I’m headed to a 2 week business trip at the end of the month and I just finished a TR Build plan. Since VO2Max workouts and considered the “best” standalone workouts (as I understand it), I was thinking thinking of just doing 3/week and an outdoor ride before I leave instead of starting a specialty plan and coming back to it after the trip.
I then got to thinking, what if I did months of VO2Max-only workouts inside? Would I begin to adapt to that? Is the concern more that my body would get too over-stressed (not in TSS)? Wondering about the pros and cons.
If you count Seiler 8min intervals as VO2max, I’d say that a program consisting of just VO2 max - workouts with 8min intervals and down - would be a very time efficient way of maintaining good higher end fitness. Your performance on longer rides would deteriorate tho - not sure how long, maybe more than an hour?
If you only did VO2 intervals on “on” days and recovery rides, or complete rest, on “off” days for four or five months, you would gradually get worse at the VO2 intervals as overall training volume dropped, and as stated previously, you’d lose endurance.
Seriously. At some point, one of your internal organs will get sick and tired of all the abuse and pull a big fat ‘Atlas Shrugged’ on you. And the paramedics won’t know how to unclip you from your dumb trainer so they’ll just cut off your $400 cycling shoes and haul you away.
Even more seriously…I kinda did this in the Winter/Spring of 2018: 5 hours/week – VO2max 3x and Over-Unders 2x for 3 months. Your high end and short power will be great; kiss your aerobic base good-bye. And then you start to hate riding your bike.
Wait is this really a thing? Do you lose your aerobic base if you spend too much time in VO2max? I was seriously considering going into an extended general build phase after my short-power build phase is over.
