic and people parking in those parking bays.

If you are bored with your current routes, then try this one. Ride to the far end of Lousia rd and catch the ferry to Greenwich. Ride up Greenwich rd as far as river road chuck a u-e and back down to the ferry.
 
mikesbytes said:
Hawthorn Pde is excellent for sprints, it has a smooth flat surface, there is little traffic risk and its close to home for you. The end near the bay is best, up the other end, you get a little traffic and people parking in those parking bays.

If you are bored with your current routes, then try this one. Ride to the far end of Lousia rd and catch the ferry to Greenwich. Ride up Greenwich rd as far as river road chuck a u-e and back down to the ferry.
Don't know that I want to wait for the ferry, but been thinking of riding up to Lane Cove via Gladesville Br. Each time I drive there I always wonder just how hard that climb is... :rolleyes:
 
sogood said:
Don't know that I want to wait for the ferry, but been thinking of riding up to Lane Cove via Gladesville Br. Each time I drive there I always wonder just how hard that climb is... :rolleyes:
Gladesville bridge isn't as steep on a bike as it feels in a car. The problem is after that, you have to ride all the way to Lane Cove on the footpath, the road just isn't safe enough in that direction. In the other direction ie back towards the city, you can ride road, as your speed will match the cars.

The ferry is really nice, I use to go that way to work sometimes for something different and the road upto St Leonards is wide, smooth and hasn't got too much traffic.

If you were thinking of doing a loop, don't use River road.
 
mikesbytes said:
Hawthorn Pde is excellent for sprints, it has a smooth flat surface, there is little traffic risk and its close to home for you. The end near the bay is best, up the other end, you get a little traffic and people parking in those parking bays.
Took me a while to work out where Hawthorn Pde was, then of course, "I know that street" -it dawned on me. OK - for short stuff that would be good. I suppose I had longer efforts in mind, from several minutes up to say 20 min at a time - but the OP was about short on/off efforts.... Anyway, the other stretch I thought of for slightly longer efforts would be the road out to Kurnel. I often use that stretch for tempo efforts on a weekend ride. From near the Taren Pt Rd turn off to Kurnel return you can go non-stop (round abouts permitting) for approx 45min at tempo pace. If you need more - just do it twice!
 
Crikey never thought about the logistics in getting in some tempo distance in a larger city, guess there is some advantages to living in a big country town. Kind of makes me feel like one of the Beverley Hillbillies. :p
 
Alex Simmons said:
Took me a while to work out where Hawthorn Pde was, then of course, "I know that street" -it dawned on me.
Sorry for not being sufficiently specific. That Kurnell option sounds interesting. Thanks for the tip! :)
 
The Kernell route was where I cut my bread and butter for long rides. Leaving home at 5.15am, I rode to work Asfield to the CBD via Kernell 3 times and then did the Gong ride. I did it about another 8 times after that and then joined a bike club.

Alex, If you know Hawthorn pde, then that would put you in or going thru the inner west. Where do you live Alex? Yeh, we were only thinking of it for short sprints. Its part of my commute route, I gun it on the way home, combination of adreline and the hunger pains.