ah, the sweet suffering of intervals

[Climb01742]

my coach has being doing intervals. ah, it takes me back. high school track. that feeling of dread you have in the midst of a 12x440 workout. as you rest between interval 7 and 8, sucking serious wind, knowing that in two minutes the puke-your-guts-out feeling will come again. oh the beauty and the pain.

please forgive how i'll butcher their names but was it the flying finn, pavel nurmi or emil zotepek, who once did 20 miles worth of quarters (80x440!!!) to train for a marathon?

two questions: what's your favorite cycling interval? and what's the science behind why intervals build performance so well? thanks!

[e-RICHIE]

i don't know the science, but having the intervals in my
legs and in my lungs sure makes racing alot easier on the
weekends. my normal gig is a ride with about 10-12
45-90 second efforts in my 39x15 or similar gear going,
er, 80% capacity up slighty mild grades. i get at least
4 minutes between each but sometimes only half that
amount of rest. each effort puts me near the 190bm
mark by the end. i never exceed the 90 second duration
per interval and i never do intervals in big gears. i prefer
to tax my leg speed rather than my muscle groups.
hey - thanks for reading.
e-RICHIE

[Dr. Doofus]

1) Intervals target specific energy systems or neuro-muscular systems
a) the duration of the interval targets the energy system
1) :05-15 ATP/CP
2) :20-:2:00 "non-robic," Lactate Tolerance
3) 3:00 - 6:00 VO2
4) 6:00-30:00 Lactate Threshold
5) 30:00+ tempo, sub-threshold

Lactate Threshold is vital for time trialing, climbing or staying in a fast crit field. Lactate Tolerance is vital for short attacking/chasing bursts, or for the first few warp-speed laps of a crit. VO2 trains sustained efforts of 3-6 minutes -- short hills, sustained pace changes.

b) pedal speed or torque load determines the neuro-muscular adaptation
1) high cadence intervals build fluidity
2) low cadence intervals build force

2) Overload and Adaptation -- doof has to run now and administer a state test, so more on how and why the body develops as a response to the interval stimulus later...though someone will beat me to it, so why bother.....



Well, no one has beaten me to it!

The short of it. When you do an interval, you are not getting stronger. You are applying stress to a given energy system, "maxing out" your body's ability to perform the type of work you're doing in that interval -- whether its learning to sprint, learning to time trial, learning to spin at 130rpm, or learning to grind a big gear at 55rpm. You are simply applying a training stress.

The "getting stronger" part happens over the next 24-48 hours, over the course of a sustained block of training (4 weeks), and over the course of a training year. During the short-term adaptation, your body clears lactate, repairs tissue damage, and the pathways and enzymes involved in the stressed energy system improve their ability to do their job (no need to get super-technical with it). The same processes also occur over the long term. The bottom line is that you have to let your body use its energy to adapt to the stress -- I always told my clients that "resting" was a "hard training day" for the adaptation metabolism. You may not be training hard, but your body is working hard to rebuild and get stronger from the stress of the previous workout. Really, every day is a hard day -- you shift the amount and the nature of the training stress (whether that days stress is an interval ride, and endurance ride, or watching TV), but your body is always working *some* metabolism to its max.

Anyway, do your intevals Climb-O, do your intervals....

[SGP]

there is no science to my training (i'm not a racer, but, i play one in my head)

out side i'll pick a route with short, steep rolling hills and hammer up them and recover down and to the next one. othertimes i'll do loops to bigger hills, hitting the climb after 5-10 min of easy spinning.

indoors i'll do bad guy sprints( hammer in the biggest gear you can move when ever the villain is on screen) to what ever movie i'm watching with my kids. the lord of the rings series will make ya see spots

[FlaRider]

Richie, I thought you didn't use bike computers or heart rate monitors. Are you turning a new leaf? :rolleyes:

[e-RICHIE]

no devices here.
following key intervals, i count the beats in my
neck for a 15-30 second count. the math is easy.

[Too Tall]

E-issimo is blessed with good genes. 190 BPM. Lucky.

Want to see the difference between folks who are stress adapted to intervals and those who are not? Go to a local crit and see what happens after lap 3.

The most useful intervals I do are 3X5's and 2X20's.

[zap]

Reason why I suck when riding with racers. Not enough intervals.

I havn't done this one much. 1 minute at 80%, 1 minute sucking wind to recover, repeat 10 times. Use whatever gear needed to accelerate and maintain speed for the one minute duration.

e-Richie, I like your method of minimalist equipment training. Maybe I am a closet steel fixee guy. Or I just don't like the added weight of bike computer, etc.

[FlaRider]

Climb, what type of intervals is Kurt having you do for climbing? (I suspect it's mostly treshhold intervals but I could be wrong.) Are you using a power meter for the intervals? I find that using a power meter is indispensable to nailing the right intensity, especially for threshhold intervals.

[Climb01742]

fla--power tap is coming. right now intervals are a mix of long ones -- 15 and 20 min -- at either high 90-105 rpm or middle 75-80 rpm, and short power intervals, done on a 53x17 for 20-30 seconds. hard to explain to some folks, but suffering can feel good.

[Rich_W]

I'm not scientific... I just torture myself daily... ride against my average, and push as hard as I can for 3 days in the big ring, and then 1 easy day spinning as high an RPM as I can handle.

Basically as hard as I can go without puking when I'm out on my own...

I guess its non-scientific intervals... cause I go as hard as I can... recover a bit, and then do it again, and again... constantly, non-stop.

As for my racing (In my own little cat 4 @ age 40 world)...I'm hanging tough... attentive, and always in the top 10 position. Seems to be working for me.

I've got 90 minutes to complete my 30 mile loop... and 120 to complete my 40. I do everything possible to keep the average above 20. What really works for me is keeping the computer on Average, and pay attention to the little tick mark that says above or below. It really keeps me working.

[Climb01742]

rich, it sounds like we ride very much alike. or did. i don't mean to push anything, just share...but the more structured workouts that my coach has me doing feel very positive. but i was ready for a change. no one could have convinced me of it until i was ready. just a thought.

[coylifut]

I'm not scientific... I just torture myself daily... ride against my average, and push as hard as I can for 3 days in the big ring, and then 1 easy day spinning as high an RPM as I can handle.

Basically as hard as I can go without puking when I'm out on my own...

I guess its non-scientific intervals... cause I go as hard as I can... recover a bit, and then do it again, and again... constantly, non-stop.

As for my racing (In my own little cat 4 @ age 40 world)...I'm hanging tough... attentive, and always in the top 10 position. Seems to be working for me.

I've got 90 minutes to complete my 30 mile loop... and 120 to complete my 40. I do everything possible to keep the average above 20. What really works for me is keeping the computer on Average, and pay attention to the little tick mark that says above or below. It really keeps me working.

Does it ever feel like you're over-reaching/training?

[bcm119]

I use intervals very sparingly. I used to do a different interval workout 2-3 times a week, but it left me fried and I got slower. Now I ride alot of easy to medium, high cadence miles, and do some short intervals 1-2 times a week. I usually do 3-5 X 1:00 bursts at high cadence up hills, sort of like e-Richie's method. I like 3:00 intervals too, but I do them less than once a week. Once in a long while I'll do a 2X20 on a long stretch of farm road, but that workout cooks me for about 4 days.

The hardest intervals I've done were in the pool- the most dreaded workout our coach had was this: 2X 500 yards on 6:00, 5X200 yards on 2:20, 10X100 yards on 1:10, 5X200 yards on 2:15, 2X500 yards on 5:50. 5000 yards of pure hell. And it was always in the middle of a 9000 yard workout. Swimmers are nuts, but, at the time I loved it...I think...

[Mountain Man]

Oh Lord, I've spent almost 40 years trying to forget what a 12x440 workout was like. The only good thing was that by about the 4th 440 you had so many endorphines in your system that the remainder of the workout was a sort of out-of-body experience. Well, almost. Seared in my memory is the way my legs felt as I came off the second turn: burning inelastic blobs weighing approximately 300 lbs each.

Anyway, my favorite interval workout on a trainer is to do acceleration sets. Use a medium big gear, accelerate as hard as you can (seated) for 5-7 seconds, and then soft pedal for 5-7 seconds; repeat. One set is 4-5 minutes of those. Do about 3 of those sets mixed with some quick spinning, some big gear work out of the saddle, and some regular tempo work, and you will know you did something. Make sure that you give your body a chance to rebuild. This really tears up the muscles and the body needs time to recover--especially if you are an old fart like me. I usually follow this kind of workout with just an easy spin the next day.

[hypnospin]

team mate of mine, got numerous wins including dist champ in ITT also won RAGBRAI with early solo break, was a true talent. i asked him what training methods he used as it seemed to be mostly distance endurance. he related two interesting thing, one, hill repeats on a slight grade. asked about the pace, he replied, "i just haul A@@ as best i can"

he had a background in mtb hill repeats and he warned against these at low exertion, or slowing.

there was something else, a dark secret he would only relate to me after much obvious soul searching torment. he looked over both shoulders before revealing this to me.
he would ride up sierra road above milpitas, calif a good 15%+ grade, then put it in the big ring.

all the parameters for narrowing down heartrate and specific intervals are fine but one thing that sticks for me is to go "race pace" or faster until you cannot anymore. then at that point pedal easy to recovery.
if you wait longer than this you may just be practicing going slow.

whenever we set down rules it always fascinates that those who win handily will break them. case in point, our best arguably sprinter would ask me if i wanted to do some intervals after team sprint stuctured workouts.
this guy would do 20 sets. and he did not believe in base, only intensties.


QUOTE=Rich_W]I'm not scientific... I just torture myself daily... ride against my average, and push as hard as I can for 3 days in the big ring, and then 1 easy day spinning as high an RPM as I can handle.

Basically as hard as I can go without puking when I'm out on my own...

I guess its non-scientific intervals... cause I go as hard as I can... recover a bit, and then do it again, and again... constantly, non-stop.

As for my racing (In my own little cat 4 @ age 40 world)...I'm hanging tough... attentive, and always in the top 10 position. Seems to be working for me.

I've got 90 minutes to complete my 30 mile loop... and 120 to complete my 40. I do everything possible to keep the average above 20. What really works for me is keeping the computer on Average, and pay attention to the little tick mark that says above or below. It really keeps me working.[/QUOTE]

[woolly]

. . .also won RAGBRAI with early solo break . . .

Now THAT'S funny :D

Is he on team Evil? I thought THEY always won RAGBRAI.

[hypnospin]

i know, but you can look him up. he took off just tryin' to stay warm so he said. held off a late charge at the end. a few years back, sure. round '95 or so..
this was Dave Botchek (Leland) Alto Velo.


Now THAT'S funny :D

Is he on team Evil? I thought THEY always won RAGBRAI.

[csb]

when my abacus runs out of beads i stop for ice cream

[Too Tall]

When did they make RAGBRAI a race? I Thought it was a (drunk) tour.