Today I was not able to complete 4 x 3.5 Minutes @ 108%.
I finished the first two 108% intervals and wasn’t able to push more in the middle of the third one.
May be due to cold, fever, bad sleep, accumulated fatigue as I did VO2Max sessions on Wednesday and Thursday.
But what if that due to my bad performance ?
What is your recommendation in this case for better trainings and workouts ?
e.g.
Should I take minutes or two and continue ?
Should I lower the FTP ?
Should I focus on HIIT sessions more than long VO2Max now ?
and So on
…
What is your training background and how did you identify your FTP? Have you successfully completed workouts similar to 4 x 3.5 minutes at 108% previously?
It is great you’ve able to do 3x8’s at 108%. 4x3.5 at 108% should be much easier by comparison. You said you did back-to-back VO2 workouts on Wednesday/Thursday, I would guess that is the reason why.
Maybe try it again when you are recovered? It sounds like you are able to do the workouts when you are feeling better so the FTP should be close enough.
Without a longer ftp test it’s hard to say if ftp is good but for sure there can be some independence between anaerobic work capacity and ftp. So a few months of hard training and your anaerobic can be at full capacity relative to your ftp. I would just reduce the number of intervals or increase rest duration but hard to say if that is best for you.
Am I the only one who reads that this is his third VO2max session in 4 days!?
If I read your post correctly, @ahmed.elsamman, you say that you have been doing Vo2 max sessions on Wednesday and Thursday, and now you say you can’t finish your session of today, the 26th of April, which is Saturday.
If that is truly the case, then that is the reason why you didn’t finish your session.
My advice is to never do two high-intensity interval sessions on consecutive days.
Next, no more than two high-intensity interval sessions per week.
Third, 3,5 minute intervals are only for the peak period in your schedule, followed by a race or end goal. It is much more effective to do shorter intervals, like 30/15’s or 1/1’s.
Finally, I would mix up the zones. When I create a schedule there is only one vo2max session a week. The other hiit session might be a threshold or sprint session.
Take a look at your today’s TSB, if it’s lower, than -20, then you need some rest. I usually start to struggle at -10…15, so I need a gentle ramp up, not aggressive one. And the higher you are in terms of CTL, less aggressive you should be in ramping up.
Next to that, it’s also recovery valleys that matter. How long are they? If they are too short, then you likely to bonk.
Totally agree with Robe that 3 days of VO2 without a break is insane, never do that. If you are about sort of general fitness, combine in a week one SST, one Threshold and one VO2 session, all the rest is either Z2, recovery or days off.
Yes, learn to understand your TSB and how you feel and how your body is responding. If you can track HRV and compare it to TSB it can help give clues. With cycling some people can handle longer periods of deeper negative TSB than running for example. So you might be able to handle -20 for a week or it might be as soon as you get to -20 you start to feel small pains or start sleeping worse, HRV drops a bunch… It’s very individual and negative TSB based on volume of low intensity can frequently be tolerated better than high intensity reasons for low TSB. So get a feel for how you react to TSB.