What is your motivation to get yourself going in the off season? Why do you get on the trainer to ride, or run outside in the zero degree temps, get in a pool at 6am, or do your hard strength workouts in a busy gym?
It's motivation. It's the knowledge that your competition is out there, probably doing the same or more than you right at that very moment. And it's this same kind of motivation that pushes us to do the hard work, the VO2 intervals that burn out our legs and lungs. A coach can write the best program for his or her athletes, but if they lack the motivation, then the cornerstone of the program is lost on the athlete.
Has this inspired you to keep on reading? Do you know what these VO2 intervals are? Well, the definition of VO2 is the maximal oxygen consumption that you have. We test it on the New Leaf Machine, we test it out of the lab in a "field" setting and we test it weekly with our workouts.
This week our cycling workouts focused on a :40/:20 on/off maximal power/velocity efforts for our main set. This means we worked our athletes on the short but very high intensity interval at 103% of their vVO2. I coached the athletes to focus on the amount of power they could generate from each pedal stroke, rather than worry about how fast their legs were pedaling. And this workout hurts. A lot. If you are doing these correctly, your leg muscles burn, your lungs will burn and you certainly don't get enough recovery time to even relax and shake it out. However, due to the short duration of the interval, the body will not feel nearly as taxed as you would if we were doing 20minute efforts.
However, after a few weeks of these types of intervals (we manipulate time and recovery time each week) athletes will see fantastic results. Not only will they increase their maximal power, but their overall fitness improves as well as their mental strength.
Now get yourself out there and stay motivated.
Ali
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