You are probably correct as english isn’t my first language.
Interesting choice of words as for me going 100% is torturing myself for no reason (as I don’t gain any fitness).
I believe her performance went up.
But not her VO2max? And would her performance have improved more if she went harder?
(Obviously I am not impressed convinced by anecdotes and appeals to authority.)
To be honest, I don’t know, I was just trying to provide some discussion and insight in to another perspective on VO2 max intervals that isn’t just “go as hard as you can until you throw up” which is the common one. Sure, if you have a met cart and can perform regular VO2 Max tests then great, but I suspect most people here just have a powermeter and a turbo trainer and measure their performances in races and workouts.
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I don’t think that there are any published VO2max numbers for her (Siren Seiler). I came across a tweet where Stephen published her training plan. In this video he is talking about intensity (among other things) with his daughter.
Stephen promotes 8 min intervals to improve VO2max, they are demanding but not all out.
Btw, her performance improved.
I think the mistake here is assuming anyone is interested in impressing you.
There’s plenty of room for conversation and disagreement here without being as rude as you continue to be.
Can I please appeal to you to engage in discussion with a little more courtesy? Thanks
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I have edited my post. Happy now?
Should HR plateau during the course of a vo2 interval? Mine keeps rising throughout.
You’ll never see an absolute plateau, due to cardiac drift. However, if it goes up more than a few bpm over the last couple of minutes despite constant or declining power, then you probably haven’t warmed up enough or your intervals are too short.
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So interesting suggest, that I thinking about how to monitor fatigue.
Can you share some example for how to make sure haven’t warmed up enough or your intervals are too short?
My first interval, I try to hard-start at 130%FTP until to 90% MaxHR that keep in 88-93%FTP.
Dose any tip that I can monitor fatigue during every hard-start interval?
Very thank a lot
If you look into the work of Monod & Sherrer you will find the parameter W’. It is useful to determine how far you have depleted your anaerobic capacity. W’ is available as a data field in Garmin iq. More info available here.
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Any input on my mid-length (3-4 mins) intervals? I focused on accumulating time above 90%HRmax (2 red lines you can see at 90% and 95%). yellow line is at ~120%FTP.
I did 2x 4 mins (first was just to see how I feel), and 3x 3 mins. with a bit of hard start. I think I made them at 9/10 RPE. I didn’t do full out, cuz I could see my HR already at ~93-95%, so I prefered to save energy for next intervals. (I could probably do 1-2 more, but it was late and getting cold - 7-8*C and I didn’t want to breathe hard such cold air). 14 mins above 90%HRmax total.
anything I can do better? Do rest part is important to keep it short? (I kept at around 4mins now, as I didn’t do vo2max intervals for a long time and didn’t know what to expect).
And those are my 105%FTP intervals (1y ago), I wasn’t specifically focused on vo2max (however i guess it was helping - half of the time was above 90%HRmax? - 16mins above 90%HRmax total), but I had one favourite ~11min climb which I was tormenting 
Looks alright. It’s hard to see the whole picture with just the graphs. How did it feel? all out? Breathing rate maxed? etc.
My only comments would be:
- Your cadence is super low for most of it (80ish). Try keeping your cadence high, effort maxed, and don’t focus too much on the power.
- You can extend the rests if you need it. 1:1 work/rest is about the absolute minimum and I would usually rest until you feel ready for the next one but not so long that your legs begin to ‘turn off’. Usually like 1:2 to 1:4 range.
- Your average power for 3min was basically the same as 4min. So maybe you could have gone a bit harder on the shorter intervals?
Your heart-rate-focused intervals still train VO2 max, even if power is below FTP, since it targets your cardiovascular system.
So as I mentioned, it was maybe 9/10 RPE. I never went full gas, trying to safe some power for the next intervals (especially that I saw that I was reaching 93-95%HRmax, so I tought that’s enough). breathing for sure was difficult, but still not like fainting 
I don’t know how are my legs comparing to my vo2max now, cuz I broke my forearm 6 months ago, and I rode a bit less in the last few months. I’ve lost ~10% of my FTP and ~10% of my vo2max (and a lot of motivation 
).
ad.1 it’s just a cadence I like, not sure what happened, but this winter my cadence dropped ~8rpm (I can compare it on of my best times on many climbs (10-15 mins above FTP), similar power, similar FTP, vo2max etc. but avg cadence ~8rpm lower than previus years, even despite changing crankarms to 165mm! (170mm previous years) - i’m 181cm). maybe because I rode in a winter many climbs/mountains (also z2-z3 means lower candence)?
ad.2 ok, so 1:1 or a bit more rest (like 1 min more), if I feel that intervals start to be too difficult.
ad.3 as I said, I didn’t push to the max, first 30sec. a bit harder, and then around 120%FTP, and closer to the end when I saw HR in 93-94%HRmax range, i was just keeping it there also trying just to save power for next intervals. the last one - 4 mins, i kept it longer cuz i wanted to go home after this one, so I kept it longer also with a bit higher power (last 30-60sec.)
Should I just aim to keep HR >90% ? or, go full gas ? as I mentioned, I didn’t go full gas at any point, as I was already reaching 90% and even the second half of every interval I was around 93-95%HRmax, and at the end, I could do probably 1-2 more intervals. other option, I could do all intervals for 4 mins with that power I guess.
Other people have different philosophies but what I’ve done the past several years is full gas. Now that doesn’t mean going all out at every moment of every interval, especially the first couple. But max oxygen uptake, usually measured (or felt) by getting to that fish out of water breathing. Usually my first interval is like 7-10% higher power than the last one but they all feel equally hard.
I also don’t really look at HR until after and then just as a potential measure of fatigue. Later in a VO2 block you can be so tired that you can’t actually go hard enough to get your HR up.
As for the cadence, the increase cadence can do a couple things. 1) venous return and 2) less force per pedal stroke.
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each muscle pump helps send blood back to the heart so a higher cadence sends more blood back which can help the heart expand more and pump more blood
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I find this helps with muscle fatigue both within and between workouts.
But don’t get too hung up on either HR or power as a measure. In the end, neither are the actual thing that you are trying to train (VO2max or stroke volume) and they are just proxies. So 95% max HR may or may not actually be getting you to the state you’re looking for and I find that the breathing rate and gasping for air feeling gets me to where I’m trying to go.
so you think most important would be to get to the state where I really gasp for air (like really hard) ? I’ll try harder next time. (I know when I can breathe harder etc )
I can try next time, I didn’t try to go so hard, so I can survive next intervals (push my muscles enough, to rise my HR enough - which is just a proxy of oxygen consumption etc. as you said).
I know theory behind higher/lower cadence, a few years ago when I started road biking, I tried to keep it high (or train it), but I guess last year when I got stronger (FTP 4W/kg and vo2max ~62-63) I stopped caring about it. I was just riding for fun (maybe I watched some videos saying that everyone has different cadence and that’s it, there is no one magic cadence )
thanks for feedback.
there really needs to be a different name for these things. people are doing two different things. then arguing with one another which is best. and it’s super confusing. can someone please start a trend?
to me VO2 work should be just go all out fish out of water breathing, doesn’t matter what the power meter says. you just want your heart going nuts for a while.
then Seiler type intervals should just be called Supra-Threshold or Above Threshold Intervals. or whatever. call them Seiler intervals. or W’ building. practice above threshold for duration and build your capacity there but not completely annihilate yourself.
it’s two completely different things and i’m sure there are times in one’s career where one would benefit over the other. or maybe a little of both.
that’s what I’m gathering anyway.
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When do you decide between the two? VO2 Heart Rate during build and W’ during specialty phase?
There’s a meta study by Michael Rosenblat, Jem Arnold, and Seiler that explores interval length. I found it really interesting. Discussed on this podcast:
The study:
The short version is that training above FTP did improve VO2max but didn’t improve TT performance.
I think the analysis was that you can raise the roof but then you need to raise the ceiling after that.
So choose intervals by:
First raise ceiling (FTP) until you plateau. Then raise the roof (vo2max). Then raise ceiling to new level.
One might also want to look through Michael Rosenblat’s studies on Research Gate. He has a few meta analysis that are relevant.
And he also did his study on the TR platform.
While there were to many dropouts (you slackers!) for statistical power, they did find that 6 minute intervals were better than 2 minute intervals and better than intermittent intervals. It was:
4x6min @ 115%
12x2 min @ 115%
12x2 min @ 130%
3 sets of 30/30s @ 130%
All bouts totaled 24min in duration.
The conclusion was that once above threshold, duration matters more than intensity. Would have been awesome if they have included the “Seiler” 4x8s at say 105%. And too bad so many people didn’t complete the study.
I think the relevant information is to get above FTP and put in the time. Don’t try to kill yourself at 130%. Of course, there are lots of caveats about that. Maybe if you have great anaerobic capacity then 105% is nose breathing for you. But then maybe extra duration is what you need rather than high intensity and wrecking your legs for days.
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