Interval Training Advice

[Marty Moose]

Thanks Alex I'm trying to learn I've Always used heart rate when I was racing. I stoppped 12 years ago it now seems power is the way to go! I guess it was back then too, thats why budding pro's used have a SRM and most of us looked at in wonder like secret squirrel type stuff. If you are doing a V02 session the idea ( I thought) was to increase the pumping stroke of you heart making you more efficient. So does it matter if you power drops if your heart is in the right zone considering you are working on your heart and your legs indirectly or conversely working on your legs (power) and your heart indirectly.

Cheers
Marty

[Alex Simmons/RST]

Thanks Alex I'm trying to learn I've Always used heart rate when I was racing. I stoppped 12 years ago it now seems power is the way to go! I guess it was back then too, thats why budding pro's used have a SRM and most of us looked at in wonder like secret squirrel type stuff. If you are doing a V02 session the idea ( I thought) was to increase the pumping stroke of you heart making you more efficient. So does it matter if you power drops if your heart is in the right zone considering you are working on your heart and your legs indirectly or conversely working on your legs (power) and your heart indirectly.

Cheers
Marty

I don't think one can answer the question unless you are actually measuring power, O2 utilisation or both.

My instinct suggests that the overall session will be of lower quality for the intended purpose and perhaps will be a bit more skewed towards improving your anaerobic work capacity rather than improving VO2max, blood plasma volume, and heart stroke volume/cardiac output. However the relevant physiological adaptations occur from training at all such (mostly) aerobic levels and so it may be much of a muchness - it likely depends how much the initial (over) effort and ultimate fade in power is. In others words, doing enough of the right stuff is what matters, over being precise in the actual execution.

However if you are doing such efforts for the purposes of training for something like, say, an individual pursuit, then a hard start and fade approach will be slower and will train poor pacing habits.

[Marty Moose]

Thanks Alex I'm trying to learn I've Always used heart rate when I was racing. I stoppped 12 years ago it now seems power is the way to go! I guess it was back then too, thats why budding pro's used have a SRM and most of us looked at in wonder like secret squirrel type stuff. If you are doing a V02 session the idea ( I thought) was to increase the pumping stroke of you heart making you more efficient. So does it matter if you power drops if your heart is in the right zone considering you are working on your heart and your legs indirectly or conversely working on your legs (power) and your heart indirectly.

Cheers
Marty

I don't think one can answer the question unless you are actually measuring power, O2 utilisation or both.

My instinct suggests that the overall session will be of lower quality for the intended purpose and perhaps will be a bit more skewed towards improving your anaerobic work capacity rather than improving VO2max, blood plasma volume, and heart stroke volume/cardiac output. However the relevant physiological adaptations occur from training at all such (mostly) aerobic levels and so it may be much of a muchness - it likely depends how much the initial (over) effort and ultimate fade in power is. In others words, doing enough of the right stuff is what matters, over being precise in the actual execution.

However if you are doing such efforts for the purposes of training for something like, say, an individual pursuit, then a hard start and fade approach will be slower and will train poor pacing habits.

Thanks Alex
The last sentence is a very valid one for me I'll try starting a bit slower as it sounds like I'm training to fade I'll get a pwr meter one day there are some new ones about to come onto the market that are very lite and simple. Think I'll wait a bit.

MM