I was talking with a friend of mine today who’s got a personal trainer and we were talking about workouts. I sent him what I thought was a VO2 workout this morning. He said no, this was not a VO2 workout.
I had listened to some podcasts and done some reading on what constitutes a VO2 workout and that it was more about HR vs power. The key is keeping cadence high and HR >=90% of max. On this workout today kept my HR at >= 90% for 29 minutes, its was pretty hard.
As you can see I added my own intervals to get some extra time at high HR and the goal of those intervals was to raise my HR fairly quickly and then let the power taper off while keeping HR high. I’m pretty sure TR is over estimating my FTP right now so the TR intervals were probably 110% of FTP not 106%.
If this isn’t VO2 I’m struggling to figure out how to do a proper VO2 workout. I guess harder starts and shorter work intervals perhaps?
I was breathing pretty damn hard after these intervals today so really I think to do more power I’m going to need them to be shorter if they’re going to stay repeatable.
I’m thoroughly confused on what VO2 is if it’s not this. Basically said the power wasn’t high enough but most of what I’ve read says you can get to VO2 max doing Tempo if you do it long enough, it’s more about HR vs power?
I think you’re more on the right track. 106% is fine AFAIC for longer intervals. For shorter stuff (say 30 30s) the target is generally 120%+ but thatnot what you are doing here and as you say VO2max is about maximal oxygen usage, not exact power.
How was your breathing? For me a succesfuk VO2 max workout is not about power or heartrate, but breathing. Basically you want to breath and sound like an asthmatic at the last third to fourth of an interval.
This was todays. Seems like another one where I did what I was supposed to but being told again it’s not vo2??? WTF
I can’t really see how I can go much harder and have it still be repeatable intervals. HR by the middle of the session was 95-98% of max on those last five intervals. I achieved greater than 90% max in all of the 9 intervals.
I’m pretty worn out. Legs are sore and body is tired.
Id ignore your mate. Everyone else on this thread agrees what you are doing is VO2max. Longer intervals gradually take you into the VO2max zone at a lower power; the only way you can reasonably hit higher power is on short sharp intervals (say 30x30 @ 135% which I coincidentally done on Tuesday) which get you to the VO2max zone after a few reps. There is no way at 135% FTP could I hold that power for much longer.
I always thought V02 Max was greater than 105% but less than 120% of FTP period. When I do them I don’t really pay attention to my HR value I just focus on staying in the zone. I do disagree with TrainerRoad calling 30 X 30’s a V02 workout when the % of FTP is anywhere from 125 to 150 percent of FTP. Don’t get me wrong I think they do wonders for you in terms of fitness but I wouldn’t call them a V02 workout. In my opinion they are Anaerobic pure and simple.
