After the warm-up, have riders find their best 2:00 minute effort, recover, repeat. If you have power meters, track the results and have riders take the average or highest of the two efforts (watts/power). Call it threshold (TH) for the ride. They will use that number – or RPE if you don’t have meters – and ride just below TH for the first challenge (#3), working recovery, then at TH (#5), working recovery, then 1:45 to work up to a 15 sec. sprint (#7). Repeat the set (fewer reps in #9 & #10).
In #3 and #9, riders are riding just below TH for 30 seconds, then backing off the effort for 30 sec. but only a small amount – it’s not a recovery. It’s the same with the 1:00 efforts in #5 and #10. It’s challenging to not back way off, so I beef up the coaching during those segments to be disciplined and focused on the nuance of that move; otherwise they turn into mini-intervals instead of the full interval – which is an option if you’d like to do that! For the sprints, use the 1:45 to have them gear up to the all out 15 second effort. The music should help guide those!
There’s an 8:00 warm-up so note that the “best effort” work (#2) starts 2:00 into the second song. Also, if you’re not familiar with ramp assessments or other methods for finding, coaching and cuing threshold, I recommend watching our videos that address those topics: How to Coach Threshold, How to Do a Quick Ramp Assessment and Three Tips for Coaching Threshold.
Enjoy and stay awesome!
