Short interval wattage

[numminummi]

Hi!

My coach wants me to do some 75 sec. intervals. He is old school, so he only works with pulse. I do, however, have a powermeter. Are there any rule of thump on what % of your ftp that respectively 75 sec. and 3 min intervals should be?

 

[An old Guy]

If your trainer is using pulse, you should be using pulse.

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75 second power is not closely reltated to FTP (1 hour power). 3 minnutes is not well related either.

Take a couple days and find out what feels good. Do a dozen (or whatever) intervals at FTP. If that works out, kick the power up by 10% until you think you have a reasonable workout. (I would be happy with a power level where I had about a 50% chance of doing the entire set. ) If you don't recover in a reasonable amount of time, cut the power back.

It is not rocket science.

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You could look at any of the training plans on line and find out what "experts" in the field think is suitable.

 

[doctorSpoc]

HR is completely useless for both those sorts of intervals.. HR has a lag time of about 4-5mins meaning that in both those cases your interval will be over before you HR levels out...

just use the Coggan power zones as a rough guide and adjust depending on your own abilities since as OG stated.. both of these aren't well predicted by FTP either...

75sec are Anaerobic Capacity intervals... 120+ % of FTP.. after you do 2 or 3 you will know what power you can do them at.. you're just doing these as hard as you can for that 75sec.. mono power.. you can do them as short as 45sec.. i tend to do mine at 1min... 3-5min rest between... should be pretty well rested between these.. but don't take more time than you have to..


3min are VO2max intervals.. 106-120% of FTP... what is happening here is that you want to pick a power such that for the 1st 2mins you are building up a huge amount of pain... and then for the last min or so your legs are in a huge amount of pain and you just try to keep the legs turning over.. so adjust so it feels like that.. first minute feels OK.. like hard tempo.. 2nd minute burn starts and by end it's really burning.. for all or most of last minute you just want it to end.. generally do about the same rest as the length of the interval.. each successive interval the pain will likely start a little earlier.. so may need to adjust power.. not a big deal.. just keep the burn going.. lol.. ouch!