40 minutes

Great bike session this morning with the squad. Nice and simple threshold session, 5 x 8 minutes at threshold with 2 minutes recovery between. Nothing to complicated, although certainly not that easy either.

At Front Runner we usually plan our threshold bike sessions around 40 minutes of work. Sometimes it is a bit more, but not by much, 3 x 15 minutes, 5 x 10 minutes, 4 x 12 minutes, that sort of thing. This morning was right on the button. The 40 minute duration is used because it is long enough to prompt physiologic adaptions, but not so long that it fries everyone.

If you think about an FTP test it is trying to estimate the threshold power we could develop over an hour. Obviously we could test it for an hour, but riding as hard as you can for an hour is pretty darn tough, just watch anyone attempting to break the hour record on the track for evidence of that.
For that reason we test over 20 minutes and then extrapolate. Similarly we could base our threshold sessions around an hour of work and while it is physically possible, it would absolutely bury people. I have done sessions like that and boy it hurt. For most of our coaching clientele 40 to 50 minutes of work is more manageable and will also produce the desired results. Hence the session this morning.

Doing this sort of work weekly helps our clients make performance improvements without crushing them so much that they can't train sustainably. Obviously there is no point them knocking one session out of the park if they can't back it up the next day and the next. Not only do they have to train hard when the program calls for it, but they need to be able train consistently to make those benefits long term. Our programs are aimed at achieving that outcome for the team.

Plus the sessions are pretty fun.