Anaerobic
75 min
Medium intensity
Learn to pace a time trial by building through it: three ten-minute efforts that start at 95% of CP and finish at 105%, so the average rises instead of collapsing from a hard start.
Andy Turner
Coach, ATP Performance
Anaerobic
75 min
Medium
7 / 10
Intermediate
Indoors
The session
The workout
Written as a share of critical power, so it fits every rider. In Vekta it becomes your watts, with the W′ cost shown before you ride.
Andy Turner
Why this workout
The breakdown
Inside the workout
The fastest way to ride a time trial is usually a negative split: start below threshold and build to above it. Starting too hard produces fatigue metabolites early and drags down the average the rider can hold for the whole effort. This session makes the negative split a habit.
Three ten-minute efforts, each five minutes at 95% of CP then five at 105%, with five minutes' rest between. The first half feels too easy; that is the discipline being trained. The second half is above CP and spends W′ on purpose, at the end of the effort where it belongs.
Vekta's W′ balance trace shows the battery held through the first five minutes and drained through the second, which is the shape of a well-paced TT; the interval analysis afterwards reports the split between the two halves in numbers.
Once a week in a time-trial block, indoors or on a flat course. Extend the halves before raising the intensities.
Anaerobic
Stimulus
Intermediate
Workout level
Indoors
Best ridden
Road,
Time trial,
DISCIPLINE
The stimulus
Anaerobic, explained
Sixty to ninety seconds flat out, to grow the reserve above critical power.
What it is
Repeated efforts of thirty seconds to two minutes at 130–200% of critical power, with recoveries long enough to repeat them but not to recover fully. These sessions target W′, the finite amount of work available above CP.
Why it matters
W′ is the battery that pays for every attack, every steep pitch and every closing kilometre. A bigger W′, and a faster recharge below CP, means more matches to burn and more attacks survived. Vekta measures both from your riding, and this is the work that moves them.
These hurt in a way VO2 max sessions do not: the effort is near-maximal and the recovery is short. Ride them when fresh, keep the number of reps as written, and expect to see the effect in your ability to follow surges rather than in your steady power.
The W′ balance trace is the coaching tool here: a well-set session drains W′ close to zero on the final reps and no earlier. If the athlete empties it on rep two, the target is too high for their current CP.
In Vekta the efforts are personalised to the athlete's CP and W′, so the same session written once fits every rider on the roster. The preview shows the predicted W′ drain rep by rep.
Common questions
What is the difference between anaerobic and VO2 max intervals?
How many reps?
When in the season?
Free for coaches. Test with your whole roster during the trial.