Turbo Intervals

[grellboy]

A while back I enquired on here about getting most effective use from my smart trainer. I'm not currently using any 3rd party apps just the basic tacx app. I have the resistance set to max slope (6%). One of the respondents to my initial enquiry suggested doing intervals so I tried something like that tonight. I kept the slop at 6 per cent but to make the interval effect every two mins I switched from big ring to small and then back again. This had the effect of changing average power from about 320 to 240ish every two minutes. Is this the sort of thing I should be doing? Is this going to be beneficial to raising my ftp? It's currently about 260 btw. Any advice gratefully received.

 

[HLaB]

Something along those lines. The shorter the over/ under intervals the more intense the overs need to be and perhaps you want to ease off (recover more) during the under intervals (say 50-60%FTP) and don't forget to warm up (a couple of all out sprints for say are recommended to me) and cool down at the end (again 50-60%).

You also get ramped intervals and variations in between say 5 mins at 50-60%, 2mins at 80%, 2mins at 90%, 2mins @100%, 2 mins at 110%, 1 min at 120-140%, 2mins @100%, 2mins at 90%, 2mins at 80%, 5 mins at 50-60%.

I've also did intervals which forget about power and use cadence targets.

A coach/training programme will determine whats right for you at a certain time.

They've changed TrainerRoad so I can't see my history without paying for it but I think when I started training it was short and sharp stuff mixed up with low power high cadence drills and as I progressed it was longer stuff say 100%-110% for 10mins and less of the cadence stuff and more ramped intervals.

 

[mgs315]

Looks good to me. Will help condition you into recovering from a lactate build up whilst still pressing on at around sweetspot intensity. I do something similar but with shorter harder efforts on the ‘overs’ to stimulate that same build up.

Other thing to look into is smaller micro intervals (usually around a minute) and split into 20-40s, 30-30s or 40-20s, in block between 5-10 minutes long (a few minutes easy riding in between to recover properly). You change how hard you go on the up bit depending on how long the up bit is. They give you more time at that really hard ‘just holding on while trying to recover’ stage.

I’m no expert mind you.

 

[Milkfloat]

The Tacx App has lots of workouts you can download - you could marry those up with a structured plan from elsewhere.