Sprinting During Aerobic Workouts

[CharleCarroll]

Four months ago I started combining workouts on the BikeErg with rowing workouts. This afternoon on the BikeErg I did a long endurance ride with sprinting approximately every 10 minutes. According to Andy Coggan’s power profiling chart, Sprinting is effort less than 30 seconds and focused on developing neuromuscular power.

I began a Sprint by accelerating as fast as I could. As soon as Power/kg started to decrease, I immediately decelerated into Zone 1, Active Recovery. Shortly afterwards I was back to cycling in Zone 2. The workout lasted a little over an hour. In the Sprints the highest Power/kg was 190% of my FTP, and of course my breathing became very labored, but my heart rate never exceeded 82% of MHR.

I am curious to hear anyone’s thoughts. Did this workout have any serious benefit? And if so, what?

[robbiep]

You say that your HR never exceeded 82% of max HR

How have you calculated your max HR - is it max running HR, cycling HR, rowing HR ?

I can comfortably see 175-180 HR when running, and possibly even 185 if doing major running interval sets, but my rowing HR rarely passes 150 - 156 is the highest figure I've recorded (chest strap)

In answer to your question - yes, it has significant benefits to fitness - you are training your body to be able to work anaerobically and to flush out lactic acid, as well as aerobic training
Of course, higher intensity training also carries risks - injury, heart problems, etc are more likely at a higher intensity.

[VivaTerlingua]

These speeds might seem slow to you, but you get the relative idea. A workout I do often is I'll ride for an hour at a 2:15-2:20 pace and every fifth minute I'll ride at a 1:55-2:00 pace. Seems to give me a pretty good workout.

[hjs]

Four months ago I started combining workouts on the BikeErg with rowing workouts. This afternoon on the BikeErg I did a long endurance ride with sprinting approximately every 10 minutes. According to Andy Coggan’s power profiling chart, Sprinting is effort less than 30 seconds and focused on developing neuromuscular power.

I began a Sprint by accelerating as fast as I could. As soon as Power/kg started to decrease, I immediately decelerated into Zone 1, Active Recovery. Shortly afterwards I was back to cycling in Zone 2. The workout lasted a little over an hour. In the Sprints the highest Power/kg was 190% of my FTP, and of course my breathing became very labored, but my heart rate never exceeded 82% of MHR.

I am curious to hear anyone’s thoughts. Did this workout have any serious benefit? And if so, what?

Be carefull, those are a good bit harder to recover from, so use with care. Try it for 6 weeks once twice a week and see how you react. Doing faster stuff in itself is important I think. Keep those faster fibers alive.

[flatbread]

as has been said a pure sprint is a maximum effort of 10 seconds at the longest. neuromuscular power.

now, a surge is a different deal. if you've done an FTP test, surges up above FTP in the course of an aerobic ride are effective in improving your condition, but the key is to keep a cap on the intensity so it's not turning into an anaerobic capacity session.

something like :30 @ 120% of your functional threshold power (what watts can you hold for an all-out hour), then 4:30 of riding down at 60-70% of FTP, ok, do that 12 times for an hour and that's a reasonable session for some basic endurance with a little top end thrown in.

one workout that most racers will do in the late Base period is the Hour of Power -- an hour just below threshold with :10-:15 "pops" as hard as you can muster every 5min. granted, that's an advanced workout that takes a high level of fitness.

maybe play with finding a power/pace level that you can repeat 8-10 times over 40-50 min and hit a :30 effort every 5min.

[CaseyClarke]

75% of my BikeErg workouts are this format. Steady state interspersed with various sprints. I highly recommend them!

[CharleCarroll]

You say that your HR never exceeded 82% of max HR

How have you calculated your max HR - is it max running HR, cycling HR, rowing HR ?

I took the highest reading on the BikeErg for a HIIT workouit: 15 x 1:00 max effort / 1:00 active recovery.

I started rowing on a Model C when I was 50 years old. In about 6 weeks I achieved my goal: 7500m in 30 mins. The few times I used a Heart Rate Monitor I would see heart rates in the 170 range by the end of a workout. This of course was a little excessive, but whenever I rowed within an aerobic Heart Rate range my splits were tremendously disappointing. I was both ambitious and ignorant. I stopped using my heart rate monitor because I didn't like the results I saw. Every workout was steady state and I tried to keep splits at 2:00/500. This was far too much, given my age and size. But I thought I was doing OK because I only rowed 4 days a week. Needless to say the combination of poor technique and over-training finally caught up with me. Eventually I herniated a disc (L4-L5]. It was exceedingly painful.

After recovering from surgery I finally made it out on the water. Then 4 years ago I had more disc problems that resulted in a second L4-L5 surgery, an Anterior/Posterior Fusion. I have been using the Dynamic Indoor Rower ever since and 4 months ago I started using the BikeErg.

The BikeErg has been a bit of a surprise. In a few days I turn 73. When I tested for MHR on the BikeErg the highest I got was 147bpm, which struck me as low. But it is only one test from untrained rider. I think that if I had cycled longer intervals I might have seen the heart rate go higher. But of course the important thing is that the heart rate dropped significantly during the minute of Active Recovery.

I apologize for being so long-winded.

/Charles