Which Half is Better

Originally Posted by frenchyge

If you read the definition and examples in the link I posted then maybe you'll understand the difference better. To be exact, the OP presented a scenario where he does three 20 minute intervals at 96% of his absolute best-day, max effort, 1hr power (scenario A). You then disagreed with the silly notion of someone doing sixteen (or even twelve) 20 minute intervals rather than just riding 4 hours at a steady power (scenario B). IOW, you presented a different scenario that was much easier to refute (ie, a strawman) and then attempted to attribute it to the OP as if he'd said it. That's the very definition of the logical fallacy commonly referred to as a strawman argument.

Now, if we'd like to discuss ideas on their own merits instead of trying to twist things around to make others look foolish, then I'd be all up for that.

Originally Posted by swampy1970

Because I believe that if you can ride for a given period of time, be it one hour or four hours, then spliting that up into intervals and then still riding that at or below the level you can sustain for the duration of the ride in a single interval is (a) adding extra time for no extra gain and (b) not providing the same level of muscular endurance.

Originally Posted by frenchyge

1 hour and 4 hours are two entirely different cases. As Dave has pointed out before, I can't imagine anyone advocating doing intervals at "4-hr intensity." No one does that, would do that, or has done that because it just wouldn't make sense -- that's why it's a strawman. Now, for higher intensity levels people/riders/coaches typically *do* suggest an interval approach, so the difference between 1hr and 4hrs is apples and oranges.

Now, for the case at hand: he's not doing his intervals at 96% of what he could do for the same duration, he's doing them at 96% of his best-day, highest motivation, well-rested, single-effort power and he's probably doing them a couple times a week in and around his other riding. You can try to argue that he should nail it everyday or die trying, but that's not the way it works and that's not the most effective way to train. It's not intended to be an all-out workout, it's intended to be a solid, hard workout which contributes to the bigger training plan.

As for the little bursts at the end, maybe they're for fun or to see what he has left at the end of the sub-maximal interval. I think the general comments he's gotten are that they're unlikely to be of significant benefit, so we're probably on the same page with those.

Originally Posted by swampy1970

If you've ridden 60 minutes "on the rivet" how do you have anything left? At 50 minutes you should be about ready to sell your soul to the Devil and yack whatever you ate a couple of hours ago all over the pavement.

Originally Posted by swampy1970

Basically, what my responses boil down to is that if you can do the total amount of work in one session, in this case 3x20, in one steady effort at the same power level then I don't see it as being as effective a session as it could be. Other than comfort, why do it?

I'm not sure that we have the same understanding of FTP. Being out of the game for a number of years and seeing "training levels" jump from Peter Keen's 4 to 6 or more based on whose training schemes you follow... my understanding of FTP is based upon this rather neat diagram that I think Alex put together.

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/...omparison-2.jpg

If that IS what FTP really is then I can see 100% FTP being darned tough for 1 hour straight but 96% being doable. I'm not the guy in question so I can't speak for him but if his FTP is around 300watts then taking of 4% is almost 15watts, that's a nice chunk.

As for "I can't imagine anyone advocating doing intervals at "4-hr intensity." - I just see "an interval" as a period of total work that split into smaller periods of higher quality work or several periods of work done for a combined longer period of time that can be accomplished at that power level. Time frame can be anything.

As for the longer training, that comment was sparked from doc's post:

"it's used so that the work periods can have a higher ave. power than they can from doing a single long effort... or so that the intervals can be done more comfortably at the same power that they could be done in one long effort."

... to which I questioned the "comfort" aspect. OK, maybe I went a little further than that and it came across as "belittling" the comfort aspect which maybe was a little out of order...

I recall years ago that some of the Belgian pros, I think Walter Planckaert was the center of the article, said that back in the day they'd ride for several hours in a loop near their home, rest at home for 20 minutes or so and then go out again. Why? Something to do with being a bit cold and wanting something warm but mainly it was being able to extend the amount of time they could train for and allow them to ride a bit faster too. The 'intervals' in question were rather long but they done at a higher quality. I believe that Andy Wilkinson did something similar in his training for his 12 and 24 records but the 'rest' between was longer. Again, long intervals. I wasn't making this up... I'm not always that clever you know and I'll be the first to admit it.

In both situations, long and short intervals, I was questioning why you'd want to do them at a lower level than you could achieve at race pace. Time frames are irrelevant, IMHO. If you think that's a strawman arguement then so be it...

Originally Posted by swampy1970

Basically, what my responses boil down to is that if you can do the total amount of work in one session, in this case 3x20, in one steady effort at the same power level then I don't see it as being as effective a session as it could be.

Originally Posted by swampy1970

Other than comfort, why do it?

Originally Posted by rmur17

[QUOTE=swampy1970] snippet In both situations, long and short intervals, I was questioning why you'd want to do them at a lower level than you could achieve at race pace. Time frames are irrelevant, IMHO. If you think that's a strawman arguement then so be it...[/QUOTE]

1. FTP typically established on outdoor results and on race-prep results as you rightly mention. Many people (at least on here) are training indoors from fall until ~April. Many people cannot duplicate outdoor power for a full 60-min effort indoors. Part of that has been attributed to motivation, part due to inadequate cooling.
   
   Breaking them up into ~20min chunks helps with those (shorter effort to concentrate on, modest cooldown between efforts).
2. Other Mental factors. For instance, I personally train threshold four times weekly. There is no *way* I could handle four hour-long sessions right at FTP w/o a break! Variety.
3. Day-to-day biological variation in performance. From lab studies etc, IIRC this is around 4-5%. That alone is enough of a reason to avoid multiple full FTP sessions per week. it's a recipe for failure.

Anyhow, I have no endurance for long posts or long arguments. I'm a proponent of consistent training with 'sufficient' volume and 'effective' average intensity. The details of the sessions don't interest so much any longer versus the bigger picture.

Originally Posted by acoggan

I used to think this way about 40 km TTs as well. Then I started using a powermeter to analyze my pacing and realized that I could go faster and not hurt quite so much.

Originally Posted by jsirabella

I kind of had a feeling this was where you were going all the time with your argument. It comes down to the definition of FTP. For me FTP is something I can only hit on rare occassions when as they say "all the planets are aligned". Once I begin to notice that my FTP seems to be something I can repeat than my FTP should go up.

How about overtraining? Lets look at you...what is your FTP? How often when you were training for a race and not just trying to loose weight did you do 1 hour efforts at your FTP? If you were not riding at your best 1 hour effort all the time, what other type of riding did you do? What were your results?

I am not trying to put you on the spot, I would like to know if what you say worked based upon your own personal experience.

-js

Originally Posted by swampy1970

Most of my training before my final year of racing was basically two hours at just below my best 50 mile effort. I'd ride a 50 mile TT at around 175bpm +/- 5bpm mostly dependant on time of day (we Brits tend to have a liking for starting events stupidly early in the morning so it was mostly a "-"). Best 50mile time was 1hr 56minutes with Campag Shamals, descente 'team USA' "batman" skinsuit and aerohat. Training on the same bike with training wheels averaged around 25 / 25.5mph for the most part. This was done mostly four times a week (tue, thur, sat, sun) but towards the end of winter/begining of spring it'd be done twice on the weekends with interval training at the coaches house mid week.

Originally Posted by swampy1970

An equivalent effort on a power measuring King Cycle showed around 290 to 300 watts - something that I thought was a little high for only 25mph in time trial position - but maybe the old Specialized Airforce 2 and layers of winter thermals didnt help the cause of speed.

Originally Posted by Steve_B

Based upon your description, particularly the frequency by which you were doing this workout (4x/week?) and the duration, I'd say that that this was what we would call "tempo" or L3. Maybe some lower L4 at times. Definitely falls under the rubrique of Sweet-Spot Training (SST).
No, 290-300 w sounds about right. If your best 1-hour effort was around 340 as you say it was, that would make those two-hour efforts around 290-300 very SST-ish.

Originally Posted by swampy1970

As I understand, and I could well be wrong, FTP is almost your best 25 mile effort. When I was racing this was ~340watts, as measured at the lab at what was Crewe and Alsager College (now taken over by Manchester University) at 6mmol/l blood lactate.

Most of my training before my final year of racing was basically two hours at just below my best 50 mile effort. I'd ride a 50 mile TT at around 175bpm +/- 5bpm mostly dependant on time of day (we Brits tend to have a liking for starting events stupidly early in the morning so it was mostly a "-"). Best 50mile time was 1hr 56minutes with Campag Shamals, descente 'team USA' "batman" skinsuit and aerohat. Training on the same bike with training wheels averaged around 25 / 25.5mph for the most part. This was done mostly four times a week (tue, thur, sat, sun) but towards the end of winter/begining of spring it'd be done twice on the weekends with interval training at the coaches house mid week - see session below.

It hurt. I disliked it and too be honest it was rather boring and had to change my route when I did it outdoors so that the last few miles were mostly slightly uphill. But my coach said it'd do me good and I had faith in the guy, so I did it. I started to see results after a month or two so that provided all the motivation that I needed.

An equivalent effort on a power measuring King Cycle showed around 290 to 300 watts - something that I thought was a little high for only 25mph in time trial position - but maybe the old Specialized Airforce 2 and layers of winter thermals didnt help the cause of speed.

When done in the garage, it was done on a cheap tacx trainer, metallica, pantera and machine head on the walkman and a sign on the floor that had a comical phrase to put things in perspective in bold letters - "it could be worse, you could be working in the Siberian salt mines"... Sadly, a new job midway through the year which brought the end to nearly all my training time and a good portion of my racing time too....

.... and thus began the 75lb weight gain to 220lbs.

Aside from the grim two hour sessions during late fall, winter and early spring, everything else was interval training.

This was about as bad as it got.

10 min ride at approx 90 pedal rev/min
2min rest (pedalling slowly)
6 x 2min at approx 100 pedal rev/min with 30sec rest between each
5min rest (pedalling slowly)
12 x 1min at approx 110 pedal rev/min with 30sec rest between each
2min rest (pedalling slowly);
15 x 30sec at approx 125 pedal rev/min with 30sec rest between each

This was done at the coaches house, with an IBM PC being used as a timer displaying when to work, rest and a countdown for each. Sessions done earlier in the year had fewer reps and a 5 minute interval at the start rather than the 10.

I found that training great for crits and short road races but I never saw the same benefits as some did for steady state riding such as time trials, which is why my period for "winter training" went on for longer than most of the other riders that I trained with. Maybe I just needed a bigger base of the two hour rides to get more benefit from it. I don't know - and maybe I never will....

Now I tootle around the lumpy roads at 22, 23mph riding on the tops for a couple of hours - or ride up my favorite hill. All starts well until the familar hip flexor/aductor pain sets in just before the never before used hamstrings start to ache and everyone around Vacaville can mentally hear some English twit cursing his Power Cranks. But at least my quads are happy that they're not taking the brunt of things like they did a decade ago.

I can ride on the drops only for about 20 minutes due to said cranks and aerobically I feel taxed at 24.5 / 25 mph but not to the point where I'd fail to keep it going. HR is normally around 175 to 180. I know from the climbs around here than 180 is sustainable for at least 45 minutes. That'd put a guestimate 1 hour power at somewhere in the 280/300 range (5ft 11, 178lbs "unaerodynamic" guy). I'd be happy with 270... Given the gut squish and complete inability to ride in that position for an hour I'll wait until I a get rid of a sizeable chunk of the 30lb I have left to lose. That's my biggest 'goal' and a weighty challenge! Ho ho. Ironically, I'm losing body fat but not that much weight as my legs are filling out more than they've ever done - and getting bigger at a rather fast rate. The wife likes - but I'll endup with Leipheimer-esque muscle stumps if it keeps going!! I'm getting defined muscles on the inside of my thighs - what's up with that? LOL

As for a power meter.... I have a CS600 and read that the newer power kits are better than the originals but the fact they're not that great on the trainer puts me off a little.

The PowerTap is out because I like my American Classic 420's with Sapim spokes - maybe if I ding them I won't feel as guilty about replacing them... and I just aint buying the Power Crank with SRM unit (powercrank squared?) - as that couple of grand could be used on some good race shocks for the miata, or a fuel injection system for the old 502 Camaro.....