I’m not sure how deep people have looked into how you can customize Coach Jack, but you can get him to do almost anything although it may not be obvious how to do it.
Here’s the basic background for any of these:
Change the block to Custom.
You can pick an intensity level to start.
You can choose what type of custom block you have.
What about a Fat Max block similar to what Ivegotabike is doing?
First way: 4-wk Tempo Block #10 to #12 has 2x18 at 82% to 2x20 at 84%.
He likes 3x20 so it isn’t quite as hard, but is getting close. Tempo Blocks higher than #12 increase power and once you get much past 85% of FTP they aren’t Fat Max intervals anymore.
Second way: 4-wk Sweet Spot Blocks #5 to #7 has 4x6 to 84% 3x10 at 84%, this is quite a lot easier probably more like a beginners introduction to Fat Max.
What about Dr Seiler’s 4x8s?
This is a little trickier. If you pick a 16-wk VO2 Max Long #10 to #21, the last workouts #19-#21 in weeks 13 to 15 will build from 4x7.5 at 104% up to 4x7.5 at 106%, so it doesn’t quite get there, but is close.
What if you say Coach Jack is just way too easy. I want something so hard it’ll make my legs fall off!
16-wk VO2 Max Crunched #10 to #21 starts with 6x3.5 at 115% with 2 minute rest and ends with 3x8 at 115% with 2 minute rests. I’d estimate that #21 is probably not possible to finish if your FTP is correct.
The prediction tool says I’d pop in the last minute or two of interval #3. I won’t test it to find out
The point is within reason you can get it to do about whatever you want. Sweet Spot Blocks will go as hard as 3x30 at 90%, Threshold Blocks as hard as 2x14 at 100%, HIIT A as hard as 3 sets of 10 40-20s at 140%, etc…
But while you can do all of this it may be smarter to just use the way it is intended with the standard blocks?
Yes indeed, its quite flexible / configurable and you can get a pretty wide range of focused blocks.
Its always tempting to crank it up to the max at the outset but what I like about it is you can see the hardest workout at the end of the block (s) and judge your starting point from there. Some of the VO2max workouts are pretty hard when you get beyond #15.
My problem is I judge my starting point based off a younger more capable version of myself and then run into trouble after a few months later :).
I’ve just complete a block of sweetspot hard that finished with 2 * 20 @ 88% on tue and 3 * 15 @ 88% on thur. Felt great during these workouts and thought I had turned a corner after some health issues in the first part of the year. Then on the recovery week I couldn’t quite recover and end up doing 3 consecutive recovery weeks and only coming out the other side now and feeling good again.
I was almost certain I was going to get cold / flu but managed to avoid it by using ChatGBT to guide / advise me. It mostly had me doing 20/30 min rides at 45-50% until I built back up to 1 hour where the ride made me feel better and recovered. Left to my own devices I would have probably done a group ride that put me in the sick bed.
Interestingly despite doing pretty low intensity / volume riding for the past 3 weeks my VO2max per garmin has remained the same and my power / HR ratio has remained pretty good.
To your point around using the standard as allocated, yes its probably best.
But my experiment with riding only by feel /chatgpt advice to avoid sickness has got me thinking maybe I should adopt this for all workouts, ie call it a day early if not feeling it. I’ve pushed through to hit TSS / imaginary targets in the past just for the sake of it.
I love this. Yes, it’s a fine balance between being lazy and giving up and smart retreat. If you have recovery issues, then for sure it’s smarter to error on the side of giving up early and calling it a zone 2 day. Do long gradual 20 minute warmups to make a solid determination of how you feel.
