In the dark ages there was a view of âgo hard as you can for as long as you canâ of training. And whist you can do this, for the vast majority of riders, it is difficult to sustain for any length of time and it will take a long time to recover from.
One day some evil genius came up with the idea of going hard for a set amount of time and easy for a set amount of time and the interval was born. Intervals can be any length: 15sec VERY hard/15sec recoveryx30 or 40sec REALLY hard/20sec recoveryx7 or a personal favourite â 60sec hard, 60 sec recoveryx16. The basic and obvious principle underlying intervals is that you go hard, recover, repeat. Over the course of your training session you will accumulate far more time training in high heart rate zones zone (and hence accumulate more training stress) than if you took the âgoing hard for as long as you canâ approach.
longer effort intervals (more than 8 minutes) and with a workout longer than one hour develop a type of fitness that enables you to sustain a high workload over varied terrain and over a prolonged period of time, i.e. the Tuesday evening intervals. This type of fitness is fundamental to all biking but particularly MTBâing (because we spend most of our time climbing and descending and very little time on what could be described as flat).
Because these sessions tend to be near your functional threshold power (FTP â the average power (watts) output that you can sustain for a given period of time) they are uncomfortable and you have to talk yourself into and through them so they are good mental training as well.
Now for an interesting fact. The session should be âuncomfortableâ â not bleeding from the eyeballs... There is very little physical benefit from going at 95% of your Lactate Heart Rate Threshold (HRT) compared to 87%. For the purpose of any interval longer than 4 minutes, HRT is roughly the equivalent of FTP. For intervals under 4 minutes, HRT is less accurate and you should use relative perceived effort (see here for a description of all this stuff... https://thesufferfest.com/blogs/trai...-afraid-to-ask)
To get the most out of the Tuesday intervals, you want to be going steady throughout. If you were to look at a line graph of heart rate afterwards, the line should climb up to your target and stay there for the remainder of the interval. It should not be spiky. Achieving this can be difficult because of natural variation in the terrain. When you are climbing a steep slope it is âeasyâ enough to maintain a higher HR but when things flatten out your HR will drop. To avoid this, you need to move into a higher gear and up your cadence to maintain the effort when the slope flattens out. You will probably find that your HR creeps up over the course of an interval - this is a sign of tiredness, dehydration etc. and is t be expected.
Finally, having said all this, there is a place and time for the âgo hard as you can for as long as you canâ training. This generally takes place once you have a good fitness base and amps up your power and, more importantly, your mental capacity to deal with really hard efforts which are fundamental to racing.
One day some evil genius came up with the idea of going hard for a set amount of time and easy for a set amount of time and the interval was born. Intervals can be any length: 15sec VERY hard/15sec recoveryx30 or 40sec REALLY hard/20sec recoveryx7 or a personal favourite â 60sec hard, 60 sec recoveryx16. The basic and obvious principle underlying intervals is that you go hard, recover, repeat. Over the course of your training session you will accumulate far more time training in high heart rate zones zone (and hence accumulate more training stress) than if you took the âgoing hard for as long as you canâ approach.
longer effort intervals (more than 8 minutes) and with a workout longer than one hour develop a type of fitness that enables you to sustain a high workload over varied terrain and over a prolonged period of time, i.e. the Tuesday evening intervals. This type of fitness is fundamental to all biking but particularly MTBâing (because we spend most of our time climbing and descending and very little time on what could be described as flat).
Because these sessions tend to be near your functional threshold power (FTP â the average power (watts) output that you can sustain for a given period of time) they are uncomfortable and you have to talk yourself into and through them so they are good mental training as well.
Now for an interesting fact. The session should be âuncomfortableâ â not bleeding from the eyeballs... There is very little physical benefit from going at 95% of your Lactate Heart Rate Threshold (HRT) compared to 87%. For the purpose of any interval longer than 4 minutes, HRT is roughly the equivalent of FTP. For intervals under 4 minutes, HRT is less accurate and you should use relative perceived effort (see here for a description of all this stuff... https://thesufferfest.com/blogs/trai...-afraid-to-ask)
To get the most out of the Tuesday intervals, you want to be going steady throughout. If you were to look at a line graph of heart rate afterwards, the line should climb up to your target and stay there for the remainder of the interval. It should not be spiky. Achieving this can be difficult because of natural variation in the terrain. When you are climbing a steep slope it is âeasyâ enough to maintain a higher HR but when things flatten out your HR will drop. To avoid this, you need to move into a higher gear and up your cadence to maintain the effort when the slope flattens out. You will probably find that your HR creeps up over the course of an interval - this is a sign of tiredness, dehydration etc. and is t be expected.
Finally, having said all this, there is a place and time for the âgo hard as you can for as long as you canâ training. This generally takes place once you have a good fitness base and amps up your power and, more importantly, your mental capacity to deal with really hard efforts which are fundamental to racing.