Hi, Mel. I've just finished building my training plan for the season and i've scheduled some VO2 max sprints on the bike: series of 30", 1' sprints with high gear ( large front and small cog rear ). I realized I can recover very quickly from the sprints. I know this is very individual but, what do you think is the max number of interval for 30" and 1' sprints ? Thanks, Luiz.

Hi Luiz,

In reality, you will get the most out of a sprint in 30 seconds or less. More than that and you are either slowly accelerating or decelerating from max speed, you just can't hold it that long.

If you would like to work on maximum speed or power, I would focus on 30 seconds or less. Maybe start with six of them and give yourself loads of rest, like 5 minutes. You can do them either flat or into a hill to really challenge yourself. I would give yourself 36 hours to recover from this workout.

If you want to do one minute repeats, you are looking more at aerobic power. You can do more of those but I would do them in sets of 5. Make the rest 1:2 where you do one minute effort and two minutes of rest. You will see that this is a different energy system.. no longer a lactic capacity training workout. For one minute efforts you can train at 100% of your aerobic power and start with 2 sets of 5x1 minute with 2 minutes rest, with 5 minutes between sets. I find this kind of set is also very hard so I would suggest only doing it 2x per week and give yourself 36 hours before you try anything above 80-85% effort.

I've read in Triathlete Magazine that we must keep the anaerobic part of the workout between 15 and 25 minutes. If we are talking of 30 seconds sprints i could do 50 series of 30 seconds. I know sprinters from professional cycling do that but, is that too much for a triathlete ( we have a busy schedule of training, three sports ). How many series of 30 seconds are the max limit that i would be able to recover in 36 hours ? Thanks again.

You DEFINITELY don't need to do 50 of them. I don't believe anyone would do 15-25 minutes of true power workouts where you are building max speed ability. 6-9 repetitions with FULL recovery is more than enough. The perceived exertion for these workouts is 20 or I couldn't go any harder. These workouts are very hard on your nervous system as well as they tax your brains ability to make your muscles fire as well.

IF you are talking VO2 max intervals where you want to work on anaerobic endurance, you would probably want to start with intervals at the top end of your aerobic capacity with equal recovery. I would do something like 3-4 minutes with that much rest. As you become fitter and more used to doing efforts at this workout you can shorten the rest between intervals. This will work on your ability to buffer lactic acid while at maximum effort but is not going to work on your absolute maximum power. These workouts are about an 18 on the 20 scale of exertion or this is the hardest I could go but if I rest I might be able to do another. At the end of this workout you likely couldn't do another. These work on your anaerobic endurance. With these intervals you could do up to 30 minutes but as you decrease the rest I would also decrease the amount of actual work that is being done.

Doing all out sprints of 30 seconds or less will create a lot of muscle damage and you should be VERY tired. It is okay to do that this time of year because it doesn't matter if you are tired because you are not racing on the weekend. These workouts are also good when you are peaking for an event where you need to be able to sprint, like a bike race. For a triathlete, these workouts will help build your maximum power IF that is your limiter.

As I have tried to point out, between 30 seconds and a minute your body changes energy system to perform that work. Two different workouts at 100% effort exist between 20 seconds and one minute. I would strongly recommend doing less than 10 of those intervals that are less than 30 seconds AND I would recommend doing a lot of recovery after them.

When you go up to one minute the workout becomes less taxing and you can do more but at that point you have a different goal from that workout.