In today’s episode, we formally introduce our new head coach, Ryan Kohler, and put him in the spotlight for a classic Q&A. (Don’t worry, Trevor is not going anywhere! He’s merely stuck in isolation amid the tundra of northern Ontario at the moment.)
Ryan brings a wealth of experience as both coach and nutritionist after years of working at Carmichael Training Systems, as manager of the University of Colorado Sports Medicine and Performance Center, and while coaching several MTB development teams, as well as working with individual athletes. We have exciting new offerings in the works that Ryan will be spearheading, so sign up for our newsletter for the latest developments. Today, however, we’ll stick to your questions.
First, we tackle a complex series of questions from Ryan Bates in Ann Arbor, Michigan: “I have read that cutting more than 500 calories per day from the total needed to maintain your current weight will actually slow down your metabolism, and make weight loss harder overall. Is this true? If so, does it matter, for the purposes of potential slowing of your metabolism, if the deficit is produced by exercise versus calorie restriction? If true, how many days of 500+ calorie deficit (approximately) are needed to trigger metabolism slowdown?”
Next we take on a mountain bike question, specifically about descending, heart rate, and ways to improve recovery during descents.
Finally, we follow up on our discussion on recovery periods between intervals by answering a question on the different ways of executing 5×5-minutes intervals.
All that and more, today on Fast Talk. Let’s make you fast!
References
- Stepto, N. K., Martin, D. T., Fallon, K. E., & Hawley, J. A. (2001). Metabolic demands of intense aerobic interval training in competitive cyclists. Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise, 303-310.doi:10.1097/00005768-200102000-00021
Episode Transcript
Chris Case 00:00
Hey everyone, welcome to another episode of Fast Talk your source for the science of cycling performance. We have some good stuff coming your way. We just hired a new head coach Ryan Kohler and he’s got some awesome new ideas in the works. Before we reveal our exciting news, we want to make sure we’ve got it right. Please take our survey and tell us if we’re on the right track. Head to www.fasttalklabs.com/survey. Today we’re sitting down with our new head coach Ryan Kohler. And Ryan, I know not everybody knows a ton about you yet. We’re going to use this show and other resources to help people get to know you a little bit more but we have some mountain bike questions today. I know you’ve got an extensive mountain biking background, both racing and coaching maybe let’s have you describe that a little bit so people get a better sense of your background.
Ryan Kohler 01:04
So I had a lot of great experience working with USA cycling and their talent ID camps, and BMC’s mountain bike team, the development team as well had a couple seasons working with them and once we moved over up to Boulder, then was able to work with Boulder Junior cycling and Build Cycling Academy as well. So a lot of junior cycling experience in that realm, and then worked with a number of amateur age group type athletes too.
Mountain bike descending
Chris Case 01:34
Great. Well, we’ve got a question here from Jeff Pugsley, it regards, mountain bike descending and heart rate, I’ll read it now. “I’ve heard it said that one of the things pro mountain bikers find to be most beneficial with dropper posts is that they allow better rest while descending and allow heart rate to decrease more than would be with a fixed post. I would think that it would be then in the interest of mountain bikers to do other things. To help with decreasing heart rate while descending. For example, building the aerobic engine of everything above the legs, while core and upper body strength work seems to be more common, I don’t see a big focus on building core and upper body aerobic capabilities. Why? Is it just not important enough when there’s not enough time in the day to do everything? Or is there a fear of upper body weight gain?”
Chris Case 02:23
So, I think what Jeff is asking here is, okay, pro riders they’re using the dropper post, it helps them descend with a lower heart rate, therefore, they can recover better and prepare for the next section of the course, whether it’s a climb, rock garden, whatever. So he’s asking, what are some other things people can do to prepare themselves off the bike perhaps that will help with recovery during the descent. Let me ask two questions here: First of all, dropper posts, they are great. They get out of the way, they allow you to descend faster in some ways it, obviously it takes some getting used to it, if you’re always used to having that saddle right there between your legs. But once you do get used to it allows you to do things on the bike that you wouldn’t otherwise be able to do. So maybe let’s first talk about the advantages of a dropper post.
Ryan Kohler 03:29
Sure, yeah, I think they were really revolutionary for the sport. Like you said, they get the saddle out of the way, they allow you to drop your center of mass so now you can stay a little bit closer to the ground and just feel a little bit more stable with things. And yeah, they allow you to sort of work the bike a little bit more get some of that free speed and I think that does help the heart rate to recover a bit before the next climb or whatever is coming up.
Chris Case 03:54
Is that always the case, though? I mean, I think that sometimes drop a post goes down, speeds go up. It gets a little scarier maybe in your heart rate could go up.
Ryan Kohler 04:06
It does, you’ll start… Yeah, you’re riding faster, you might be putting a little bit more into the bike then and, you know, you might Yeah, you could very well have a higher heart rate at that point. You know, that’s one of the things that I like to work out with juniors is learning to descend smoothly and not always attacking those downhills, but learning how to once the dropper is out of the way, or when the saddle is out of the way when you use that dropper, you know, let yourself roll and let yourself gain speed, but trying to be very relaxed on the bike too qnd looking ahead, so that way you can get some of that speed, but you’re not Yeah, you’re not tensing up. You know, I know the first few times I dropped my saddle down it was, it felt weird because that saddle is normally in contact with your legs and you can sort of help to move things around, but now and it’s gone, yeah, it’s, I mean, it’s sort of like riding a kid’s bike or a trials bike where you just the bike moves a lot more. So you need to respond to that.
Chris Case 05:02
Mm hmm. Okay, so for the most part though, let’s assume that dropper post when you’re talking about a cross country race or marathon race, you’re allowing yourself a bit more recovery time on those descents to prepare for the next section, of course.
Chris Case 05:20
So then the next question from Jeff becomes, what are the other things people might be able to do to also increase recovery or therefore, decrease heart rate when descending, whether it’s upper body strength core, those types of things?
Ryan Kohler 05:42
Yeah, I think the core is always one of the primary go-tos for this, you know, I think it’s pretty important for it. As we as we get that saddle out of the way, we feel that the bike wants to go and move more, and we can move it to a much, much greater degree than with the saddle elevated so yeah having a strong core and being able to have just a stable foundation to move from you know when we think about those, those connected points on the bike normally it’s the the hands, the feet and the saddle but now we’ve taken the saddle out of the equation. So now we’re down to just the hands and feet. So when we look at core work, it’s really saying, you know, working on a way to say okay, now we have these feet connected to the pedals, how can I create a nice strong platform where I can move the bike appropriately, and, and also let them move let the bike move beneath me appropriately to without getting thrown off my line. So from that, from that stable core, you know, if we get if we get into a loose rock garden or something and the bike is below us, we need to be able to move those limbs independently and allow allow that bike to float a little bit but not get, you know, I think about driving the bike really from our hips. A lot of times on descending where you know, we almost take, take that belly button as a flashlight and will project…
Chris Case 07:06
Woah, take the belly button as a flashlight? I haven’t heard that one before. I like it. Yeah, kind of weird.
Ryan Kohler 07:12
It is weird, but I like it.
Ryan Kohler 07:14
If it’s dark it works. Yeah, that one I stole from ski teaching. Yeah, with the flashlights on the hips. But yeah, the belly button. I think about that as being a flashlight and really just projecting that as your center of mass where you want to go. And it’s really the same thing with you know, not only core work if we think of like planks and things like that, like some of the typical core movements. You know, we think of having a strong core there, but there’s very little movement because we’re keeping it stable. But if we think of other exercises that train your core, you know, one of the best ones is really any kind of explosive Olympic type of movement in the gym. And a lot of that starts with the hip movement. So we can translate that explosive movement, whether it’s a hip hinge or a drive of some sort, in the gym, to leading from the hips when you’re on the bike, and if we think about moving from that center point, then that’s where our focus can go to. And we don’t think so much about our right hand on the bars or just that left foot that’s clipped in and coming up to a rock, but we just think about moving the center of mass down the hill, and letting the bike kind of flow freely below us.
Chris Case 08:28
Excellent. Obviously, if you’re on Instagram, you’ve seen probably, if you follow Nino, or Kate Courtney or some of these other mountain bikers, they do a ton of work in the gym working on core strength, and that’s a general term I know but they’re working on balance boards and doing juggling doing one legged things standing on what are those balls called…
Ryan Kohler 08:56
The Bosu balls
Chris Case 08:57
Bosu, balls, all sorts of things. So again, some of the world’s best are doing a ton of work off the bike to prepare themselves so that, and particularly on, you know, the technical portions of a mountain bike course where they can really use that core to their advantage, both to be stable, to be smooth, but also to not flail around on the bike, not get bucked off their line or thrown off course and therefore, stay more relaxed, stay more calm, and hence recover more on those parts of the course to prepare for the nasty climbs to come.
Ryan Kohler 09:41
Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. With how technical the courses have become. It’s it’s been a real game changer. Yeah, if you can stay smooth there and save energy for the climbs. Yeah, that’s where you need it.
Weight loss and metabolism
Chris Case 09:53
Let’s now switch over to another thing that you’ve got a lot of experience. Which is nutrition. You have a degree in nutrition. Your background there, you’ve worked at the Performance Center. You’ve done individual consulting on nutrition, is that correct?
Ryan Kohler 10:12
That’s correct. Yeah.
Chris Case 10:13
Great. So this question comes to us from Ryan Bates. He’s in Ann Arbor, Michigan. His his question is, “Cyclists are often trying to lose weight to increase watts per kilogram. I have read that cutting more than 500 calories per day from the total needed to maintain your current weight will actually slow down your metabolism and make weight loss harder overall. say if you need 2000 calories per day and cut down to less than 1500. Is this true?” That’s question number one, and we’ll come back to that. “If so, does it matter for the purposes of potential slowing of your metabolism if the depth deficit is produced by exercise versus calorie restriction?” Question two. “And then if true how many days of 500 plus calorie deficit days are needed to trigger metabolism slowed down?”
Chris Case 11:13
All right, so, for context here, Ryan is six feet two, that’s Ryan Bates, not Ryan Kohler. He has gotten himself down from 235 pounds to 198. He thanks bicycles for all of that weight loss. He averages 1500 to 1600 calories of intake per day. And exercise takes his daily net average down to 1100 calories per day, which seems quite low. Let’s take these one at a time, Ryan. I just wanted to give everybody a sense of the complexity of the questions here that Mr. Bates is asking but let’s take these one at a time. He’s read that cutting more than 500 calories per day. of the total you need to maintain your current weight will actually slow down your metabolism and make weight loss harder overall, is that true?
Ryan Kohler 12:06
Not necessarily. So the thing with nutrition is there’s a lot of thresholds and numbers that get thrown around. And this is what makes the nutrition piece of it so difficult is we need to really consider each individual person as this unique entity, and look at not only their intake, but then their expenditure as well. So potentially cutting more than 500 calories per day, could slow his metabolism depending on how much he’s exercising. I’ve seen athletes in the past where they’ve had very small deficits, maybe 200 calories 250, but they’re exercising so much that now that small deficit becomes a problem. If we look at the other side of it, you know, where someone does a very severe caloric restriction of maybe 1000 or 1200 calories, if we start to get into these very low calorie diets, then if they start to exercise or do a little bit too much exercise, now that becomes a problem, and they can see that affecting their metabolism. So, you know, for this for this question, you know, it, it’s hard to say for sure, but that’s why I always recommend if there is a way to actually test your metabolism, you should do that. So you know, I’m not sure in Ann Arbor if there’s, you know, any nutritionists or dietitians or performance centers that actually test resting metabolic rate, but it’s a pretty easy and quick test, and it would be worth checking that out. You know, there’s a lot of calculators that can be utilized to estimate metabolism, but of course, those won’t show if it’s changed. So then we need to look at, you know, how weight stable Have you been? And yeah, how How what was the rate of weight loss and sort of look at the time course for your weight loss, And so there is a lot that we could dig into… But – so it’s not, yeah, it’s not a simple yes or no or a true false, but it really does depend on the person and are they just creating too much of a deficit for their, for what they’re asking their body to do? I always look at it from the exercise standpoint to say, okay, if we’re trying to create a deficit, then let’s aim for that. But we want to make sure that your exercise doesn’t become another stress because the deficit is already going to be a stress on the body, we don’t want to add more stress to the body with too much exercise potentially. So we want to make sure we can still feel the activity because once we start to have, you know, too much of that stress coming from the deficit, maybe other life things going on and then exercise, that’s where we can start to see the metabolism take a sizable hit.
Chris Case 14:55
So is it worth going into the why of, why would your metabolism change if you were restricting your calorie intake? And why would I guess more importantly, or more curiously, why would that make weight loss harder? Is your body just sort of like, in a protection mode?
Ryan Kohler 15:17
Yeah, the body is a pretty smart unit; where it it’s a conservation mode that goes into where, you know, when it sees that there’s, there’s calories not coming in, or there’s this huge demand for expenditure from exercise potentially, then the body becomes efficient. And it’ll it has this, essentially, it’s called metabolic efficiency where it will decrease metabolism to accommodate what you’re what you’re giving it, basically. So yeah, if you’re asking the body to produce and you’re riding a few hours a day and cutting calories, at some point, then if the body isn’t getting enough, and that becomes that stress, then the body can say, okay, well, we’re going to read Use this resting metabolic rate to accommodate that. And essentially thinking that, you know, is there not enough access to food that I need as the body. So if it because of that, if there’s not enough access to food, then oh, we’ll just slow metabolism down to accommodate that. So that’s where we can actually run into that problem over the long term. And usually, when I see people, it’s, they’ve been in that for quite a while. So much of the work is done to actually get them out of it, and let that metabolism normalize by just fueling their needs. Yeah, that’s, I guess that’s sort of the concept that we come back to, with a lot of these questions is energy availability, which, if you know, by definition, that’s really the amount of energy leftover for the body to function normally, after we account for exercise. So when I work with athletes on questions like these, it’s we account for their exercise and figure out what they’re doing day to day. And then we’ll go back and say okay, well now how much is left over What’s your resting metabolic need? What’s, how much activity are you doing outside of cycling? Do you? Do you walk a lot during the day? You know, if you have a dog walking business and you’re always on your feet, or are you at an office all day, so then we have to account for that. And there are some normative values for energy availability, where we can see pretty clearly where someone’s at in that range. And if they’re too low, then we can definitely start to see some negative side effects from that.
Chris Case 17:29
I guess a follow up question here. And maybe this is really hard to do on – just by looking at some numbers on a piece of paper. Do you think that Ryan is in this situation, again, Ryan Bates, not Ryan Kohler, is in this situation where if he’s only consuming 1500 to 1600 calories per day, his net average is down to 1100 calories per day, is he too low?
Ryan Kohler 17:58
I mean, one thing I’ve learned with all the years of doing this is I’ve learned to sort of listen to my gut on these things. And when I either listen to a question from a client look at data or hear something, like, like Ryan’s question here, there is that initial gut feeling of, you know, kind of the red flag green flag sort of sort of thing. And with this, when I look at someone is, you know, six, two and 198 now 15 to 1600 calories, but now with exercise down to 1100, I immediately do get that gut sense for Yeah, this is too low. So, you know, when we’re talking energy availability, again, males, lucky or not, are able to sustain a lower energy availability a bit easier or a bit longer than females can females tend to experience some of those negative effects a lot sooner. So this is something that for Ryan Yeah, pay attention to, you know, performance and energy day to day. Those are two of the big areas that I have people focus on is just how is your day to day energy? Do you feel like you wake up in the morning and you’re you’re ready for the day and you have a positive attitude? Or do you find yourself dragging, you know? And then when you get into your to your workout Do you perform to the level you should be performing to? Or do you feel like there’s some low energy there. And those are things that having that third person point of view are often helpful with because we can point them out easier. But when you’re when you’re doing that on your own, it’s easy to sort of talk yourself out of it and just keep on moving down that path.
Chris Case 19:34
I know that when you consult with clients, athletes, you will often have them do a food log or diary. Maybe you could talk to the advantages of doing that. And I don’t know if that’s something that you would have people do every week all the time, or if it’s just a check in here and a check in there, but what are the advantages of doing that? And sort of putting that pen to paper understanding calories in calories out and the what are the benefits?
Ryan Kohler 20:09
Yeah, I think it’s really beneficial for a lot of people. You know, typically when I work with someone new, I’ll have them, I’ll have them keep a food log. And I’ll ask them to do the bare minimum for it because for some people that can become stressful or just overwhelming to keep those logs. So I might only ask for one or two days of just their usual eating habits. And what normally happens is people will change their eating habits as soon as they start recording. So that’s a hurdle that-
Chris Case 20:40
somebody’s watching them.
Chris Case 20:42
Right, right. Exactly.
Chris Case 20:43
So, it’ll improve or it’ll decrease in size or both of those things.
Ryan Kohler 20:47
Both usually, yeah, knowing that someone’s watching I mean, that’s a positive piece of this is that someone’s watching and you have accountability. But on the downside, then yeah, there’s a tendency to change your habits or eat less. So, you know, a lot of what we talked about initially is being okay with as you’re recording being okay with making the same choices that you’re making, knowing that we’re going to look at this and potentially go down a slightly different path with the hope of improving and going to that next level, but it takes the honesty, initially to, to bring that out and develop some good goals from it. So the accountability is a pretty good positive one from it. I don’t recommend that people do this on a daily basis, but I had a lot of folks who just get so into it and they love the data, that they do it every day. But 99% of the time, there’s there’s an exhaustion with it, where they’ll reach a threshold and then the data is bad and it’s not really useful anymore. So I do encourage people to, you know, initially give me a good baseline, if it’s one or two days. That’s great. We will talk through a lot of it. And then for follow ups, we might do, you know, one or two days like every other week, just as a as an easy follow up where they can manage that. And I’ll try to have them think about it as rolling into their training where maybe it’s a, you know, a recovery day where normally they just have like an easy hour on the bike. And they can do that with their eyes closed. So in cases like that, I’ll say, Okay, let’s take a day like that, and make that your nutrition training day. And that’s where put that mental energy into your nutrition, get good data, and then you’re done with it and move on to the rest of the things that are in your life. So So that’s been a way to help combat some of the exhaustion that comes with it and some of the added stress. Yeah. And then we usually take that and say, okay, we’ve done a lot of this data, where you have numbers and and you know, cyclists like numbers mean, power numbers, heart rate, everything. They like seeing those numbers, but there’s a point where we want to get them thinking less about if I eat this, then that’s 450 calories here, and that’s 200 calories there and think more about the quality of it. And so we will try to transition that thought process from logging food for the sake of collecting numbers and seeing exactly where they are to now thinking about, you know, well logging less but thinking about their whole day or a certain meal as how would you rate this, you know, on a quality scale?
5×5 interval types
Chris Case 23:24
Yeah. All right. We have a question here from Will Cobb, who’s in Flagstaff, Arizona. His question, it’s a bit complicated, it has to do with five by five intervals. His question is, “there have been several versions of the five by five interval that have been discussed on the show. One version is a five by five at threshold interval with one minute rest, then we’ve got the standard American version.” I like the titles that will has given these intervals. “This is the five by five minute intervals with five minute rest. And these are done somewhere around 120%. of threshold.” And we’re talking FTP here threshold. So five by five minutes, five minutes rest. Then he describes a Kristin Armstrong version. This is taken from a swift podcast. This is a five by five minute effort at vo to max and these have 10 minutes of rest. He says, “I believe that Kristen is trying to hit close to her max power in each interval.” So a tough workout. So Will then build a zwift workout with version number one he programmed in his one hour power as the power for those five minute efforts says “it wasn’t too hard from an RPE perspective. And his heart rate didn’t get into that 88 to 90% of Max heart rate until he increased is power on the last two. The other versions of the five by fives are clearly in a different category in that they are maximal aerobic efforts with substantial anaerobic contribution, resulting in a higher higher power average.” So he’s got several questions here. First being, what are the energy demands of each version? “The Kristin Armstrong version has been the most mentally demanding workout” he says. And “is this what Jim Miller means?” In the episode we’d recently did with Jim on building the engine? “Is that what he means when he talks about becoming a warrior?”
Chris Case 25:39
Well, first of all, I’m going to answer that question quickly. Now, that’s not really what he means by becoming a warrior. That’s more of those, in a free zone polarize model, those upper zone one efforts rides, long rides right at your aerobic threshold where you’re susstaining that power for three, four or five, sometimes even six hours at a time. Those are the demanding rides that he means when he is trying to create warriors. So all that. Let’s back up a second here, Ryan.
Ryan Kohler 26:20
Yes.
Chris Case 26:21
First question, what are the energy demands of each version of these three workouts that Will has described?
Ryan Kohler 26:33
Yes. So there, I mean, all of them are highly aerobic. So when we’re talking about those generic energy systems, that aerobic energy system will, will certainly predominate. You know, once we get over it through those first two minutes of an interval. We’re primarily in that aerobic metabolism. So so that’s one piece of it. The, the other piece is when we look at version one, you know, five by five at threshold with a minute rest, that would certainly feel a lot different from the other two, you know, five minutes at threshold with one minute rest is is very sustainable for people. And I think we’ll see you know, we would see a certain amount of work that’s accomplished with that. But then if we look at now five minutes with either five minutes rest or 10 minutes rest and then somewhere around 120% of threshold upwards of near Max, whatever that is for each person, then we’re talking vastly different amounts of work being completed and and lactate accumulation as well. So it’s interesting that with the the zwift workout, if that was built as the five by five at threshold with a one minute effort, yeah, that makes sense that you wouldn’t have a very High perceived effort on that. And yeah, heart rate may not increase to, to that 88 to 90% of Max right away. So it may take a little bit more, and that’s where some of those individual effects need to be taken into account. Where for for Will yeah, in order to get into that heart rate range for something like this for this, this workout where it’s five by five at threshold. You know, next time, you might just start off with that power turned up like you did in the last two intervals. Maybe start with that, and now you’ll get that overload effect a little bit better from it.
Chris Case 28:37
I guess one of the things that I’d like to point out here is we did this really great episode is 113. It was with Sebastian Weber and we talked all about the the importance of recovery periods between intervals and how that had a very significant impact on the interval session itself and what energy systems were being used. So, for instance, if you did version one here, five by five minute threshold, sorry, five by five minute intervals with one minute rest in between, and you tried to do those all at vo2 max power, that would be a ridiculous workout a, for the simple fact that you wouldn’t be able to repeat the same power from interval one to interval to digital three, because you wouldn’t be recovered. And therefore, B, you would be using different energy systems to produce the power to do the effort. Is that do I have that correct? Ryan?
Ryan Kohler 29:40
Yeah, I think, you know, from the energy systems, it’s, it’s going to be a very just aerobic effort overall, and the the amount of power that we would do for each subsequent interval would gradually decline, you know, we would achieve some level of threshold. You know, and this could even be like a metabolic threshold or whatever the body can now sustain after that very short rest period, whereas with the other ones, we would accumulate a much higher metabolic load with that that would require more, more rest. So, yeah, there was a really an interesting study that that was done on on something very similar to this – this was actually eight by five minutes with one minute rest.
Chris Case 30:23
So it what was the intensity? At threshold?
Ryan Kohler 30:28
I’d have to check…I believe it was threshold.
Chris Case 30:31
Okay.
Ryan Kohler 30:32
But yeah, this was looking at Time Trial performance. So this was more threshold effort. And this one looked at the changes throughout, you know, from interval one to interval number seven. And, you know, what they found here is all the metabolic parameters that were measured. They found that you know, vo2 this, that oxygen that was being consumed was pretty similar throughout You know, but it took about three intervals for the body to sort of get warmed up into it and reach that steady state level. So from three, interval number three to number seven, everything’s reached this steady state. And they measured this over the last three minutes of each interval to keep it consistent. What they also found was that fat oxidation increased from number three through number seven, carbohydrate oxidation declined slightly. So this is one of those things where, you know, with that, with the short rest periods, you know, we can’t, we can’t tap into that, that higher that anaerobic contribution as much so so we’re only going to be able to produce a certain amount of work. And this is where as we tap into carbohydrate over the first second, third interval, and so on, we’re going to have less and less available to continue to do that work. So we’re going to essentially settle around some sustainable threshold point. And they said with this one, yeah, glycogen accounted for 90% of the total carbohydrate oxidation. So with a workout like this, it is very heavily dependent on carbohydrate. But that also declines somewhat. And I don’t remember if they said they were fueling during this, but you know, it’s a long workout where Yeah, we would expect that some of that deficit to occur.
Chris Case 32:31
All right, so let’s get back to that question of the the energy expenditure or energy demands of each version Ryan. The first one, we sort of answered the standard American version five by five with five minute rest, what’s, what are the energy demands there?
Ryan Kohler 32:48
I mean, when we talk about aerobic anaerobic, it will be pretty similar. It’s still going to be a very heavy aerobic contribution, but you No, we’re talking about somewhere around 120% of threshold. For some people that may be close to a vo2 max power, others that may be far away from vo2 max power. So everyone responds slightly differently to that. But yeah, primarily aerobic. The difference with this is, now we’re going above that threshold, and now we’re going to start accumulating more lactate, you know, suggesting that yeah, that carbohydrate, we’re really deriving a lot of that energy from carbohydrate. But producing a lot of lactate during an interval also requires more recovery in between. So the five minute rest, it definitely gives us that chance to allow the body to, you know, recycle and clear some of that lactate and use some of it for energy. But then we compare that with the Kristin Armstrong version, you know, the five by five at vo2 you know, those may be fairly close 120% VO2, you know, it’s hard to be very specific with that, but she’s likely just absolutely destroying herself on each effort, you know, I would assume with these five minute efforts, and then she would need the 10 minutes rest, you know. So the other piece is, you know, how are you starting these intervals? Is this like an attack or it’s a peak and fade type of effort? Or is it a very consistent effort, where you know what power you’re going to target? And then you just hold that? Because those will have different metabolic consequences as well.
Chris Case 34:35
Great. Well, you know, it’s kind of a general interest question when you come down to it, because we don’t really have any advice here that these things can be used for different purposes. Sometimes people just latch on to a set of intervals that they really like and if they can execute them well, and they serve a functional purpose then that’s maybe the The set that they should do. Of course, variety has its advantages too. And sometimes you want to mix it up sometimes, you know, a race demands something different of you. And so you want to target a set of intervals that, you know, focuses in on maybe that ability that you’ll need to tap into during a race. But again, just sort of parsing out the different versions of five by five efforts here. And hopefully that gives will something to learn from.
Chris Case 35:34
That was another episode of Fast Talk. As always, we’d love your feedback. Email us at fasttalk@www.fasttalklabs.com or record a voice memo on your phone and send it our way. Subscribe to Fast Talk wherever you prefer to find your favorite podcast. And be sure to leave us a rating and review. The thoughts and opinions expressed on Fast Talk are those of the individual for Coach Ryan Kohler. I’m Chris case. Thanks for listening.
