which one gives you the best bang for your buck
which one gives you the best bang for your buck
your vVO2max is unlikely to be either of those.
cheers.
Your 3k pace is going to be closer to Vo2 Max, unless you are a very good 5k runner.
Most people do "VO2max" intervals at 5k approx pace but either should work as I'm not aware of any evidence that you have to train at exactly VO2max to increase VO2max.
20 x 400m @ 3k pace, standing rest until the heart rate goes down to 120 BPM
Best bang for your buck.
Lemon Lime 5000 metre runner wrote:
20 x 400m @ 3k pace, standing rest until the heart rate goes down to 120 BPM
Best bang for your buck.
The only issue with 400m is time spent at vV02max as it takes about a minute to reach a steady state.
That being said should you even do workouts based on improving V02max or vV02max? Does it even matter? Or should you base your workouts on race pace and race pace goals, and vV02/V02max is simply a byproduct of that not the focused goal.
Alan
Runningart2004 wrote:
That being said should you even do workouts based on improving V02max or vV02max? Does it even matter? Or should you base your workouts on race pace and race pace goals, and vV02/V02max is simply a byproduct of that not the focused goal.
Alan
Truth.
In any event, some research indicates that the most important factor in improving VO2max is the rate that your heart rate changes, not the time spent at VO2max. The quickest way to get a HR spike is running uphill because the longer stance phase forces your heart to work harder pushing blood through large, flexed muscles. The hard part is that you typically end up taking pretty long recoveries running back down the hill, so ideally you'd find a very long climb where you can keep doing 90 seconds hard up, 60 seconds easy down, without running out of ascent.
Of course, it's not even clear that there really is such a thing as a VO2 max or that if there is, that it responds to training after you've reached a moderate fitness level.
Runningart2004 wrote:
Lemon Lime 5000 metre runner wrote:
20 x 400m @ 3k pace, standing rest until the heart rate goes down to 120 BPM
Best bang for your buck.
The only issue with 400m is time spent at vV02max as it takes about a minute to reach a steady state.
That being said should you even do workouts based on improving V02max or vV02max? Does it even matter? Or should you base your workouts on race pace and race pace goals, and vV02/V02max is simply a byproduct of that not the focused goal.
Alan
One point of shorter reps like that (400's) is to spend more time @ velocity of VO2max (vVO2max), but the recovery should be shorter than the rep time, and active (not standing rest with HR dropping to 120), in order to keep VO2 up during the recovery and as the session progresses. This will shorten the time, if not nearly eliminate it, typically needed to get VO2 back up to max. Interestingly, critical velocity, which is slower than vVO2max, can be used to reach VO2max when combined with a session like this.