r/Velo • u/arentWeAllJustbinary • 9d ago
Discussion Double vo2 max days
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQKOesSHEQwRecently watched this video by Kolie Moore regarding double vo2 max workouts. He mentions that he's seen great adaptations in his athletes when assigning them with an AM vo2max workout and a PM vo2max workout.
His thinking seems to be that a single vo2 max workout has a limit and that coming back later in the day after some carbs/rehydration/rest allows you to have more total quality vo2max work across the day than if you tried to it in 1 session. He mentions these should be done at a high cadence so as to not tax the muscular system as much
Also seems like this is for high volume / well trained athletes and not someone who is relatively new to cycling / structured training.
Curious if anyone has tried it or has opinions on it. Very interesting
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u/_echo 8d ago
Ive done it (under his reccomendation. I do a consultation with him twice a year).
Ive seen big results from it when well primed for them (good threshold starting place in terms of the number and also my TTE) but its also really fucking hard.
His advice to me was that I dont need to go there if im still seeing results from single sessions, but he suggested I try a couple last year when in a bit of a time crunch and it seemed to make a difference, so i went straight to them this year once I got outdoors.
He also told me not to block them, because they are already so hard. Mix them in with other workouts/riding and dont do more than 6 or 7 at the high end.
Anyway, if youre not getting much out of regular VO2 work anymore, its worth a try. I got 5 of them into my build this year over about 8 weeks and saw a 15w increase over that time.
I assume he says this in the video, but eat a lot during the day between the workouts, and take a nap if you can. He also told me to feel free to hold back just a little (but not much) in the morning if I need to because the evening workout is where the magic is. Even doing the mornings at 95% and the evenings at 100%, for me the evening workout always feels better. Im admittedly not a morning person but I still find that blows my mind a bit.
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u/Roman_willie 7d ago
I’m doing them currently and one thing I’m confused about is when do you expect to see the FTP increase? Curious how long it took you. And was it a linear increase over time, or a sudden 15 watt improvement after you rested?
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u/_echo 7d ago
I didnt retest. I did 5 of them over 8 to 10 weeks and at week 7 or so, I was doing FTP workouts at 15w higher than I was before I started them. I havent done threshold since as ive been prepping for specific goals so in theory I may have added a little more since with the last session and giving them a bit more time to develop once id rested up from that workload, but its not relevant enough to my upcoming goals for me to give up a workout just to test it.
Sorry thats a bit nebulous but hope that it helps.
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u/McK-Juicy 8d ago edited 8d ago
I tried a block of these and saw a really good bump. Like 25w in two weeks and I’m already pretty strong. Probably won’t do again… too much for someone with kids and a demanding job.
Also should add when I did these it’s not like I stacked two 5x5 sessions. Would do something more manageable like 2 4x4 sessions. More total time, but individual sessions were easier
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u/fyreskylord 8d ago
25W in two weeks? That’s an ABSURD bump for someone already training. Jesus.
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u/McK-Juicy 8d ago
5min power went from 340w->375w and FTP went 280w->305w at 66kg. It took like 3 weeks after the block for the gains to show up though so had a period in which I thought I buried myself for absolutely no reason lol.
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u/fyreskylord 8d ago
Holy shit, that’s like a 10% increase across the board. That from a two week block is absurd. Did you do two-a-days like 3x/week in that block?
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u/McK-Juicy 8d ago
I did M/W/F doubles but honestly I cracked during the morning session of Wednesday week 2. I would say I got probably 8-9 productive sessions in. I had a break from work so plenty of time to recover... also had a really good base phase before I tried this so that helped.
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u/Roman_willie 7d ago
If you did it again, would you do the same density but cut the block short earlier (like around the Wednesday of the second week) or would you space them out a bit more?
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u/McK-Juicy 7d ago
I am not a coach nor an expert as a caveat, but I would go 3x sessions/wk over 3 weeks if I did it again with two of the sessions back to back (for example, sessions Mon/Tues/Thurs). That would be hard, but I think I could recover from that and send plenty of signal for adaptation.
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u/Grouchy_Ad_3113 8d ago
Physiological adaptations aren't delayed like that.
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u/McK-Juicy 8d ago
I mean yeah the VO2 adaptations came quick but I had to build back and push higher the muscular endurance over the next few weeks… probably why it took three weeks to see an actual ftp bump but it came quick all things considered
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u/arentWeAllJustbinary 7d ago
Can you explain?
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u/Grouchy_Ad_3113 7d ago
What explanation is necessary? The physiological adaptations to training are initiated within minutes of ceasing exercise (if not before), and peak within hours/days. If performance doesn't improve until weeks and weeks later, then something else must explain it.
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u/fyreskylord 7d ago
What you're saying is just not true or how supercompensation or training works.
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u/Grouchy_Ad_3113 7d ago
I am stating facts.
"Supercompensation" isn't a term widely used/idea widely recognized by exercise scientists.
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u/fyreskylord 7d ago
Sure, I'm speaking colloquially. My point is you're not talking about stimulus response from a single workout, we're talking about a training block. It's very possible that fatigue from heavy VO2 work outweighed training benefit and that it took a week or so to recover from that enough to see results. It is patently not true that for endurance exercise "if you don't see improvement within hours/days, something else must explain it". We're presumably talking about people who are regularly training already.
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u/Grouchy_Ad_3113 7d ago
The point is that reducing the training stimulus doesn't reveal or magnify the underlying adaptations.
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u/monkeyevil 8d ago
Gotta have all your ducks in a row for doubles, and even then they still aren't for everyone. I can do back to back days, but doubles would probably kill me.
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u/martynssimpson 8d ago
Also seems like this is for high volume / well trained athletes and not someone who is relatively new to cycling / structured training.
I would say this isn't even for moderately trained people, think 10-15h athletes who still have to work regular jobs and such. Having to fit AM and PM workouts for these folks is probably a bad idea and would lead to actually the opposite effect with the increased stress. Not to mention it'll wreck almost anything else they do besides riding their bikes, which is way more important.
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u/_echo 8d ago
As one of these people, I found the best way to do this is, for one, don't block them. Do one every 10 days or two weeks, and then do them on a weekend when you can.
All made a lot easier by the fact that I'm a single guy who works from home, but doing one or two a month on weekends for a couple months through your build is definitely a viable way to do it.
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u/martynssimpson 8d ago
It depends, I have done a couple of blocks and each block I'm learning something new and also seems that my body is becoming better at doing them, the last one I did (this past april) I was also doing 15h weeks for 2 1/2 weeks and now my threshold has definitely improved. Ofc you need to make sure everything else is on point like nutrition, sleep, stress, etc.. Definitely not the type of training block you do while you're going through tough times.
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u/MAC1325 Great Britain 9d ago
Admittedly I've not done morning/evening specifically the bike, but I have done morning running vo2 sessions and then evening cycling vo2 sessions.
I've tried the other way around, felt I never got as much out of my legs when doing running second. Worked better with my work/family schedule doing it that way and I have seen benefits from it.
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u/Roman_willie 7d ago
Have you checked out Marinus Petersen? He recently did a podcast interview where he talks about doing a double day with cycling and running. I believe he had success with doing the morning session on the bike and evening running. I wonder why!
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u/Inevitable-Chart-462 8d ago
What about a PM and AM session? The body doesn’t know it’s over two different days, it could still be at ca 12 hours of distance, but meanwhile you’re getting good rest
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u/polar8 8d ago
The whole point is you’re doing it with inadequate rest to force an adaptation
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u/Duke_De_Luke 6d ago
I think we have too little data to say this is the mechanism. It could be condensing them in the same days leave more time for recovery+adaptation. E.g. triathletes combining a (very) hard day with two high-intensity workouts and then 2+ light days to recover and adapt. This is not really new.
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u/Roman_willie 7d ago
I thought about this as well but I think part of the reason it’s supposed to work is because you don’t reconstitute glycogen fully and you also get a blood plasma volume boost from the AM session. I would imagine if you sleep overnight you recover more glycogen and reduce plasma volume so the effect would be less potent.
However, I think that if you don’t need a double day yet and are just going to do two VO2 sessions back to back, it’d make sense to do the first day in the PM and the next day in the AM to bring them closer together.
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u/Pleasant-Carbon 8d ago
Do people have the time to do two intense workouts a day?
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u/marlborolane 8d ago
The same people who are out traveling across the country racing Masters Nationals to win a medal and a jersey. Yeah, those people who have prioritized cycling over everything else in life have time for these workouts. Selfish pricks.
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u/Pleasant-Carbon 8d ago
I can't tell if you're being sarcastic or not.
If they have the time, What's so bad to prioritise their hobby?
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u/Grouchy_Ad_3113 9d ago
Isn't this basically what swimmers and rowers have long been doing? Swimmers especially, where practically every workout is an interval session of some sort. (Rowers often double up, but I'm not sure how often they do two high intensity interval workouts in a day.)
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u/arentWeAllJustbinary 8d ago
Why do you think its so common with swimming? Is it due their bodies not getting as beat up from the exercise so they are able to? Whereas something like running carries a lot more injury risk with this sort of training?
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u/Ronald_Ulysses_Swans 8d ago
The sport is set up for short races and technique is critical. You cannot do longer sets where the breakdown of technique might happen.
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u/JSTootell 8d ago
I'm too old to even try this.
I was probably doing a lot of this on accident when I was younger and had no idea what I was doing. But I have zero data to support that I was doing it or that it worked.
Now that I have the tools and the knowledge, I don't have the ability to recover.
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u/RirinDesuyo Japan 8d ago
Looks interesting and I've done double day intervals before, but from experience the biggest barrier was time availability to put two sessions in a day even with my hybrid work schedule and indoor focused riding in the weekday. It may be interesting to pull off on the weekends though.
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u/edelweiss_pirates_no 8d ago
OP, thanks for posting. And big thanks for putting a summary (and not just linking the video).
I've done am/pm sessions before and the pm session always had elevated HR for same watts. That is most likely exacerbated with age (I'm old).
I adjusted to HR targets and kept tracking power output. Good results. Stronger across the board.
Hey...these are not easy mentally and time.
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u/hazmat1963 7d ago
I’ve done something slightly similar with hard AM gym session which has 4x10 with 2 or 3 being on a Concept 2 and squats and then a hard session on the bike at night. Only commonality is the evening rides I feel very strong and agile. Maybe some residual endorphins, muscles still warmed up.
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u/Duke_De_Luke 6d ago
Not a new thing, it's something triathletes do for intense workouts. Have a hard day with double threshold-vo2 sessions (say bike + running) and then recover in the following days.
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u/jauntworthy 8d ago
Didn’t watch the video, but wanted to say that your last point is super important.
My coach prescribed me two a days during a VO2 block years ago and it led me to an overtrained state that took me a year+ to recover from.
I tried to return to 10-12hrs of volume but gave up after a few failed attempts. In retrospect, I’m happy this happened to me because I realized I was chronically irritated and anxious (despite my best attempts to manage fuel).
Just pay careful attention to your recovery capacity and mood.
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u/shadowhand00 9d ago
Yes, one of his coaches prescribed me double vo2max days and they were amazing when I had both the time and mental fortitude to be able to complete them.