My Tabata Intervals

Here is a quick screen shot of what my Tabata intervals look like. Tabata intervals are done as 20 sec. all out, 10 sec. rest, done 6-8 times. I usually do 2 sets of these with 5 to 10 min. of easy spinning between. The goal with these is to increase your maximal power output and teach you how to "GO HARD" when you really aren't recovered at all.

These are great for cyclocross since during a race you're either on it full gas or setting up a corner. You never really get a chance to fully recover, unless you want to place last. Mentally these are great since you have toput your head down and go even when your legs are telling you in no uncertain terms to stop.

The 1st bout was done with the all out 20 sec at 425 to 450 watts and an average of 315. The 2nd bout was mostly the same but some corners on a few efforts lead to lower wattages then I hammered the final 2 efforts. The 20 sec. efforts range from 410 to 520 and I averaged 330. Overall I'm pretty happy with those numbers. Vo2 Max efforts need to be a minimum of 3 minutes long, so at 3:20 I just got into that arena.

I finished this ride with 4 x 1 minute all out uphill. This is an effort I used to do at the beginnig of a ride as two rounds with 5' spinning easy, then I'd go ride tempo for an hour. This was two years ago and I would push with everything I had to keep it over 400. This day, after lots of all out efforts I maintained 473, 410, 408 and 410, so I was really pleased with that.

This type of training is very different from what I used to do, long steady rides where I was never really out of breath. Doing these types of workouts has boosted my power, aerobic threshold and has helped me realize what GO HARD really means.