Best workout for improving 5min power

[Lewishong9]

Which training sessions or plans would you guys recommend for improving 5 min power?

I struggle with punchy and rolling hills where guys who have lower watts per kilo is able to drop me…

Thanks for the help!

[KickrLin]

@Lewishong9

guys who have lower watts per kilo is able to drop me…

?? You mean higher watts per kilo? or the problem is that even guys w/lower w/kg can drop you?

Either way, if you want to improve 5min power, you need to incorporate some VO2max work into your training. There are entire threads on here regarding VO2max work. Here are a few good ones:

Short intense period before starting base? Chad's short FTP boost plan

There isn’t a plan for this, but it’s a pretty easy thing to slap together if you comb the workout catalog’s VO2max offerings. Personally, I like starting short (30-second repeats) and growing the durations over a block as short as a single week to as long as 3 weeks depending on when my progress and/or motivation starts to stall. It never fails to surprise me how much more manageable 3-minute VO2max repeats are if I start short and work my way up to these longer jobbers, even if I do it over t…

Catch 22 on VO2 work

I really enjoy (and respond well) to sweet spot work and have benefited from ssb 1 and 2 to give decent rises in ftp. The issue is I struggle with v02 max work, and in particular repeatability of hard intervals. However feel in a bit of a catch 22…do I keep on sweetspot to raise ftp…knowing that it will make the v02 work even harder (and I usually fail most of my v02 scheduled workouts), or focus more on v02 work to improve that side of things but maybe not get ftp rises as much (and I hate it!)…

VO2 % reduction - whilst still acquiring the right intensity and training effect

I know there has been endless discussion on this BUT i was hoping to get some clarification as to what an acceptable % reduction point might be for vo2 workouts. ie is 110% too low? is 115% adequate ? I simply can not hold 120% for more than 1 min and although i know many would say ‘reduce your FTP’ … all other workouts below my threshold (and OU’s) are doable. Yday i did Baird +6 and ended up averaged around 115% … only by end did i find a repeatable intensity around 113% I have listened to…

[bholmlate]

Not everyone Vo2 is at 120% This has been talked about countless times on the podcasts It just represents average across the board for Vo2 work. It is my understanding that you should not drop the percentage below 110% because it changes the whole focus of the workout. If you find that 113% challenging but do able i would start to through in 114% or 115% efforts once in a while to help strengthen your range. At least that is what i do. We all have a ceiling that we will eventually hit and it will slowly decrease as we age. The important thing is that we slightly overload our system to drive improvement

[Lewishong9]

Guys with lower W/kg are dropping me. Being a smaller guy, I can’t seem to match people with burst of higher raw power.

[anthonylane]

I think these are two good workouts for developing 5 min power…curious what others think.

Vandever and Stevens Both have me at vO2max for at least 3-5 min per interval. I can’t do anything above 115% of FTP for longer than 2 min, so I tend to favor longer intervals at a lower percentage of vO2max in order to get more time at vO2max, but at lower watts.

I think another option would be to do a progression where you do:

4x4 (16 min work) @ 110% of FTP
4x5 (20 min work) @ 108%
5x5 (25 min work) @ 110%
4x4 @ 112-115%
4x5 @ 110%-112%
5x5 @ 110%-112%

You just have to experiment and adjust based on how your fitness increases. You might find you’re able to ride at the higher end of the vO2max (106-120%) range.

Lastly, if you’re doing power building intervals, make sure your rest between them is sufficient. You’re not going for repeatability, you want to hit the best power numbers possible for the duration of that interval, not exhaust your system and do the subsequent intervals at lower power. Example: 4x4 @ 110%. Take 8 minutes of rest between sets.

[KickrLin]

It looks like you have been focused on TT workouts. You might consider doing the Short Power Build plan and then either the Rolling or Climbing road race plan.

Or you can try doing 3-4 weeks of focused VO2 work for a change of pace and VO2 boost. For example, make Tue and Thurs VO2. Wed and Fri easy. Weekends go long outside or do some sweetspot or longer endurance on the trainer.