Training & Nutrition - The Ultimate Interval, what, when, who, why....

Hello everyone. I've written an article titled High Intensity Interval Training (http://myworldfromabicycle.blogspot.com/2012/04/high-intensity-interval-training.html), for cyclists who are interested in increasing their fitness levels. My goal was to provide science-based information (as opposed to subjective, opinion, and/or anecdotal), and I include the citations for the scientific articles that I use. A lot of this information is not available to the general public because it restricted by a paywall.

This article has been reviewed and edited, but I always appreciate any pertinent comments and suggestions. I have found that cycling forums are ideal for information sharing. When appropriate, I do revise my article based on the feedback I receive. Please feel free to comment either on this forum or in the comments section of my article. Thanks in advance, and happy riding!

http://myworldfromabicycle.blogspot.com/2012/04/high-intensity-interval-training.html

Regards,
David Henderson

Thanks, interesting article!

My understanding: most of these different methods work good enough if you mix it every once in a while and make all training progressive long term. I feel the hard part is putting together the pieces: intensity, reps, rest, frequency.

David, if you're looking for critiques I thought the article gets a little unclear where you're discussing PPO and PMAX. It couldn't really be followed by someone without prior knowledge - for example, although you go into some detail in describing how to measure PPO you never say what that final number is. How it's determined. It feels discordant with respect to the more basic introductions.

Also I found myself wanting you to go into more specifics regarding the studies in table 1 and even more in the final table. Where do they fit or depart from a common pattern and how it relates to performance? What is the commonality with your theorized ultimate interval?

I agree with some others that some discussion of the terms would have been helpful. I also find it somewhat suspicious that your ultimate conclusion agrees with your initial impression. This suggests some selective interpretation of the studies you cite.

I'm also suspicious of a one size fits all conclusion. That being said, I agree that most riders will benefit from the intervals you suggest. For those not doing a lot of racing, but trying to increase general fitness and riding ability, I would suggest alternating the short intervals with longer ones, such as 5' at as hard a pace as can be sustained for the 5', followed by 5' easy pace. Maybe start with 4 repeats and work up to 10 (again keeping the pace at an intensity that can be sustained for all repeats).