When I build cycling interval workouts for athletes, I have unlimited combinations to choose from. I can create intervals ranging from seconds to hours. I can manipulate the intensity of intervals, combine different modalities into one workout, vary the amount of recovery between intervals and more. Despite the choices available, most of the interval workouts I use come only from a few combinations.
Why? Because interval workouts don’t need to be complicated to be effective – and research is backing this up. Studies on champion endurance athletes show that these athletes use simple, repeatable workouts. Because only when interval workouts are similar they can be compared over time in order to track improvements.
So by reducing complexity and keeping interval sessions simple, I can derive most adaptations I’m looking for with the right combination of interval number, duration and recovery period.
The same is true for targeting your functional threshold number. While you need a well-structured training plan to push your FTP higher, you also need targeted interval workouts to achieve it. Here are three of the best to do so.
1. Short-Range Threshold Intervals
Nowadays, Norway has many of the world’s best endurance athletes. After winning in xc-skiing, running and triathlon, they’ve now conquered the world of cycling. Their success, though, isn’t merely a result of luck in genetics and environment. Instead, it’s a controlled approach based around the lactate threshold and lactate measurements.
A group of researchers recently looked at the training sessions of a dozen Norwegian endurance athletes (cyclists included), who are some of the most insane athletes you’ll ever witness.
Over a year the athletes trained surprisingly easy most of the time (60-72% of max heart rate, you can carry on a conversation).
After a year, the training schedule broke out like this:
- 75-80% of all sessions were low-intensity.
- 10-15% were medium or threshold intensity.
- 5-10% were high intensity.
On average they did two interval sessions per week of either threshold or high intensity. A threshold session was characterized by a high total time of intensity of 45-60 minutes in these pro athletes. A high intensity session of 20-50 minutes total time at intensity.
Translating that across performance levels you should be able to gather 30-60 minutes of threshold specific work per session.
What stood out to me was that they did two types of threshold intervals and applied a progressive intensity increase, meaning the first and last interval differed by 10-25 watts:
- Short-range intervals of 4-8 minutes in length
- Long-range intervals of 10-20 minutes in length
A typical session included an easy 3-4 hour ride with 6×8 minutes threshold intervals and 1-2 minutes of rest between intervals. For simplicity reasons I prescribe short threshold intervals at 95-105% of your FTP and a 2:1 work-rest ratio. Shorter threshold intervals are a great way for many athletes to get a good amount of hard work in without overstressing body and muscles due to the shorter interval time.
Try 8×5 minute progressive threshold intervals, starting at 95% of FTP and building up to 105% of FTP toward the last interval set.
I’ve had good experiences with getting people used to proper threshold workouts using that framework.
2. Long-Range Threshold Intervals
Long-range threshold intervals of 10-20 minutes in duration should be in the repertory of every serious cyclist. You’re riding at or slightly below your second lactate threshold (LT2), so it will be a hard effort.
Such intervals drive the process of increasing the size and density of mitochondria in your muscles. That improves your ability to burn fat and carbohydrates, as well as process and utilize lactate as a fuel. On top of that, threshold intervals can also improve your blood plasma volume, giving you greater ability to manage your core body temperature, and increase mitochondrial enzyme activity to produce energy faster.
For most trained cyclists this intensity should be sustainable for 30-80 minutes. That’s a big range. Yet both in the lab and the field we see this range play out.
Your time-to-exhaustion at your second lactate threshold or FTP depends on your fitness level. Therefore, more novice cyclists might start with just 30 minutes of total work, while Norwegian pro athletes can tolerate 45-60 minutes or more. In other words, training makes your lactate threshold power higher and increases the time you can tolerate riding at that power.
For recovery periods we are always looking for half the interval time or a 2:1 work-to-rest ratio.
Now, let’s condense this knowledge into three example sessions.
The Beginner – 3×10 minute threshold intervals
The Advanced – 3×15 minute threshold intervals
The Pro – 4×15 minute threshold intervals
3. Standard HIT Intervals
We usually associate specific intensities with specific adaptations we want to target. But here’s the thing. Your body does not know systems. Therefore, exercise at any intensity has an impact across the board, it’s just that certain parts of your physiology get tuned more or less depending on the intensity.
So, when we refer to HIT intervals, this means that such intervals will mainly, but not exclusively, improve your performance and physiology around VO2max. Other areas of your physiology like your FTP will improve as well, but the improvements revolve around the targeted intensity.
Now, as your VO2max portrays the upper limit of your endurance capacity, pulling it up will automatically pull up your FTP.
Research has shown that up to date there’s no best HIT interval session to improve your VO2max. That’s because there’s no reason to “stay in zone.” Instead, HIT intervals are done self-paced with the goal of achieving the highest power across all interval sets. Research has found that when self-paced oxygen consumption is similar as long as the interval is at least 2 minutes long.
Therefore, I target intervals of 2-4 minutes in length, separated by equal recovery periods, to accumulate 12-24 minutes of total interval time. The RPE for these efforts is between 8-9 out of 10.
Although you can complete these intervals on any terrain I recommend doing them uphill if possible. The incline is helpful for increasing the workload and most cyclists hit their highest power uphill, independent of rider type.
Let’s look at three workout examples once more.
The Beginner – 4×3 minute Hill Repeats
The Advanced – 6×3 minute Hill Repeats
The Pro – 6×4 minute Hill Repeats
After all, bumping up your FTP is all about doing ordinary workouts extraordinarily well and finding joy in boredom to repeat that work over and over and over again.
Structured Training Plans for Serious Cyclists
Training can and should be simple but it must be structured correctly in order to be effective. My training plans reflect this. Find the plan that suits your ability and build rock-solid cycling fitness and speed that last:
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References
- Training Session Models in Endurance Sports: A Norwegian Perspective on Best Practice Recommendations
- Interval training at VO2max: effects on aerobic performance and overtraining markers
- What is Best Practice for Training Intensity and Duration Distribution in Endurance Athletes?
- The Road to Gold: Training and Peaking Characteristics in the Year Prior to a Gold Medal Endurance Performance