Just wanted a few opinions on a couple of workouts I done. 1st was 40 continuous mins at 225watts ( SS ) and 2nd was 4× 8mins at 240watts with 3 mins rest.
I just thought that by doing 40 mins at 225w that I would be able to more that 240w for the 4 x 8 min intervals ???
I guess it depends what your FTP is. SS has a decently wide % range so that 225 could be 88 or 95% which is a big difference.
32 min TiZ vs 40 min TiZ it one thing so basically the same. Maybe you had a bad day, nutrition, cooling etc. The other thing is how much threshold workouts have you done? Jump from SST to threshold requires some adaptation (in my case) that lasts 2,3 workouts. Not to mention that 40 min SST is not particulary hard workout. 40 min is the amount of work you should be able to do at your FTP. This should translate to around 60-80 min SST (it depends between the people, so the given numbers are on the lower side).
Sometimes that extra 15 watts can feel like a huge difference. I wouldn’t feel to discouraged if I was you. Continue training at threshold and eventually I think you’ll have no problem with 4x8 at 240W. Try to be 20 min at 230-235 and see how that goes.
I get what you are thinking, for sure! Ha! But once you get over lactate threshold it’s an ‘avalanche breakdown’. Or…things go bad in an exponential fashion. So evil.
That’s why a workout like Dicks-2 or Jacks+1 is SO MUCH harder than something like Gayely. Those workouts are all 4x8 at workrates that are not too many watts different…but the difficulty is WAY different.
In my opinion…if you are having trouble doing 8 minutes at a given workrate repeatably…that workrate may be a little above what I would call your FTP. FTP should feel like you can hold it for >40 minutes continuously.
Yeah , true enough. I actually got my 1st dose of the AstraZeneca yesterday and after my workout I became really unwell , shivering, headache , fatigued etc in bed at 6pm !!!
So that may have contributed to the workout as well. Going to do SS and Threshold fir the next few months gradually adding time ss in 4 x 8, 3 x 12 , 4 x 10 , 3 x 15 etc SS 2 X 25 , 2 x 30 , 1 x 45 , 1 x 60 etc.
Congratulations!! But, yeah, you’re going to have to keep an open mind about your workouts for the next 12 days or so.
You’ve been at this game for a while, @teamkennyg , so I’m quite confident you’re going to achieve your training goals. That training progression looks ok to me.
Cheers , yeah no great plans but other years I’ve done a lot of long slow stuff and some intervals on turbo but never really tried any progression as such so gonna try it for a while and see how it works. Got rid of a stone weight the last few months as well so thats a good start I suppose.
This explains a lot. I have had first dose of astra on monday and it kicks really hard for a day.
I think the ability to complete higher intensity intervals comes with practice. Everybody is different, and some will find it easier than others.
But If I was advising someone starting out with a new interval protocol like 4X8, I would build up to it. Firstly, I would not be too concerned about hitting exact intensities to start with, just focus on getting the feel of it. It might be that you do the first around 220W and then see if you can add a bit for each interval. I would also just do 3X8 the first time, and then consider the rests between intervals too. Only after a 2 or three of the sessions would I really rest the boundaries.
Just my thoughts, but I do think there is a tendency to think that in general, people think you can just automatically hit all the numbers first time round, and then are disheartened.
Depending on where your threshold is, that jump in wattage could be hugely significant. I do SS Base 1 and 2, then hit build and feel like I haven’t ridden in months as soon as I hit those threshold efforts. It’s normal. I’m at roughly the same level I think. Could sit around 220-230 for awhile, but 240-250 would be drastically shorter efforts.