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How Long, How Hard, and How Often?
Anaerobic intervals can make or break your summer
When a new client signs up for coaching with Cycle-Smart it almost never
fails that they're shocked and concerned with the lack of anaerobic, high
intensity intervals in their training program. Other than sprint workouts,
for the first 12 weeks of the season the hardest interval they're asked
to do is 8-12 beats below their lactate threshold. It takes a large amount
of trust as it seems counter-intuitive; if you want to get faster, you
have to train as long, hard, and often as possible, right? Trying to get
them to take a new approach can be difficult.
Many of my articles on Bike.com have revolved around the importance of
base training, rest, and recovery. These are the foundation and framework
of deep, solid fitness, and almost always the aspects that self-coached
riders overlook in their anxiousness to get to the "hard" stuff.
With no base, you'll be able to do a certain volume of anaerobic work--you'll
get fast, but your fitness will have a low ceiling and a short shelf life.
With a solid aerobic base, you'll be able to do a much higher volume of
anaerobic work with less days of recovery in between each workout. Your
fitness will reach a higher level and last longer, with much less risk
of overtraining.
Most of my clients are at the point where they've finished their base
work, and are ready to complete their fitness picture with the anaerobic
training I've kept from them until now. It's not that they haven't been
anaerobic yet; they've been racing every weekend and of so of course getting
high intensity work done then. Only when they've achieved all their aerobic
goals, however, is when I allow them to begin specific anaerobic training
during the week. There are 3 types of anaerobic intervals that I utilize:
maximal, submaximal, and high. The effort is similar for all three, but
the major difference is the length of each interval. Maximal efforts can
be done year-round and are simply 8-15 second sprints, the details of
which I outlined in a previous article.
Submax: Submax efforts begin like a sprint, but then the effort is held
for 45 seconds to 2 minutes at a level below what you could do with a
maximal sprinting effort. The ideal structure is to do these as 1 minute
on, 1 minute off, to emphasize lactate tolerance and partial recovery
between each effort. The feeling is very similar to repeated sprinting
out of corners, or covering attacks and counter-attacks. These intervals
should be done early in the week after full recovery from the weekend,
and early in a training phase when your body is still fresh enough to
handle them.
The delayed reaction of the heart to catch up to this short, anaerobic
effort makes going by heart rate somewhat ineffective. A power meter is
the best way to measure the effort, and perceived exertion will be just
as effective as your heart rate monitor in this case. If you're doing
these intervals in the context of a training race repeated short attacks
or sprinting for primes is ideal.
High: High again begins like a sprint, but this time the effort is held
for 2-4 minutes, with a recovery period equal to the interval or longer.
The ideal interval length is 3 minutes, which helps to differentiate it
from either Submax or a longer, aerobic effort. Generally, 5 minutes is
about how long your body can stay anaerobic in a single effort before
oxygen debt shuts it down. If you're properly warmed up, it should take
about a minute to get your heart rate to or above your lactate threshold,
so here you can rely on your heart rate monitor more than with the Submax.
Training in this zone is intended to increase your ability to deliver
oxygen to working muscles quickly, and tolerate high lactate levels created
with each effort. Mentally, it helps you become familiar with riding through
the pain of being anaerobic for an extended period. The effort is similar
to bridging a gap to a breakaway, or staying with the leaders or even
attacking over the top of a climb. The intervals can be done on Tuesdays
or Wednesdays throughout a training cycle, but again only after full recovery
from the weekend. In the context of a weekly training race, taking one-lap
flyers or an extended pull on the front is ideal.
In both cases, these intervals can be used to emphasize many different
aspects of your form. They can be done motorpacing or in training races,
on climbs or flats, or on a TT bike or with aero bars. They can also be
done at high cadences to emphasize leg speed and efficiency, or at a low
cadence to increase strength, both of which will increase your overall
power. Which aspect you choose to emphasize will depend on your weaknesses,
and what events you have coming up. The volume you do within a single
workout will depend on how long you can maintain the quality of the work.
When you find you can no longer raise your heart rate, or the speed or
power you're generating begins to drop, you should end the session before
you do any serious damage.
The most important thing to keep in mind with anaerobic work is that overdoing
it is the easiest way to ruin your season. Most riders can only handle
2-3 workouts of this type in a week, and that includes racing. So, if
you're racing on both Saturday and Sunday your only hard workout for the
week might fall on Wednesday, or you might not do it all. At this time
of the year, full recovery between races and training is crucial to keeping
you rolling and away from overtraining.
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