Lactate Clearance
69 min
High intensity
Clear and reuse lactate while still producing power: three ten-minute blocks alternating 20 seconds at 110-115% of CP with 40 seconds at 80-85%, for climbs, breakaways and fast group rides.
Matteo Cigala
Coach, Cigala Cycling
Lactate Clearance
69 min
High
8 / 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.
Matteo Cigala
Why this workout
The breakdown
Inside the workout
Sustained intervals where the intensity shifts repeatedly between just under threshold and just over it, forcing the body to clear and reuse lactate while still producing power. Matteo Cigala's version uses a short over and a longer under, for climbs, breakaways and fast group riding where the pace surges and settles every minute.
Three ten-minute blocks of twenty seconds at 110–115% of CP and forty seconds at 80–85%, with five minutes between. The 20/40 ratio keeps the surge frequent and the recovery real, so the block trains resilience to repeated changes of speed rather than one long grind. A short tempo and threshold primer before the set brings the rider to the boundary before the work starts.
The efforts are set against CP in Vekta and the W′ trace afterwards shows a fine sawtooth that should hold level across the block; a downward drift means the under was too hard.
A build-phase session, one or two a week, indoors or out, in just over an hour.
Lactate Clearance
Stimulus
Intermediate
Workout level
Indoors
Best ridden
Road,
DISCIPLINE
The stimulus
Lactate Clearance, explained
Surge above threshold, settle just under it, and teach the body to clear the cost.
What it is
Over-under and variable-pace intervals that alternate short surges above critical power with longer segments just below it. The "under" is not recovery; it is the working part, where lactate produced in the surge is used as fuel while still riding hard.
Why it matters
Races are not steady. The ability to absorb an attack, a short climb or a crosswind surge and return to a hard pace without blowing is what separates finishing in the group from being dropped. This is the trainable version of that ability.
The surges should feel manageable and the "unders" should feel like the real work. If you are recovering during the under, it is too easy; if you cannot finish the set, the surge is too hard or too long.
These sessions map directly onto race demands and are the best way to expose whether an athlete's W′ recovers under load. The W′ balance trace after the session shows the pattern clearly: it should dip on each surge and partially recover through the under.
The session's surges and unders are written in % of CP and personalised in Vekta. The W′ preview shows whether the athlete can complete the set as written; the post-ride analysis names each surge and the recovery between them.
Common questions
What is an over-under interval?
How far over and under should I go?
Is this a threshold or a VO2 max session?
Go deeper
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