Interval training sessions are designed to push you out of your comfort zone and enable an increase in power. There are different types of intervals ranging from all out efforts, to ‘pyramid intervals’ with progressive overload. But, the general aim is to stretch your capacity and acclimatise your body for riding at higher intensity. A carefully planned interval sessions can increase capacity for both racing and to some extent long distance riding.
Preparation for Interval Sessions
Interval sessions need a period of base preparation. Don’t try to do these intervals if you are not fit. If you are new to cycling, it might be best to wait for a few months of steady riding before progressing to this kind of training. The exact time of base training will depend on factors such as age, weight, fitness and ability to recover. As a general rule of thumb it is good to to one or two short time trials of 5 – 10 miles before intervals. In this time trial you are trying to maintain a constant effort for 20-30 minutes. This is a useful base for interval sessions because the effort you can maintain for a certain period of time is useful for gauging the intensity of your intervals. Typically, your race pace will be slightly above your Aerobic Threshold. If you can know your race pace, you can get to know if your intervals are above or below race pace.
Doing a time trial will help give an idea of your Aerobic Threshold. For trained athletes, this is approx. 80 – 90% of VO2 max. For untrained athletes it is lower.
Intervals at Aerobic Threshold
This is an interval where you are training at your Aerobic threshold. It will be a heart rate approx 85% of your max heart rate / power. It is an effort level similar to what you can maintain in a race situation. Any faster and you will be accumulating lactic acid in your legs.
For these intervals try finding a quiet road or shallow hill where you can cycle unimpeded for five minutes. At the end of the interval turn round give yourself a similar time to recover and then repeat the interval. In the beginning, you can do three or four intervals. As you get stronger, you will be able to increase the number of intervals.
By riding at your aerobic threshold you will be stretching your aerobic capacity and getting used to this higher intensity level.
Above Aerobic Threshold
This is an interval where you are riding above your aerobic threshold. It will lead to an accumulation of lactic acid as you are using both your aerobic capacity (using oxygen) and also anaerobic capacity. These intervals will get progressively harder and you will be accumulating lactic acid in the muscles throughout the exercise.
For these intervals try periods of 3-5 minutes followed by a similar recovery time. When recovering try not to free wheel, but maintain a reasonable pace to prevent complete recovery.
All Out Intervals
At the peak of the season when you have increased your fitness and are confident in riding at aerobic threshold or higher, you can try intervals which stretch your VO2 max. For me these intervals conjure up the 2-4 minute hill climb. I treat the interval essentially as a race where I try to tackle a climb as quick as I can.
In this interval your heart rate will be getting close to its maximum – remembering there will be a time lag for your heart rate to catch up. I don’t’ tend to look at a heart rate during the interval, perhaps just at the top.
To make it more fun, I choose particular hills and try to beat previous times. I have a long list of personal bests, season bests. I even make a note of wind direction. These can give a rough guide to your fitness and progression. But, more than anything, it is great fun trying to break your own record. It is an added motivation to really give it everything.
After the first all out interval, I will keep the legs spinning and then try again. The second interval will be hard, and your time will be 15% slower. But, in the third interval you can often beat the time of the second interval. I will tend to do three of four of these. By the forth I can’t get to your maximum
Pyramid Intervals
The theory behind pyramid intervals is to progressively increase the intensity of the intervals during a session. It is based on work of Malcom Firth and Dr Gordon Wright
The idea is that frequent intervals and progressive overload enables you to tolerate a greater level of stress than in competition. This helps increase power from doing it.
After sensible warm up period.
- Phase 1 - 5 * 2 mins at 80% HR, below aerobic threshold. Recovery of 1 minutes in between.
- 5 minute recovery of gentle riding
- Phase 2 – 10* 1 min at 85-90% HR – above aerobic threshold. Recovery of 30 seconds in between
- 5 minutes of recovery of gentle riding
- Phase 3 – 10* 3osecs at 95% + of HR – close to maximum intensity
- 5 minutes of recovery of gentle riding
- Phase 4 – 5* 1 min at 85% – 90%. Recovery of 30 seconds in between.
- 5 minutes of recovery
- Phase 5 – 5* 2 mins at 80% HR. Recovery of 1 minute
This kind of interval session is a) taxing b) hard work keeping track of how many intervals you have done. Because it is more complicated it is best done on a turbo trainer.
Personally I don’t like this kind of detail. However, I do like the general principle of pyramid intervals. Rather than starting with an all out interval. Do a phase of aerobic threshold, and then move on to intervals at higher intensity. Note a feature of these intervals is the short duration and higher quantity. This means the body is always stressing and adapting. To complete a set like above, you have to be pretty fit in the first place.
What Intervals Are Good for Me?
If your targets involve a long distance ride, do you need to do intervals at an intensity that you won’t use in the ride?
Several studies suggest that intervals at an intensity above Aerobic Threshold help long distance cycling. The idea is that by stretching your comfort zone, the body learns to better deal with lactic acid and make the aerobic capacity greater. This enables you to have more power that can increase your speed for doing long distance riding.
You don’t need to do all out ‘eyeball’ intervals. But, riding above your aerobic threshold suggests that your basic aerobic capacity will also improve.
Interval sessions can be excellent for times in the week when you only have one or one and a half hours. It also is good to have variety in training and not just do steady miles.
Related
VO2 is Volume of Oxygen that you can take up. A higher VO2 means you can take on more oxygen and go faster.
Interesting
What’s VO2?
I agree, interval training is very helpful and an effective way of improving fitness; and as you suggest endurance. For myself, I discovered the benefits through running (sprinting up that hill, or to the next lamp post etc) and then found cycling up hill was so much easier. That in turns means I tend to cycle using hilly routes which in turn improves my running, sort of win-win.
For so long I would default to the easy / flat route but no more. If only I’d taken all this more seriously 25 years ago….!
I remember hearing a while back about ‘fartlek’ training, which I think is related. Do you know if this applies to cycling?