One of my favorite threshold improvement workouts is Over/Under Intervals. I taught this profile several times over the winter, and as we got close to the end of the clinic, of course my riders knew we’d be doing this one again; this time, though, it was going to be a little different.
Over the winter, I focused both on threshold improvement as well as leg speed. So, for my last Over/Under Interval workout, I decided to combine both of those challenges and focus solely on flat road cadences of 80, 90, and 100 rpm. It was pretty hard ride, I have to say, but everyone enjoyed it!
I first posted an Over/Under workout on ICA back in April of 2012. You can find that Audio Master Class and downloadable profile with cueing here. That version includes three 9-minute intervals at 68, 71, and 94 rpm. The first two are climbing cadences and generally are not as hard as the higher cadence ones. This is because heart rate is generally higher even for the same power output when the cadence is higher. Every person is different, and it depends on their training and their skill level at faster leg speed. But generally, I’ve found that once you start getting over 90 rpm, you see riders struggling with the intensity even for the same power output.
You can download this profile below, but make sure to also download the original profile first, since it has most of the cueing you’ll need.
There is a live version of “Mad love coming” by Golden Earring which has 85 bpm and is about 9:53 minutes long and suits perfectly for the over/under interval.