That would work well if you were strictly a TTer or perhaps a protected rider fighting for the GC in stage races.
Unlike in running, though, to do well in most cycling events you also need to be able to change pace rapidly, sprint at the end of races, exceed FTP and VO2max for extended periods to not get dropped, etc. Thus, cycling training quickly becomes a lot more complicated than what's being discussed here.
I agree with this, however, I would argue that the general fitness gains to be had from maximizing load are bigger than the race-specific fitness gains to be had for the 99.8% of cyclists who don't have a 6w/kg threshold. Like if you want to have a really good 12 minute w/kg, you won't get there without having an at least decent 6 hour power.
Another aspect is that road cyclists race a ton more than runners. It's not uncommon for amateurs to race 30+ days per season and most pros race upwards of 60-80 days. Once the season gets rolling it's often more about managing fatigue between races and less about using training to build fitness. You can spend most of the offseason doing primarily aerobic with a touch of top end here and there and then get sharp just by racing an absurd amount.
Long time lurker. Huge thanks for the thread - I've digested an enormous amount of it, but apologies up front if I've missed anything which answers the following.
Other training approaches consider a few aspects: cardiovascular, physiological, psychological, and even gastrointestinal. My take on the sir_poc approach/NSA is that it clearly tries to optimise cardiovascular fitness given available time around 7 hours, but I'm interested in whether by ignoring the other facets it is suggesting they matter far less than thought, or are just not mentioned so far.
Being clearer for each:
Physiogical: I've not seen any mention of drills to include strides, skips, plyos or anything else which stands to improve running economy or strengthen and prepare joints and tendons for increased load (possibly including general strength too). Do we consider them irrelevant in this approach, or are we still recommending them in parallel?
Psychological: many runners refer to the psychological benefits from knowing how a certain pace feels or being more confident they can hold it or something around it for a portion of what they would in a race. Do we accept that trusting the approach *is* the psychological advantage here?
Gastrointestinal: perhaps more relevant for the marathon, how do you train your gut for intense work whilst absorbing carbs and liquids without doing long runs to simulate?
I’ll give it my best shot based on my understanding, thoughts and personal experimentation with the Sirpoc method: - reminder that what’s been discussed here forms an amazing basis for training but is definitely tweakable if you’re confident in what you’re doing, so still an n=1.
Physiological: Generally no harm in doing a few strides after easy runs a 1-2x a week. Same with strength if you have some underlying weaknesses worth addressing. If you feel you benefit from it then by all means do some, I guess what this approach shows is that doing loads of it is probably not required.
Psychological: probably not necessary strictly speaking, but there are plenty of examples of people doing 1-2 indicator/specific workouts (even Almgren pre-Valencia did a session which seemed to be a bit more of a tester/confidence booster). Overall I think trusting the process is a pretty good approach to building enough confidence, but we’re all different. Again, wouldn’t overdo it on this stuff though.
Gastrointestinal: it’s clear that for the Marathon something in this approach needs to change, if at the very least scaling the Long Run quite significantly to 2hr+ and perhaps including some chunks at pace for a couple of them in the final 5-6 weeks pre-race. Good chance - and makes sense - to fuel these.
Long time lurker. Huge thanks for the thread - I've digested an enormous amount of it, but apologies up front if I've missed anything which answers the following.
Other training approaches consider a few aspects: cardiovascular, physiological, psychological, and even gastrointestinal. My take on the sir_poc approach/NSA is that it clearly tries to optimise cardiovascular fitness given available time around 7 hours, but I'm interested in whether by ignoring the other facets it is suggesting they matter far less than thought, or are just not mentioned so far.
Being clearer for each:
Physiogical: I've not seen any mention of drills to include strides, skips, plyos or anything else which stands to improve running economy or strengthen and prepare joints and tendons for increased load (possibly including general strength too). Do we consider them irrelevant in this approach, or are we still recommending them in parallel?
Psychological: many runners refer to the psychological benefits from knowing how a certain pace feels or being more confident they can hold it or something around it for a portion of what they would in a race. Do we accept that trusting the approach *is* the psychological advantage here?
Gastrointestinal: perhaps more relevant for the marathon, how do you train your gut for intense work whilst absorbing carbs and liquids without doing long runs to simulate?
I think it's probably at the margins (in terms of whether it makes much difference to performance, but it may over the long term)....but I just do drills and strides as part of the warm up for 2 of the subT sessions each week. Means I don't jeopardise the easy days (allowing tendons to have a breather) and still get the RE gains. The real bonus is that it makes the subT paces feel super comfortable after strides.
Cardiovascular system matters little for FTP because most important adaptations are in muscles and for those adaptations load definitely matters. Quoting Coggan: metabolic fitness is way more important than cardiovascular fitness.
I think system like this is perfect for cycling as well: ride every day, do 3 subthreshold sessions a week + 3-4 endurance rides. Try to do as much subthreshold work as possible in a way it's sustainable every week whole year round. When you read about Norwegian method (for example here: ) this seems to be their main idea.
Vo2max is the ceiling and if the cealing is higher also FTP is higher. This is also what David Roche claims, better listen carefully, he has a good point here.
For trained athletes VO2max is often limited central (stroke volume) and not by muscular stuff, especially true for older athletes.
If you run the same speed for 5x6 (60s rest) and 8x4min(60s rest) while staying below LT, which will produce more lactate? I guess my question is does longer intervals give lower or higher lactate? I would imagine if you are at within the sweet spot you would measure higher lactate with the shorter intervals?
If you run the same speed for 5x6 (60s rest) and 8x4min(60s rest) while staying below LT, which will produce more lactate? I guess my question is does longer intervals give lower or higher lactate? I would imagine if you are at within the sweet spot you would measure higher lactate with the shorter intervals?
At the type of intensity we're talking about, the 6 min intervals should be very slightly lower, although my guess is that the difference would be within the margin of error of a standard lactate meter. Lactate levels would increase over roughly the first 4-5 minutes and then decline a bit due to the use/disposal of that lactate.
🩸Blood lactate [BLa] does NOT increase exponentially during high intensity exercise 🧑🔬
Why do we make this common mistake?
I think because we have focused too much on the lactate test
And forgotten what information that test is trying to give us about real exercise 🧵1/14 pic.twitter.com/y2ImEuEzFu
Thank you. I knew I had read this somewhere but had completely forgotten how it is. My next question though is when one should measure after the interval?
Jakob mentions something about how the lactate raises during the first minute and then stabilize before it drops again, in his video with FloTrack. Lets say you run 5x6 with 1 min rest, should you rest 1 minute before starting the measurement process? I would guess it takes like 30 sec to take the measurement also. I did a measurement today after 6 minutes where my first measurement(done pretty quickly after the last interval) was 3.2. Then I measured again to double check, and it was 2.2. Probably many factors influencing the higher measurement. #1 being me being a newbie at pricking the finger and measuring. Some hand shakes due to the eagerness probably gives some sweat in the measurement.
That link in my previous post shows up with an image that relates to lactate rise at higher intensities--read the actual link to find the image showing the slight decline after 4-5 mins with the type of intensity (heavy) we're talking about here.
Thank you. I knew I had read this somewhere but had completely forgotten how it is. My next question though is when one should measure after the interval?
Jakob mentions something about how the lactate raises during the first minute and then stabilize before it drops again, in his video with FloTrack. Lets say you run 5x6 with 1 min rest, should you rest 1 minute before starting the measurement process? I would guess it takes like 30 sec to take the measurement also. I did a measurement today after 6 minutes where my first measurement(done pretty quickly after the last interval) was 3.2. Then I measured again to double check, and it was 2.2. Probably many factors influencing the higher measurement. #1 being me being a newbie at pricking the finger and measuring. Some hand shakes due to the eagerness probably gives some sweat in the measurement.
I think you want to take the measurement as soon as possible after the interval, since the level may decrease rapidly if you're in good shape.
What parameters could result in a too low reading on the arkray though? I think the 3.2 is more reliable than the 2.2. Could it be I removed it too fast, even though it beeped?
Take the reading right after you finish the interval. As soon as you can but don’t rush it. Waiting a minute or longer will cause the blood lactate to drop. That’s not an accurate indication of the effort that was produced during the rep.
One thing to probably note as a beginner of *taking measurements* is that it takes like 10 measurements before you master it I guess. I also find that I am a little unsteady after the last interval.
Yeah, I guess that's what happened to me and would explain the 3.2->2.2. I basically did the last interval, took of my shoes and then did the measurement procedure. Probably waited like a 30 sec and did another measure, and in that short time it had gone down to 2.2. I guess one should target to do it within that 1 minute Jakob mentions in the video, cause after that it stabilizies and then reduces rapidly.
Am I hallucinating or is this calculator broken? I put 66% of 4:00/km pace, which should be 66% of 15kmh, which is 10kmh or 6:00/km and it gave me 5:22/km.
I'm one of the people that has had success with this method, recently ran 1:29 which was a 6+ minute HM PB. Running a marathon in two days, didn't adjust my training too much for it so definitely not expecting miracles but will be interesting to see what the offset versus more optimal/traditional marathon training will be. Shooting for 3:15-3:20, PB is 3:22.
EDIT: Just noticed that I had the calculator set to % of pace, not speed. Still don't understand how that's different. Surely a set pace is equivalent to a set speed, so how can the %s be different?
This post was edited 3 minutes after it was posted.
Reason provided:
Noticed note below the calculator
If I can't run below my 70% hr, how should I go about my easy runs? I'm high 19 min 5k and I find it hard to go below 70% mhr on my easy runs - I need to go really slow, I'm talking 11:30 per mile or slower. I might as well be walking really fast at this point, but that obviously won't get me the muscular adaptations from running. Maybe do my easy runs in intervals to ensure the hr stays below 70%?
I have the same problem so I just go with 65% of 5k pace (so quite a bit below 65% of MAS) and make sure RPE is truly easy, nasal breathing, the lot. Ends up being around 6:00/km or just under 10:00/mile, heart rate creeps up to 75-78% by the end but feels very sustainable.