Are you looking to boost your anaerobic performance? If so, then you should try race-winning intervals. These workouts are a great way to improve your speed and power, which can help you win races. In this article, we’ll discuss what race-winning intervals are, and how to perform them correctly. Let’s get started!
Race-Winning Intervals – Your secret Ingredient to Success
Imagine if you could make much stronger attacks at the most decisive moments in a cycling race.
If you could push 50-100 Watts more and keep it there just a little longer.
Could it make a difference? Could it possibly increase your chances of winning?
No doubt.
The good news is that you can boost your anaerobic performance with minimal adjustments to your current training.
And you don’t have to work harder, but you need to pay more attention to the specific skills you want to train.
You can call them Race-Winning Intervals.
Let me explain.
Most road cyclists enjoy riding long endurance rides lasting 1to 2hours and sometimes up to 6+ hours.
Some include structured intervals focusing on lifting their functional threshold power and VO2 max.
It all makes good sense.
But it is only a tiny minority that uses structured intervals targeting anaerobic power and endurance, and it’s a big mistake.
Why? Because the shorter races you ride, the more critical your anaerobic skills are.
So there is a HUGE potential if you train these skills the right way (because most of your opponents don’t).
Here is a story from a rider who took his anaerobic performance to a new level with race-winning intervals:
I’ve done a few crits but being 69kg and more of a climber I’ve always struggled to get in the points. I always lost positions in the last lap or two, generally ended up between 10th and 20th.
So I started doing your anaerobic interval sessions on the turbo trainer – I did about 6 or 7 sessions over 3 weeks.
24th June I was 10th
8th July I was 6th
15th July I was 1st – won by breaking away on the last lap using my new found anaerobic endurance (1 lap is just over 1 minute)Very pleased, thanks for the sessions!
Gary Bury
As you can see, anaerobic performance can significantly change your race performance. But, remember, there is not much difference between the aerobic endurance of the podium and top-15 riders.
Most podium riders can make more brutal attacks or sprints than the rest. Many of these riders adopted these skills from their parents.
Well, I agree, that is quite difficult to change when you read this.
Nevertheless, anaerobic performance is quite trainable, and you can make enormous improvements quickly.
It is much faster than developing aerobic power.
Here are three examples (1-1.5hrs) of how you can improve your anaerobic power and endurance:
Race-Winning Intervals #1 (last Kilo jump)
15 minutes – warm-up (increasing intensity)
5 x (60sec. maximum intensity + 9 min. recovery)
Cooldown
Race-Winning Intervals #2 (long sprint)
15 minutes – warm-up (increasing intensity)
8 x flying 500m sprints + 9 min. recovery)
Cooldown
Race-Winning Intervals #3 (hill sprint)
15 minutes – warm-up (increasing intensity)
10 x (20sec. slow start, hill sprints + 6 min. recovery)
Cooldown
If you perform 6 to 8 of these sessions during the next month, I expect to hear more success stories like the one mentioned above. Find more inspiration for optimizing your pre-season training here.
Give it a try!