Your research and references plus expert interpretation are adding real value to my own training and practice as a coach. Huge thanks for putting your work out there.
Hi Stephen, incredibly well researched and well explained! These videos really address a lot - if not all - of the pitfalls I have been struggling with when training MAP as a cyclist. Thank you!
Extremely interesting - thank you for posting this..!! One point: @8mins.30secs, you're including the 4mins rest time in your calculations for "Time spent above 90% of VO2 max." It seems the researchers have messed up, in any case, by calculating 8mins total work time as 800seconds, when it should be 720seconds...
That conclusion is that at this stage there isnt enough evidence for the 30:15's vs longer intervals when total time was equal, but the 30:15's did allow more work to be done in the target zone with a lower RPE , HR and lactate response....I think thats right! :-)
Could you please elaborate on Wåge study intervals that all three groups performed 32 mins of work? 4x8= 32, 12x40=480x4=1920=32, 8x40=320x4=1280=21.33 mins. Is my math wrong? First two equal 32mins but the 4(8x40) group does not.
@@Karlhung yea I don't get why it's equivalent. Surely it just means the 8 vs 12 block is doing a third less work. Peak power and lactate etc are higher on the 8s but that will just be less measured effort given only 8 and not 12 intervals are being done; total activity time is reduced. 8*minute/30 would have made more sense and would be the same 32mins work.
Super interesting stuff. I've always liked 30s on, 30 off sessions but limited them in training for an Ironman because i thought they weren't relevant to the demands of the race.
In all these studies measuring physiological response to various training stimuli, what's missing is race performance. Just because there was an average improvement in power doesn't mean that there was an individual improvement in performance. The best test would be to have all the subjects race each other! Then we'd know if it matters. Sometimes there are time trial times, but that doesn't get to the essence of what sport is, truly. Is that possible, logistically/ethically? Why does it seem to be rarely done?
Because you introduce a number of new variables that you can not control for when you race. Some people are just not as good at racing as their lab tested metrics would let you believe. That does not mean that competitors in general would not improve in races given the adaptations. But to get some even decent validity in such a study you would have to have an N of thousands witch is logistically impossible.
brilliant videos thank you , just to check I understood it correctly the final study you are referring to suggests that it is time spent at 90%+ vo2 max/HRmax that is is important for positive adaptation ? so if one of the hiit sessions 30/15 ,40/20 is able to keep you at 90%+ vo2max/HRmax longer than the traditional longer intervals you would expect greater adaptation ?
In the Ronnestadt studies, would the longer interval groups performance been any different with they did 30 minutes instead of 20 minutes total work? Why wouldn't they match the volume done by the 30, 15 group like you did in your subsequent study?
True in terms of power output, but certainly not wrong from a cardiac (and metabolic) point of view, which is what matters if you want to maximize physiological adaptations. HR almost does not drop during the 15 sec recovery periods, which means that you are at a quasi steady state for HR during the whole block of 13*(30-15 sec), not just when you are working hard.
Dr Seiler- How would you compare this research with Bilat's classic 20x 30/30sec prescription? Do these short intermittent intervals correspond with Peter Thompson's lactate dynamics "new interval training" in your mind? Could you use these micro-sessions best in the early season when one is still building their musculoskeletal capacity, and then again for sharpening as a means of somewhat more glycogen-sparing intensity (NAGs work)?
Dr. Seiler, thank you so much for going through all these nuances. Some of what you talked about over this 3 part series reminds me of Dr. Jack Daniels research and how he would say that it took 2 full minutes to go from fully rested to hitting vo2 max. He would talk about structuring vo2 sessions to achieve the most total time at vo2 max given that it took 2 minutes to achieve so make the workbouts longer with full recovery OR do short intervals but cut the rest. Do you think that is part of what is going on and leads to the different adaptations across all these studies? I’d also be curious if this applied to longer sessions at say threshold effort, and could you get similar adaptions doing your 4 x 16 minute session versus the Kenyan Fartlek of 20 x 2 minutes on / 1 minute off BUT AT A STEADY PACE- would you predict the latter session would yield better adaptations? Thanks again for sharing your knowledge with all us training geeks!
We are doing something similar during build up, 40-60min of 1min HARD 1min EASY,after a month (4-8sessions) starting to pick up the 1min EASY to STEADY.Very good preparation for 10K/Half Marathon.Other similar workout is 40-60min of short steep hill 60-70m going HARD up,STEADY down.Both of these workouts can keep the HR 90-92% avg but the HARD parts are many times faster than 5K pace.
I wonder... What about doing even shorter intervals and longer rest so that the heart rate doesn't go up. Like zone 2 training for 1 hour and sprinkle in some slowing down before and doing hard 10 sek intervals but slowing down after so that the heart rate keeps in zone 2. That way zone 2 would stretch the heart making it beat fully and then the intervals would make the blood pressure go up extremely high putting extra stretch on the heart and making the heart contract harder. Then do 32min worth of sprints but not with higher heart rate and maybe we will see that it's not time at high heart rates but perhaps zone 2 with high pressure can be better or just as good.
This is how the strongest hearts in the world works out..... Strongmen.. For ex check Eddie Hall running 1 mile. ( I calculated the effort via Alan couzens run power calculator to 600 watts ).
Thank you! I've got question about 40/20s study. You've said that all athletes improved 40min TT. What was power before and after study period? Were they doing low intensity sessions too?
14:50 But LI-Group had pre lactates way higher than SI-Group... So... Did SI-Group actually underperform their initial pre-study tests and thus it seemed that their improved, while actually they just didn't underperform anymore. All in all both groups seemed to be quite balanced so such a difference in pre study lactates seems odd. Same can be seen with earlier charts around 12:00: LI-Group seemed to have better '4mmol' and '40min all-out' Pprformance, infact could be said that their 'pre'-performace was better than 'post' for SI-Group on those two seqments. Bit fishy.
Will this kind of training benefit long distance runners (50-200 miles), or is this not specific enough? I tend to stick with Lydiard's twice weekly 12 mile sub-threshold (roughly MP) runs as my faster running, plus uphill sprints (8-10 sec), plus striding, rather than long or short intervals.
How does the training effect differ between two scenarios, i.e. outdoors in "optimal"(based on feel) temprature, and indoors, in a very hot and humid climate? I ask because in the spin classes I go to, my heart rate climbs and stays high, as an effect of the climate. So the cardiovascular response is greater than if done outdoors, but the power is a lot less, especially as the session progresses. Should I train to heartrate when indoors and focus on accumulating time above 90%MHr, or focus on the power and not be fussed by cardiac drift? I do both long, short, and micro intervals.
If the objective is to train time at vo2max power then spin class in a hot room will not do it and ur right instead will just be a hard cardio effort. And alternative is to take account of the climate and adjust ur ftp accordingly in what zones ur going for. Say outside on a cool day figure ur ftp is 10-20% higher than spin class. Then u might avoid burning matches at the start and getting bogged in HR drift at the end.
I had a MTB XC race last year where I managed 91% peak HR average for 145 minutes from start to finish. Still dont know how it was possible. 134th place finish though :)
Will the Wåle study be published ? For example it would be very interesting to see the individual responses. By the way. I found is very important to control the power output during rest intervals . You can see this very good if control the average in power output over the whole series. If I succeed with that my average power output inducing the rest intervals is pretty much the same then with long intervals with the same duration. Maybe a couple of watts difference, but not more then 1-3%
Your research and references plus expert interpretation are adding real value to my own training and practice as a coach. Huge thanks for putting your work out there.
This is an awesome series of videos. Thank you.
Hi Stephen, incredibly well researched and well explained! These videos really address a lot - if not all - of the pitfalls I have been struggling with when training MAP as a cyclist. Thank you!
Thanks for providing these lectures. They are very informative and enjoyable.
Extremely interesting - thank you for posting this..!!
One point:
@8mins.30secs, you're including the 4mins rest time in your calculations for "Time spent above 90% of VO2 max."
It seems the researchers have messed up, in any case, by calculating 8mins total work time as 800seconds, when it should be 720seconds...
Thanks for putting all this out there.
Really good presentations.
I will give the hit workout a shot this week
Well I've watched all three parts and I'm still none the wiser. Would someone care to enlighten me what the conclusion of this is?
exactly that.
That conclusion is that at this stage there isnt enough evidence for the 30:15's vs longer intervals when total time was equal, but the 30:15's did allow more work to be done in the target zone with a lower RPE , HR and lactate response....I think thats right! :-)
Could you please elaborate on Wåge study intervals that all three groups performed 32 mins of work? 4x8= 32, 12x40=480x4=1920=32, 8x40=320x4=1280=21.33 mins. Is my math wrong? First two equal 32mins but the 4(8x40) group does not.
the 4x 8x 40/20 are 32 min with rest included
Marius Jacobsen that’s bad math, recovery shouldn’t be included in work.
@@Karlhung yea I don't get why it's equivalent. Surely it just means the 8 vs 12 block is doing a third less work.
Peak power and lactate etc are higher on the 8s but that will just be less measured effort given only 8 and not 12 intervals are being done; total activity time is reduced. 8*minute/30 would have made more sense and would be the same 32mins work.
@@Karlhung the idea of the research to see if the recovery matters...
Frank Russi from the actual article, rest and work should have been same.
Super interesting stuff. I've always liked 30s on, 30 off sessions but limited them in training for an Ironman because i thought they weren't relevant to the demands of the race.
Kevin Gilleece I think it might be useful to keep stimulating vo2max without too much strain during the more specific phase before the race.
The 30 s rest devided it by 2
30/15 will be the best
In all these studies measuring physiological response to various training stimuli, what's missing is race performance. Just because there was an average improvement in power doesn't mean that there was an individual improvement in performance. The best test would be to have all the subjects race each other! Then we'd know if it matters. Sometimes there are time trial times, but that doesn't get to the essence of what sport is, truly. Is that possible, logistically/ethically? Why does it seem to be rarely done?
Actually a maximal effort in controlled conditions can very easily approximate to say ur 10TT or 5K race pace.
Because you introduce a number of new variables that you can not control for when you race. Some people are just not as good at racing as their lab tested metrics would let you believe. That does not mean that competitors in general would not improve in races given the adaptations. But to get some even decent validity in such a study you would have to have an N of thousands witch is logistically impossible.
brilliant videos thank you , just to check I understood it correctly the final study you are referring to suggests that it is time spent at 90%+ vo2 max/HRmax that is is important for positive adaptation ? so if one of the hiit sessions 30/15 ,40/20 is able to keep you at 90%+ vo2max/HRmax longer than the traditional longer intervals you would expect greater adaptation ?
In the Ronnestadt studies, would the longer interval groups performance been any different with they did 30 minutes instead of 20 minutes total work? Why wouldn't they match the volume done by the 30, 15 group like you did in your subsequent study?
its assumed, that 20 min is not enough stimulus anymore for highly trained athletes
True in terms of power output, but certainly not wrong from a cardiac (and metabolic) point of view, which is what matters if you want to maximize physiological adaptations. HR almost does not drop during the 15 sec recovery periods, which means that you are at a quasi steady state for HR during the whole block of 13*(30-15 sec), not just when you are working hard.
Dr Seiler- How would you compare this research with Bilat's classic 20x 30/30sec prescription? Do these short intermittent intervals correspond with Peter Thompson's lactate dynamics "new interval training" in your mind? Could you use these micro-sessions best in the early season when one is still building their musculoskeletal capacity, and then again for sharpening as a means of somewhat more glycogen-sparing intensity (NAGs work)?
🙏🏽🙏🏽
Dr. Seiler, thank you so much for going through all these nuances. Some of what you talked about over this 3 part series reminds me of Dr. Jack Daniels research and how he would say that it took 2 full minutes to go from fully rested to hitting vo2 max.
He would talk about structuring vo2 sessions to achieve the most total time at vo2 max given that it took 2 minutes to achieve so make the workbouts longer with full recovery OR do short intervals but cut the rest. Do you think that is part of what is going on and leads to the different adaptations across all these studies?
I’d also be curious if this applied to longer sessions at say threshold effort, and could you get similar adaptions doing your 4 x 16 minute session versus the Kenyan Fartlek of 20 x 2 minutes on / 1 minute off BUT AT A STEADY PACE- would you predict the latter session would yield better adaptations?
Thanks again for sharing your knowledge with all us training geeks!
We are doing something similar during build up, 40-60min of 1min HARD 1min EASY,after a month (4-8sessions) starting to pick up the 1min EASY to STEADY.Very good preparation for 10K/Half Marathon.Other similar workout is 40-60min of short steep hill 60-70m going HARD up,STEADY down.Both of these workouts can keep the HR 90-92% avg but the HARD parts are many times faster than 5K pace.
So for an average guy trying to get fitter, it makes no difference whatsoever if I do 30:30s, 4:4m intervals or 16min straight runs!
I wonder... What about doing even shorter intervals and longer rest so that the heart rate doesn't go up.
Like zone 2 training for 1 hour and sprinkle in some slowing down before and doing hard 10 sek intervals but slowing down after so that the heart rate keeps in zone 2.
That way zone 2 would stretch the heart making it beat fully and then the intervals would make the blood pressure go up extremely high putting extra stretch on the heart and making the heart contract harder.
Then do 32min worth of sprints but not with higher heart rate and maybe we will see that it's not time at high heart rates but perhaps zone 2 with high pressure can be better or just as good.
This is how the strongest hearts in the world works out..... Strongmen..
For ex check Eddie Hall running 1 mile. ( I calculated the effort via Alan couzens run power calculator to 600 watts ).
Great video! Thanks for sharing the knowledge… Regarding Wåle study… did you find any difference between pre and post 40 min power between groups?
No, there was no difference at all in the performance change. It really seems that the total HIT work time is a key driver of adaptation
@@sportscientist Great! Thanks again!
Even when the answers are in front of us, we still question interval training?
Has the Wale, Pedersen work been published yet? I cannot find reference to it on the internet (google scholar, general search, etc.).
Thank you! I've got question about 40/20s study. You've said that all athletes improved 40min TT. What was power before and after study period? Were they doing low intensity sessions too?
14:50 But LI-Group had pre lactates way higher than SI-Group... So... Did SI-Group actually underperform their initial pre-study tests and thus it seemed that their improved, while actually they just didn't underperform anymore. All in all both groups seemed to be quite balanced so such a difference in pre study lactates seems odd.
Same can be seen with earlier charts around 12:00: LI-Group seemed to have better '4mmol' and '40min all-out' Pprformance, infact could be said that their 'pre'-performace was better than 'post' for SI-Group on those two seqments.
Bit fishy.
Will this kind of training benefit long distance runners (50-200 miles), or is this not specific enough? I tend to stick with Lydiard's twice weekly 12 mile sub-threshold (roughly MP) runs as my faster running, plus uphill sprints (8-10 sec), plus striding, rather than long or short intervals.
So in leymans terms, HIT will improve fitness & VO2 Max more than steady state?
I think so, but VO2 Max matters less in a race than economy. The ideal athlete will have maximized both.
In Leyman's: we don't really know and there probably is no right answer. Individually optimize
How does the training effect differ between two scenarios, i.e. outdoors in "optimal"(based on feel) temprature, and indoors, in a very hot and humid climate? I ask because in the spin classes I go to, my heart rate climbs and stays high, as an effect of the climate. So the cardiovascular response is greater than if done outdoors, but the power is a lot less, especially as the session progresses. Should I train to heartrate when indoors and focus on accumulating time above 90%MHr, or focus on the power and not be fussed by cardiac drift? I do both long, short, and micro intervals.
If the objective is to train time at vo2max power then spin class in a hot room will not do it and ur right instead will just be a hard cardio effort. And alternative is to take account of the climate and adjust ur ftp accordingly in what zones ur going for. Say outside on a cool day figure ur ftp is 10-20% higher than spin class. Then u might avoid burning matches at the start and getting bogged in HR drift at the end.
how on earth does someone manage to spend 100 minutes at more than 90% peak HR?
Emil Zatopek 100 x 400m😅
I had a MTB XC race last year where I managed 91% peak HR average for 145 minutes from start to finish. Still dont know how it was possible. 134th place finish though :)
You have to work on getting your lactate threshold up. HIIT may not help with that as much as it helps build power.
Will the Wåle study be published ? For example it would be very interesting to see the individual responses.
By the way. I found is very important to control the power output during rest intervals . You can see this very good if control the average in power output over the whole series.
If I succeed with that my average power output inducing the rest intervals is pretty much the same then with long intervals with the same duration. Maybe a couple of watts difference, but not more then 1-3%
Try the Tabatas! 8x20:10 @190% FTP 🤢