Interval Training

[Slowbee]

Hi All

 

Had a read of the latest ride magazine regarding interval training, 30 seconds of all out hell for leather, followed by 4 minutes of rest, repeated 4-6 times.

 

Is this type of training worth it ?

 

Since starting a new job time is limited for training during the week - maybe an hour to an hour and half, including all the stretching and zen work (fandacious you were not kidding when you said those CD's are killers !!).

 

What kind of training would be best suited to fit in an hour a day during the week (and on an IDT when its cold and wet in CT), considering that the 100miler is round the corner? Interval training 3 times a week ?

[Slowbee]

what ! you guys dont train ?

 

 

[Daxiet]

I read this article too, seen quite a bit on interval training over the last few months. In some senses the exact test I believe they spoke about sounds a bit far fetched. But I think used in more conventional terms (2km slight hill, burn, recover en-route to the start and burn again) sticking to interval training twice a week with normal endurance rides on the weekend may be a good start. But from what I've seen all these articles state, don't do interval training more than twice a week - to do with the strain on the body.

 

I however haven't yet fully embraced interval training in my program, I should, but can't quite commit to the idea.

 

So in summary, try get in 2 interval training sessions per week and see how it goes, but work on a slight incline of ~2km or ~5mins work, then slowly return to the base and go again - repeat a couple times. This is at least what I have planned to implement.

 

[YodaJon]

High there, I am a huge sports fanatic and I have a major in Human movement studies from WITS and am in the process of completing my psych major for my degree as well as coaching many provincial national and inernational level athletes. This of course does not make me the know all of the world of cycling, but the sport of rowing where I am involved, the conditioning of the aerobic lactate and anaerobic systems is a key feature to being race ready.

You have to be careful with doing to much interval training especially if your aerobic base/foundation has not been adequately prepared. The thing is with the interval training you are expending full out effort and putting the body under alot of stress. As you said you are under a pretty hectic work schedule so damaging yourself three times a week, might sound like a good idea but all the gains in training are made through adequate recovery of the body. You are also going to play around with your hormones, and hard training causes an increase in testosterone, but inadequate recovery halts this.

I would suggest maybe doing something like this:

No one program is going to work for every athlete. Even a program that works well for an athlete today may lose its' effectiveness in a week, a month or a year. It all depends on the individual and what level he or she is at in training.

In this article I will look at some of the adaptations that take place when you perform short interval sessions. Numerous studies have been done regarding sprint training that lasts from 10-60 seconds, however for this article, I will discuss what happens when we train in the < 10 sec range.

Metabolic Adaptations

The first adaptations to consider are metabolic adaptations. These are basically the muscle increasing its capacity to produce more energy. The muscle tissue does this by increasing the rate at which enzymes are working to produce energy by increasing the storage capacity of the muscle tissue for energy substrates and by increasing the muscle tissues' capability to resist fatigue (Leveritt & Ross, 2001).

Aerobic Contributions To Energy Production

Short duration sprint exercises (< 10 sec) rely almost exclusively on anaerobic processes to produce energy. In longer duration sprints, such as those lasting 20-30 seconds, the aerobic system contributes more to the generation of energy (it should be noted that no type of training is ever purely anaerobic in nature).


Increasing Energy & Decreasing Fatigue.
There are a number of components in the energy equation. Learn what they are...

In sprints less than 10 seconds, the aerobic system contributes approximately 13%, while in longer sprints; it contributes to 27% of energy produced (Leveritt & Ross, 2001). Therefore, the metabolic adaptations for the two types of sprints will differ.

Phosphate Metabolism

One adaptation is phosphate metabolism. Phosphate creatine stores are major substrates the body uses to generate energy and a sprinter can deplete his PCr levels by over 60% during a 60m sprint. Therefore, Myokinase, the enzyme responsible for resynthesizing energy from PCr, has been shown to increase up to 20% with sprint training.

Glycolysis

The second adaptation is that concerned with glycolysis. This is the primary form of metabolism used during a 10 second all out sprint and contributes between 55 and 75% towards energy production (Leveritt & Ross, 2001). Phosphofructokinase (PFK), an enzyme that catalyses the phosphorylation of the glycolytic intermediate fructose 6-phosphate) has also been shown to increase, along with the enzymes of lactate dehydrogenase and glycogen phosphorylase (other enzymes responsible for the glycolysis system).

This higher rate of enzyme production is one of the factors related to increased performance among sprint athletes compared with other athletes. Other studies however have shown an increase among these enzymes with no direct increase in performance, so this remains a controversial factor related to sprint training adaptations (Leveritt & Ross, 2001).

If an athlete is training using short sprints but performs many intervals in a short time period (therefore minimizes rest periods), the aerobic system will come in to play much more, so there will be an increase in aerobic enzymes as well (succinate dehydrogenase).

Resting Metabolites

The second aspect of metabolism adaptations to consider is that of resting metabolites. It would commonly be thought that the more stored ATP and PCr stores the athlete has in the muscles, the longer or harder they will be able work. While this is partially true, this is not an adaptation of sprint training.

What happens with sprint training is the rate of turnover for these metabolites increases, so the muscle actually decreases their stores of them. It's interesting to note however that with this decreased reduction of ATP stores, there is no decrease in power output. The reason for this is that it's not so much the stores of ATP that are important in sprinting but the rate of turnover of ATP. So, since this is in fact increasing, the athlete will be better off.


ATP: Energy's Currency!
If one has ever wondered just how we are able to summons the energy to perform a number of activities under a variety of conditions, the answer, in large part, is ATP. Without ATP, ones body would simply fail to function.

 

Intramuscular Buffering Capacity

The final factor to consider is intramuscular buffering capacity. During glycolysis, the process that is initiated shortly after intense exercise has begun, a product called lactic acid begins to accumulate. This byproduct results in a feeling of fatigue throughout the muscle tissue and is what often forces athletes to stop.

By using the chemical buffers of bicarbonate, phosphate and proteins from red blood cells, the body is able to counteract the change in pH created. When an athlete undergoes sprint training, their body becomes more accustomed to buffering this lactic acid and gets more efficient at maintaining a proper pH balance.

I have found myself in your situation before so I used to use workouts such as 6x100m, flatout, with 1min recovery between. I made sure I operated above my highest intensity I had ever got to whether it be wattage, haeart rate or speed. I then had a twenty min break and did 4x250m, but took the break down to 30s, so I was operating at a high level and having to force the body to execute the session under more fatigue with the shorter rest period.

 

Hope it helps!!Love the pain

 

[Daxiet]

Wow YodaJon, that is some serious reading. Amazing to see the background science on this topic.

[trailrider]

[Jules]

 

 

 

For an extra mental workout, read that post at maximum speed six times, with rests of 10s in between

[porky]

Sorry YodaJon, waaaay above me.

 

Do intervals work in cycling Slowbee? - I dunno, but I do lampost intervals once a week when I am  training for marathons - sprint between two lamposts, trot between two lamposts - I dont know if it makes me stronger, but it certainly increases my craving for a beer.!

 

Thats reason enough for me to do em.!

 

[porky]

Hi All

  

What kind of training would be best suited to fit in an hour a day during the week (and on an IDT when its cold and wet in CT)' date=' considering that the 100miler is round the corner? Interval training 3 times a week ?

[/quote']

 

In my opinion (in all seriousness now)Intervals are not going to help in a 100miler slowbee - thats like trying to train for comrades by trotting for 20 minutes on the running mill at the gym 3 times a week.

 

For distance events you need the time in the body, ya just gotta put in the long basic rides - personally I think an hour a day is sufficient for the average joe, in fact you could probably be reasonably competitive with about 8 hours a week in the saddle including weekends, but (and this is my opinion) scrap the fancy stuff in magazines,listen to your body, if you feel good, ride harder, if you feel tired take it easy, just doing 30kms a day, three days a week and a long ride on Sunday is fine if you are not putting food on the table with your riding.

 

Too much science in weekend sports today (as Johan would say, most of it phoney) - I am nor advocating you aimlessly dawdle around on your bike, decide before you head out how you feel and formulate a plan based on your mental and physical capacity on the day - then try and stick to that plan.

 

 

[Yang]

Respect Yoda, but Yoh- I'm sure your clients will enjoy the fact that you have the theory down pat, but they what they will adore you for is for giving them exactly what to do, and not necessar?ly why it works in technical detail.

 

In my serious training periods I use interval training not more than once a week for 3 weeks before a rest week with no intervals. But then I'm at an age where recovery doesn't come as quickly as it used to. So, as in Yoda's article, it depends.

 

There are different types of interval training to make it interesting, and these have all worked for me, whether on the road or on IDT. All interval training is done at least after 10 minutes warning up, and when I say all out, its ALL OUT, tongue hanging out, eyes bulging stuff:

 

1. 15 sec's all out sprint, easy ride for 2 minutes. Then 20 sec's, easy 2 minutes. Then 25 sec's, 2 miuntes easy. Then 30 sec's, 10 minutes easy. Repeat, then finish off with a warm down.

 

2. Reverse the all out sprint times, starting out with the 30 sec all out sprint, 2 min rest. Then 25 sec's, etc.

 

3. Forget the clock and all out sprint for as long as you can hold it. Easy ride for 5 minutes. Repeat as often as you can until your legs feel like running away to belong to someone else. Do this only once you are very fit- this technique takes you to the next level. I read about a pro trainer who takes his riders out to do this until they puke, then they don't ride for three days to recover.

 

I would not do intervals more than once a week because your muscles get stronger while they are resting and recovering. You should avoid interval training during the four weeks before a race, when you should be doing speed workouts and short little sprints

[gianni]

there seems to be a general theory that intervals have to be short and very hard.

 

I know the OP asked about 30sec interval, but you can also do intervales that are 20min+ long, which taking into account the goal of doing a 100ml ride, would probably be more beneficial.

 

 

 

[Yang]

I THINK that intervals are about strength and speed, which you need in attacking and sprinting. There is also a spinoff for endurance. Intervals as I understand how they are defined in athletics are about short all out bursts which take you close into the red zone, if not into the red zone itself. You can't therefore do 20 min long intervals because your heart and body will not let you operate at that level for such a long time, and you will find yourself slowing down. Using a stove analogy, interval training would be with the button turned to 6 where the plate gets hot very quickly. 20 min strong efforts are good for endurance and translate into sticking with a fast moving bunch when you are training in a group or in a race. What they call fartlek training which is about strong to all out efforts at random times in a group, when someone attacks at random and every body has to catch him, and you do this on a long training ride of 120k's plus, is probably the best way of incorporating interval style training into your sessions in prearation for a long ride like the 100. Its about adapting your body to handle progressively longer periods of anaerobic activity that you find in races. The guy who does intervals after a solid base training period with long endurance riding will do comparitively better that someone who does the same training but leaves out the interval training, because its too much like hard work. 

[porky]

. 

 Its about adapting your body to handle progressively longer periods of anaerobic activity that you find in races. The guy who does intervals after a solid base training period with long endurance riding will do comparitively better that someone who does the same training but leaves out the interval training' date=' because its too much like hard work. [/quote']

 

Yes, Agreed.

 

Intervals without the long base training for a long ride like the 100miler are really of little use - like I said about Comrades.!

 

Remember it works the other way around too - most races in SA are 100kms or thereabout, unless you have a good chance of winning, training for a 100kms race by doing 120-150 kms training rides is also a waste of time (obviously onlyif your sole purpose of doing this training is to ride 100kms) - the body can adapt very well to 100kms race if you train in the 50 km distance zone with a 80 -100kms ride once or twice a month.

 

Training for any endurace sport (100miler is an endurance race) is mostly just about collective time on the road, remember though, we are talking weekend cyclists here NOT professionals or wannabee professionals.

 

[YodaJon]

Morning all, I just want to reiterate,that I am not the be all and end all of cycling knowledge once again, so for those of you who slammed me,sarcasm has no place out on the training ground, I was merely offering some advice, and just in case you were wondering, whether you are a social rider or a highly competitive one, having the knowledge and applying some science_or as one of you stated, some of it phoney??-will give you the break you looking for.

[jeremyd]

chill yoda, nobody slammed you. On the contrary, what you said sounded great but a it above most of us. 

[amateur]

i don't know about all the scientific stuff, but I think interval training really helps not just with sprinting etc but also just riding in the bunch.

 

Last year I thought I'd start training properly so I got a training program which included interval training. Now I am one of those ladies that ride in the back bunches and even then I  hang on for dear life. But I did a race soon after I started this training and it was fairly small, so my friend and I got a nice high seeding (totaly out of our depth but anyway). Now as we were going along the bunch kept 'surging'  (for lack of a better word) then easing up, then 'surging' again and so it went on until the end really. In my mind the stronger guys were doing this at the front to try and break up the bunch into a smaller group as lots of people fell off due to this. But remarkably we could respond and hang on every time there was this sudden increase in speed. Now I seriously don't think we would have been able to do that and stick with them to the end, had it not been for the interval training. I would have been finished by the time we hit 5km.

 

my 2c