skinnyone

I seem to get into this mode of pedalling in squares towards the end of my intervals, especially the one minute ones. I think I read someplace that one of the objectives of an interval is to keep the same power output through the interval. In trying to do so, towards the latter 1/3rds of the interval, I try to push the same (bigger) gear with my lactic acid laden legs and rpms drop a little and my pedal stroke gets pretty choppy. Should I shift down to make it easier?

BigSean

1 min intervals should just be all out as hard as you can maintain, if you need to shift do so.

waterrockets 

Yeah, I've found paced 1m intervals to be pointless. Just start with a full sprint and ride yourself into a pile of crap. If your stroke suffers, maybe try a slightly lower gear towards the end.

urbanknight

If your form doesn't suffer at the end of a 1 minute interval, you weren't going hard enough to begin with.

skinnyone

Cool, will continue doing what I am doing. I find that if I focus on form, I lose focus on going all out. The suffering, it is sweet.

Duke of Kent

The point of a one minute interval is to simulate your initial jump, and then simulate bridging a gap, hitting a power climb, or taking a last lap flyer.

You want explode out of the gate, get up to speed, and work on slowing down as little as possible.

Do whatever you have to do to insure that.

Me? I stand up several times during the interval, shifting to an easier gear right before I do that, getting my cadence up, sit back down with my newly revamped high cadence, and drop it back down into a harder gear. Simulates corners, and the entering/exiting shift and cadence pattern.

daytonian

and I'm only asking cuz i'll end up doing it but say I get 20-25 seconds out of a sprint uphill / downhill whatever and it feels like I have an acetylene torch in my lungs I continue for 30 more seconds as hard as I can. I'm just trying to get my head around what that pain will feel like.

Enthalpic

What, you did some sort of study?

I assure you a 1min constant power intervals done on a ergometer are not "pointless."

Don't get caught in the mental trap of "it's what I'm doing so it must be best."

urbanknight

I should ammend myself to say that form is still important, but unless you're a Pro, 1, or 2, your form probably isn't solid enough to hold its own, so you have to choose which of the two to focus on. Work on your form all other times, but in the sprint, you just go all out and hope the rest of the time you worked on form kicks in automatically.

skinnyone

Sure thing.. I wasn't going to abandon form altogether . I find that if i get too ragged, my shin and knee complain..

waterrockets 

Yeah, it's really pretty insane. I end up moaning in pain, sounding something like a beached whale, I think. It's pretty pathetic.

Yeah, well, I found that I was still only able to do 6 intervals if I paced them, but my average power was only around 600W. When I started them all-out, pacing be damned, I jumped up to nearly 700W, so that's just more anaerobic work in the same interval duration, and I can still do six with the same %drop on each one.

So, for me, I'm doing these intervals to build anaerobic capacity, so I figure as many kJ as I can leave on the road in 60s is the way to train it. I'm up to 801W for 60s now (9.92W/kg), so I must be doing something right.

Maybe "pointless" is too strong of a word, but I was stagnated for about a year before I started them off with a sprint (just based on landmarks on the same course for all 1m interval workouts). Another bonus is that I don't have to do sprint workouts any more, since they're covered at the front end of my AWC intervals.

ldesfor1@ithaca

+1

this is what i do too... sprint hard for 25" or so, sit for a second and shift then go right back at the sprint, then sit and finish with a vomit-inducing sprint. beautiful.


-L