- Right, list a number of the top pro triathletes out there,
and the same bike coach will keep popping up,
Mathew Bottrill, and he is here with us today.
- Thank you Mark, good to see you again.
- Now Matt coaches Susie Cheetham, Tim Don, Lucy Charles,
Will Clarke, Matt Hanson, the list goes on.
Now these are all long-distance Ironman athletes,
but the training they do might surprise you.
- Yeah I know, absolutely Mark, you know,
we're not just looking at like
say 70 point free pace Ironman pace,
that's one of the biggest things I found
when I came into the sport.
You know, we do a number of different intervals
over a number of different power zones.
Just training for the demands of the event
and ultimately just training their
individual power profiles, and that's what's so specific
when it comes to training, everybody adapts
to training in a different way.
- Well that sounds very interesting and it clearly works
so I think it's time we took a look.
(techno buzz music)
Right then Matt, out on the bikes
what are we doing today?
- So today Mark, we're gonna be looking
at a microburst session.
Basically a microburst is a maximum effort
over 10, 20, 30 seconds,
and the idea behind this
is basically to help raise your FTP
and increase your lactic threshold.
- All right, okay, so this is very different
from what I was expecting for an Ironman session.
Normally, most Ironman athletes out there are doing
steady state threshold intervals.
This is all over the place in terms of power,
so what's the reasoning behind that?
- Basically the reason behind it is
it's a great way of enabling you to through a set period
you can work at like 90% of your FTP,
so in that session anywhere
between 20 minutes up to an hour.
But it also helps how we've the variation in pacing
on different types of courses.
- So when you hit a hill as we're doing now,
and then also I guess if you're trying to get
around athletes or athletes are surging
and you're following them,
so, really preparing you for race day.
- Yeah absolutely, and working coming out of corners,
going down hill, you just want that variability.
You know, there's not just one set pace
to improve your ability of just sustainable power.
- All right, well let's give it a go!
- Definitely, let's go for it.
- [Mark Voiceover] Right then, before you embark on this
microburst session it's important
that you're well warmed up, so I suggest something
like 10 minutes at zone two with a nice high cadence.
And then, we're on to Matt's session
of four by 10 seconds at zone six,
and these are what we call sub-maximal
so that all our effort's out of the saddle.
And between each effort we're gonna do
five minutes at zone two to recover.
And then, we're moving on to four by 20 seconds
at zone six with five minutes at zone two between each rep
with a nice high cadence above a 100 revolutions
per minute where possible.
And then, on to our final block,
a four by 30 seconds at zone six
with five minutes zone two between each rep.
And then of course, make sure that you
cool down sufficiently for at least
five to six minutes.
- Right Matt, you could argue that for all
age group athletes they should really be aiming for
a consistent well paced race, so actually
are these really sharp, high powered intervals
any good for them at all?
- Yeah definitely Mark, you know most age group athletes
when they race, they're gonna ride around
70 to 75% of their FTP,
but if you start incorporating efforts like this
these neuromuscular efforts,
they're gonna help raise their FTP
so that's gonna give us more power.
They're gonna give a better cadence range,
they'll be more efficient and effective
for the undulations of the course.
- [Mark Voiceover] Now, a handful of 10 to 30 second
microburst efforts doesn't look half as daunting as
say, a long sweet spot interval,
but I'm gonna warn you now, they sure do sting.
As Matt explains, the average power intensity factor
and stress from the session
will actually be very similar to that of
a session involving steady state threshold intervals,
except obviously the session and the
power you output was very different.
If you're looking to improve your FTP then
this is a fantastic way of starting out
without doing any overwhelmingly long threshold intervals.
Equally though, they do have their own advantages
for the more advanced cyclist as Matt has mentioned.
As you progress, you can even ride at zone three
or sweet spot between the microburst intervals.
- Okay, so, for your age group athlete out there
say they've got three rides per week.
They're doing an FTP interval session, sweet spot session,
and a long base aerobic ride.
Where would a microburst session fit into this week?
- Well initially Mark, it's looking at that
individual power profile and where they
actually are within their training.
But I would say that ideally you'd probably want to
look at removing the FTP session
and replacing it with this microburst session.
And just look at doing this for a six to eight week period.
- So in dropping the FTP ride, not completely
but just for the time being,
what's the reasoning behind that?
- Just to give you a focus on adapting to that
variation in pacing, ultimately working on
the demands of the profile of the courses.
How many races do you actually do that are flat?
Or nobody ever pulls out of you, no one
got off cornering, we need to incorporate
this type of workout to improve that.
- Well that was a great session, I'm sure it surprised
a few of you out there.
And if you did like the session today,
you can hit that thumbs-up button.
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Now if you'd like to see Matt's TT bike
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then you can see that just by clicking down here.
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