burger0014

I need to improve my 1 minute power and I'm looking for the best workout to do so. In reading the workout thread and online I think I should try 5 1x1 intervals with 5 minutes rest between sets for a total of 2 sets but not sure what power I should shoot for. Should I just go all out from the start and hang on or should I aim for a % of threshold? Any other options for improving 1 minute power?

globecanvas

I am a one-minute guy. IMO one minute efforts need to be paced, not sprint-and-fade. Training is useful to get an RPE feel for the ragged edge between a sustainable 45-90 second effort and a full sprint.

Also, a productive one-minute effort in a race will be done when you are already exhausted. So, I think it's not so useful to do 1-minute intervals with a bunch of rest in between. Instead I would do Tabatas or 3-minute efforts which will drag up the 1 minute power.

My 2c. I almost never train 1 minute power specifically because I don't feel like it's productive, for me at least, except to get a feel for the ragged edge as mentioned above. I feel like focused 3 minute intervals help a lot with 1 minute power.

Creatre

What makes you think you need to focus on 1 minute power?

There's two different approaches to 1 minute power. The all out keep the power as high as possible, and the organized power level interval. You could go either way with it, both will provide benefits in different ways.

The first approach is to start with a sprint and go all out without focusing on specific power numbers, holding full gas as long as possible. Likely the first couple will be really high power and then it will drop off each interval afterwards because your anaerobic capactiy is shot. By the end you crawl home.

The second approach would be to take a target 1 minute power level and try and hit it or higher each interval. This would be done in the same way as a 20 minute interval for example as strictly paced on power, and will allow you to hold a higher average number between all the intervals combined and use less of your anaerobic system. You shouldn't be as shot on this one. Try one of each and see how you like them. I'd start out with 6x1 with 1 minute rest, and build up to 10x1 with 1 minute rest, no sets or longer duration rests.

furiousferret

I have the same issue....probably 1m to 3m is my weakness and its amazing how much it negatively affects my racing. If you think about crit racing, its a really a series of surges in that range.

These days its not as bad because while its still underwhelming, my ability to recover has greatly improved so my max 1m isn't good, my grouping of 1m efforts is better....

gsteinb

Pro tip -- less burgers.

echappist

i've always managed to do well in crits despite being a diesel type. surges in crits are different from pure anaerobic efforts

furiousferret

What if I just go with a single with no cheese?

gsteinb

p&r

Duke of Kent

I'm not sure that I agree with this.

misterwaterfall

I haven't raced many aggressive p12 crits that didn't have their fair share of anaerobic efforts. x2 in the last 10 laps when things get sketchy

globecanvas

Yeah.. this is pretty typical for a crit (this one was 55 minutes total):

burger0014

I think 1 minute power is my issue because while I have no problem following surges during a race, or attacking and then maintaining thresh hold, I struggle at the end of a race when the pace ramps up for 1 minute prior to the line. I feel like if I can increase my 1-3 minute power I would be there more often for the sprint. As it is now I'm there most of the time, it's just one area to improve on.

Doge

Do you lift weights and take creatine?
That will certainly help in the < 10 sec range and likely into most of that 1 min range.
Thing is that short range power normally comes from more strength/mass. We are trying to remove some of that from my son now and his 15 sec power has gone down, 1m power down a wee bit and 20 min power up. It's a bit like wack-a-mole.

MDcatV

how long have you been racing and how many races have you done? what is your power profile like? don't assume it's a 1 minute power or anaerobic power issue, if you can respond to attacks during a race, I'd bet that it's not but rather you're cooked at the end due to too many trips into whatever the red zone is during a race, then when the **** hits the fan at the end, you are out of matches.

bbbean 

One of my standard training rides is 1 min >threshhold, 1 min recovery X 20 (25 if I'm feeling good). I think it's important to get in enough reps to simulate an actual 30 minute to 1 hour race.

BB

echappist

define anaerobic effort. I infer (perhaps erroneously) that OP's concern is more related to straight up kilo efforts. @furiousferret also seems to be alluding to the same type of efforts (as opposed to 1-3 min long efforts within a crit, which is different). Kilo efforts and 2-3 min efforts on their own are what i consider to be anaerobic. You do them correctly, and there's no way you'd be recovered in 3-4 minutes. These, however, seldom occur in road racing other than a last ditch kilo effort as you necessarily cannot sustain an all out anaerobic effort for more than 2-3 minutes. If you were to do one true anaerobic effort during a race, chances are, you'll get caught within a few minutes and have to pray that you can latch back on riding at high Z2.

The surges within a crit may have a 10-15 second power spike averaging 700W, which makes it in the neuromuscular range, but you end up doing surges repeatedly for 10-15 min straight like a tabata workout. The very fact that it's sustained for more than 10 minute implies that the effort is high aerobic in nature. Repeatability is the name of the game, and this requires being able to maintain an effort when operating at elevated concentrations of lactate and the clearance of lactate generated during the surges, and the latter of which is particularly related to aerobic capacity as lactate built up in the first place as the high concentration of pyruvate ( the product of glycolysis) is much more than what the the oxidative enzymes can handle, thus causing a backup that forces the body to convert pyruvate to lactate. Lactate only gets cleared via the cori cycle when the demand falls below lactate threshold.

misterwaterfall

I define anaerobic as doing everything I can to hang on to the pack/break or bridging/attacking. I'm too lazy to pull up the file from Saturday night, but I remember a lot of pain in that 90' crit, and there were quiet a few stretches where it was laps worth of pain, not seconds.

Maybe the key word is aggressive. If you are just trying to make it to the end without getting dropped, you might not see many of these. If you are off the front, chasing, bridging, and trying to be there for the sprint, it's a whole different equation all together.

For me, it's very typical to see multiple 2,3,4,5 minute periods of 110%+ in a crit. To me, that's anaerobic. Inside each are multiple spikes as well making them even tougher.

grolby

This seems highly unlikely to be a 1' maximal power issue and much more likely to be an endurance/recovery problem (aerobic and anaerobic).

burger0014

Only really been racing this year, coming off an 8 year layoff and previously racing mountain bikes. Lost 70 lbs and started racing on the road this year. I feel like I'm fairly fit, could stand to lose another 5-8 lbs though. Profile is below, no idea how to make it bigger without clicking though

echappist

You may think you can be your own lexicographer, but that doesn't make you correct. An anaerobic effort has a standard definition, full stop.

A true anaerobic effort doesn't go much further than 2 minutes, maybe 2.5 if you are really anaerobically gifted. That you are conflating a 4 min effort to be anaerobic suggests that you have no idea what anaerobic means. FYI, a 4.5 min effort at 120%+ is still, by definition, an aerobic effort; it's known as individual pursuit in some circles.

Last year in one crit i did 110% AP (115% NP) for the last 10 minutes to get in the break that stayed away in a very tough crit. The first 3.3 min of the move was at 123%. Guess what, that's still an aerobic effort because had it been truly anaerobic, i'd have blown the gasket by the 4th minute and probably would have been too shattered to even latch onto the field.

misterwaterfall

Correct, and it's definition is(in exercise terms): an exercise intense enough to trigger lactate formation

Basically, your muscles are using more oxygen then they can replenish. Anaerobic simply means without air, so anytime you cross that threshold you are by definition anaerobic, no?

echappist

funny, I didn't know that just the acting of pedaling in low z1 would be considered to be anaerobic. Learn something new everyday.

You should really stop digging right about now.

As for the OP and most others, train for recovery, namely over-unders and tabatas. They hurt like hell but they'll also help you respond to surges in a crit.

grolby

Chill, bro.

globecanvas

I apologize to the world on behalf of my censorious BF brethren (or sistren, you can't really tell on the internet).


I think you just need more vo2max and faster recovery. Something like 2 x (3 minutes on + 3 minutes off), with a longer rest between the 2 sets. I do something like this every week, changing up the interval duration anywhere from 3 to 8 minutes, aiming for a total of 15-25 minutes of vo2max total (less total time if the intervals are shorter, more total time if the intervals are longer), targeting an effort level that lets me just barely finish all of the intervals without giving up. This is bread and butter stuff for crits. If you haven't done much vo2max work before, you will probably see improvement quickly.

Duke of Kent

Lactate formation?

Your muscles do that walking to the refrigerator for a glass of orange juice.