koger said:
Great what about L5, is that a different story?
The story isn't too different, but IMO it's not the same story.
L5 or VO2 Max work is more directly coupled to sustainable power as an effective ceiling to other, longer duration, lower intensities like Threshold power and from it Tempo, etc. I also draw on my four to six minute max or near maximal power a lot more often during actual racing situations such as initiating or responding to attacks on short climbs. IOW, when reviewing race data I see sustained efforts representing sustained VO2 Max efforts and have set 4 and 5 minute MMPs during racing.
I definitely get a fair amount of short as in 30 to 45 second L6 efforts out of aggressive road races or crits but have never come close to setting a 1 minute MMP effort during actual competition. It would almost certainly result in my getting dropped if I did as peak 1 minute efforts take it all out of me and aren't tactically wise in most racing situations.
The points are that L5 work is more directly tied to the things most of us really need to work on and is something we'll directly draw on in many race situations. L6 work can really make the difference in certain situations
assuming the sustainable power and power at VO2 Max is there to put us in those situations, like maintaining a winning position during the final laps of a fast aggressive crit. But L6 work is icing on the cake in the sense that it won't lead to the long and short term sustainable power to stay with the peleton or the break, bridge solo for more than a minute or two, allow you to recover in the peloton when others are suffering, etc. You've gotta have the sustainable power before specific L6 work becomes your limiter.
Anyway for all those reasons I place higher value on L5 work in yearly training. It still only takes 6 weeks or so to see big gains in L5 power but I tend to have more mini blocks of L5 work throughout my year and don't wait till precompetition to introuduce some VO2 Max work. You could take the same strategy as L6 work, but then you're stacking two or more high end workouts into your training week as competition approaches and that will almost certainly cost you overall training load and CTL.
So it's a balancing act, how do you get some of what you need without sacrificing too much of the other stuff and losing sight of the big picture? Well that's why coaching is part science and part art. There are a lot of approaches depending on your goals, your lifestyle, your available training time, how well you recover from high end work, etc. There isn't a one size fits all formula.
Anyway in a general sense I tend to hold L6 work off until a final peaking phase before important events and then I only do dedicated L6 sessions for a few weeks and try to either get it out of the less important races themselves or as Piotr suggested from training rides. That's about the most useful thing about our weekly Tuesday night hammerfest. It's a great and fun way to get L6 work, especially digging deep for second efforts which is hard to simulate in solo training. For instance, I'll launch a hard L6 attack and hold it for a minute or more but eventually riders come up on me and someone always launches a counter attack. Digging deep and hitting a second consecutive L6 effort to go with the counter and to hold it long enough to get on a wheel and until it slows enough that I can start recovering is really hard work and very useful in actual races. I just can't get that sort of second effort in my solo interval work and love the group rides for just those kind of efforts.
But I'll do some L5 work more often at different places in my yearly cycle. Not always as a dedicated block with one or more workouts a week. It might be an L5 session every third week this time of year or a couple of weeks of "pull up" work in say early February then returning back to core SST/L4 winter work. And I typically do a four to five week L5 block at the end of winter prior to my first races but as these are B and C races I don't do any dedicated L6 work at that time of year.
The point is there are lots of ways to blend high end work in your annual training plan and some high end work is necessary for general road racing and crits. But although the body's adaptation times to L5 and L6 work are similar when to introduce them and how long to focus on them is debatable. Sorry there are no simple answers which is why good coaches are worth every penny.
Good luck,
-Dave
