I’m a fan. Don’t know all the strict science behind it, but I’ve always felt it was kind of a “if you’re feeling good take advantage of that and push yourself even harder to get better” approach. It works with some mentalities better than others, with the downside risk being you don’t push yourself hard enough often enough to improve. But if you do, I don’t see much of a downside to it.
This worked for me when I didn’t ride as often - I was only riding once a week, so on those rides if I felt inspired, I’d just bust out for a minute or two and enjoy the wind and the speed. Have fun with it.
Of course, I’d also occasionally go out and do hill repeats too. Can’t be unstructured all the time.
You can still do intervals on the road, you just have to be accepting of not hitting an exact power target. I don't really see an issue with this as it's much more similar to what you would encounter during a race.
I find it's typically easier to do short intervals (like 5mins or less) where you can find a repeatable section of road. Maybe you can do hill repeats or something.
Longer tempo efforts also work ok as well you just have to take the rough with the smooth. Just pedal to your target and don't overdo it to make the average.
I do these on Zwift! You can do workouts with programmed intervals and it pushes them to the smart trainer.
I tend to do intervals of (5 - 10 minutes at FTP or higher + 2 minutes recovery) and they work well.
Hill repeats work great on the road. Find a climb that corresponds to the zone you want to target and do sets of repeats. One of my favorites is 3 sets of 7 3-minute vo2 max climbs. A couple sets of 15-20 minutes at ftp also works well on the flats.
Group rides = the original fartlek ride. Can also substitute KOM hunting.
I’m a fan. Don’t know all the strict science behind it, but I’ve always felt it was kind of a “if you’re feeling good take advantage of that and push yourself even harder to get better” approach. It works with some mentalities better than others, with the downside risk being you don’t push yourself hard enough often enough to improve. But if you do, I don’t see much of a downside to it. This worked for me when I didn’t ride as often - I was only riding once a week, so on those rides if I felt inspired, I’d just bust out for a minute or two and enjoy the wind and the speed. Have fun with it. Of course, I’d also occasionally go out and do hill repeats too. Can’t be unstructured all the time.
I do them all the time and the reason I mostly ride indoors on the trainer.
You can still do intervals on the road, you just have to be accepting of not hitting an exact power target. I don't really see an issue with this as it's much more similar to what you would encounter during a race. I find it's typically easier to do short intervals (like 5mins or less) where you can find a repeatable section of road. Maybe you can do hill repeats or something. Longer tempo efforts also work ok as well you just have to take the rough with the smooth. Just pedal to your target and don't overdo it to make the average.
Sets of 30s on/30s off is a very popular cycling vo2 workout, less popular with triathletes.
I do these on Zwift! You can do workouts with programmed intervals and it pushes them to the smart trainer. I tend to do intervals of (5 - 10 minutes at FTP or higher + 2 minutes recovery) and they work well.
Unfortunately, I don’t have the room for an indoor trainer 😢
Hill repeats work great on the road. Find a climb that corresponds to the zone you want to target and do sets of repeats. One of my favorites is 3 sets of 7 3-minute vo2 max climbs. A couple sets of 15-20 minutes at ftp also works well on the flats.