Lactate Clearance
120 min
Medium intensity
Alternate four minutes at 95-100% of CP with four at 75%, five times, to mimic race-like changes of pace and improve lactate clearance for events with varied intensity.
Ulisses Nunes Abbud
Coach
Lactate Clearance
120 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.
Ulisses Nunes Abbud
Why this workout
The breakdown
Inside the workout
Alternate above and below threshold to mimic race-like efforts, enhance lactate clearance and adapt to varied intensity. Ulisses Nunes Abbud's version uses long halves, so the session sits between a threshold session and a classic over-under.
Five eight-minute blocks of four minutes at 95–100% of CP and four at 75%, with four minutes between. The four-minute under at 75% is long enough to clear and short enough to keep the aerobic demand up; five blocks give twenty minutes at the top of the range in two hours.
Written against CP in Vekta, with the zones tab afterwards showing time at 95–100% and the W′ trace confirming the unders refilled the battery between blocks.
A build session for events with varied intensity, once or twice a week, indoors or out.
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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