Turbo Session 11th Jan – Lactate Threshold

Well done to all those that completed the session on the 11th Jan. For those wishing to repeat it or for those who didn't attend it here are the details of what we did:

Easy warm up for 10 mins
Cadence ramp, 1 min intervals of increasing cadence, 100/105/110/115/120+ with 30 second recovery between each interval.
Single leg drill
3 x 1 min of each leg with 30 second recovery

Main set
5 mins in a reasonably hard gear followed by 5 mins 1 gear harder.

Aiming for a gear that takes us just past Lactate Threshold (LTH). For most of us the is around 85% of max heart rate. It's usually between 80 and 90% of MHR but without undergoing blood tests it's hard to be certain so we used the 85% average. I had mine measured some years ago at 145BPM with a max of 171 so 85% is about right for me.

5 mins recovery

Repeat 5/5/4 as above

You see the affects of cumulative loading on my heart rate data below. The first set between 22 and 32 mins I just crossed my LTH. The second set between 36 and 46 mins my heart rate was higher for the same work and the recovery less.

3 mins in the gear that we finished the last 5 min interval in
1 min recovery
Repeat the 3 + 1 in the same gear.

You can see from the graph between 50 and 58 mins that this made me cross my LTH twice. Repeated crossing of LTH and then going below it is a method to increase LTH which is very beneficial for being able to work harder for longer in time trials.

2 mins in 1 gear harder than the last set
1 min recovery

Repeat 2 + 1

1 mins in 1 gear harder than the last set
1 min recovery

Repeat 1 + 1, use the biggest gear you can power through at a cedence of 90+

These last 4 sets are anaerobic intervals and will get the body used to working with that system.

Hope that set is useful to you.

Barry