This method of training came up at our club the other day, it seems that this sort of interval training is being used more and more today as a means of increasing your maximum power output.
However not everything works in the same way for everyone! I know that for sure, for example I can not Time Trial as fast as a teammate who is the UK university champion, but come a hill, he is like a cat in water! Absolutely hates it! :-D
This leads me on to racing! We all love it and experience varying degrees of success on PCM - I always lose (on easy) but other seem to have no problem racing on extreme and dominating! (fair play to you sirs!) but I have noticed that my race tactics have certainly evolved and improved somewhat from playing PCM! (although I still need I win this season!) a top 10 in a timetrial is the best I have achieved! That came as a massive shock as well!
So what do you guys race? And what do you think your specialites are?
That's a bit simplistic as a method. Reality is more complex.
All in all it's not very different from the Gimenez model.
5 minutes of recovery ? Why not, but what intensity should be sustained during that time ?
Riding at 100 % of your max aerobic power ? Good luck. It fluctuates a little every day, so I'd say working in its zone (80 to 100 % of your MAP) is probably a better option.
Work only slightly higher and you'll end up doing lactate work, and you're never going to sustain it for 2,5 minutes 8 times in a row.
How long can you sustain 100 % of your max aerobic power ? It fluctuates a lot. Even for one person in particular. It depends on the state of exhaustion, global fatigue, stress, etc.
Studies conducted on half a dozen of cyclists of similar level and who were asked to maintain 90 % of their MAP showed some could only sustain it for 4 minutes, when others managed up to 12 minutes.
The subtle challenge of interval training is to have it right on the four parameters. And depending on your objective there are many possible combinations.
The four parameters are :
- exercise length
- exercise intensity
- counter-exercise length
- counter-exercise intensity
And, of course, cycling is not all about MAP, unless you're a prologue specialist with no ambition on other turfs.
Btw, you should probably use the "your cycling" thread to discuss about cycling and/or training methods.
