33. HIGH INTENSITY TRAINING: SHORT VS. LONG INTERVALS IN PRO CYCLISTS

Photo by Tuvalum on Unsplash

In the last post we saw that short intervals (3x13min 30s on-15s off) provides superior physiological and performance improvements compared to long intervals (4x5min on with 2.5 recovery). That study was performed on well-trained (VO2max ~66) but not professional cyclists.

Would the same results be obtained with professional athletes?

Are short intervals superior to long intervals even for pro cyclists?

A study published by the same research group lead by Prof. Bent Rønnestad on Scandinavian Journal of Medicine & Science in Sports in 2020 tried do answer this question.

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WHAT DID THEY DO?

The research design was the same of the research published in the last post, the only differences were the following:

1. Participants were pro and not well-trained cyclists

2. Training intervention lasted 3 and not 10 weeks.

3. High intensity training was performed 3 and not 2 times per week.

So, here what they did:

• 18 professional cyclists (on average ~25 years old and ~73 VO2max) were divided into two groups: SI (Short Intervals) and LI (Long Intervals).

• For the following 3 weeks the two groups performed the same training program:

  8-10 hrs of low intensity training + 3x week HIT sessions.

  The only difference between the two groups was about the HIT format they performed:

  • SI group performed Short intervals HIT sessions:

    3x13’ alternating 30’’ on/15’’ off with 3’ recovery in between.

  • LI group a Long Intervals HIT sessions:

    4x5’ on/2.5' off.

15-20min of warm-up and cool down were included in each session.

If you make some calculations, you can see as both SI and LI groups accumulated a similar time in the ‘on’ phase: 19min30s vs 20 min (3x13x30’’ vs 4x5’).

In both HIT’s formats, the ‘on’ phases were performed at the maximum sustainable effort to obtain the highest average power throughout all the intervals.

The ‘off’' phases were performed at 50% of the power output sustained during intervals, so it was active recovery (read high zone 1 or low zone 2).

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WHAT DID THEY FOUND?