Video: Interval Training with Nino Schurter - 'Fitter, Faster, Stronger' Episode 2 by edspratt

26 Comments

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chamoisstainz (Apr 4, 2020 at 10:18)

Looks like fun...I train a bit differently. I smoke 1/4-1/2 a joint, pedal uphill slowly for 1-1.5 hours, eat a sandwich, giggle downhill at whatever pace I feel comfortable. Once back at the truck, I recover by sitting in a lawn chair with 2-3 beers before finding a taco stand. I've managed some serious gains with this program...

boomforeal (Apr 4, 2020 at 16:18)

what are you riding to have fun? pft...

galliwasp (Apr 4, 2020 at 20:15)

Sounds like you've got 'er down.

greg390 (Apr 4, 2020 at 20:30)

Hilarious that Is!!! True to that...

yiannisdbarber85 (Apr 5, 2020 at 0:21)

????

mikeyb76 (Apr 5, 2020 at 17:22)

What!? Im on the same program!

Garethccc (Apr 6, 2020 at 6:25)

How is your training programme so similar to mine? Amazing.

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dr-fishy-noooo (Apr 4, 2020 at 9:00)

Fairly sure Nino's 20 minute warm up would be my idea of HIIT

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johnnygolucky (Apr 4, 2020 at 8:52)

It's 8:49am, watching this laying in bed eating last nights left over pizza for breakfast. Good mooring.

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RowdyAirTime (Apr 4, 2020 at 8:55)

Maybe if you heat up the leftover pizza, you can call them warmups...

DirtbagMatt (Apr 4, 2020 at 19:22)

@RowdyAirTime: I like the way you think.

padkinson FL (Apr 6, 2020 at 4:32)

For riders without power meters, for a high intensity VO2 max session, you can essentially do your maximum pace for the 5 minutes, but reign it in slightly for the first couple - you should be aiming not to have a massive power drop over the set of intervals.

A more attainable session, and easier to work into a training programme, would be intervals at 90-95% of VO2 max intensity. Ideally you'll be accumulating 40 minutes at this intensity over a session, but this will probably be something you'll need to work up to. For riders without a power meter, imagine doing your best effort over 12 minutes, and do this for the 5-8 minute intervals. You shouldn't be totally empty at the end of each effort. i.e. if someone asked you to do a minute longer at that intensity, you should be able to at a push.
By working at slightly less than VO2 max, you're getting almost all of the cardiopulmonary benefits (peak diastolic filling and tidal volume occur around this zone for instance - above this it's just a HR and breathing rate increase), but causing less stress than working at VO2 max, hence allowing you to accumulate more time at the intensity, as well as complete the session while holding some residual fatigue.

Closer to the season it is definitely worth doing some efforts at max intensity though, more so to get a feel for them than anything else.

RoadRunner13 (Apr 6, 2020 at 3:34)

For a rider who does ONLY mountain bike, having such a chopped season is hard.
But what about the sponsors ? How can you pay a guy who has a year without any (or almost) racing, and is ageing ?
At least, some other riders do road cycling, or enduro, or whatever, and they'll bounce back this year. But Schurter ? He only exists by MTB...

ksilvey10 (Apr 4, 2020 at 13:06)

You think Nino ever wishes he could make XC money racing Enduro?

SonofBovril (Apr 4, 2020 at 13:44)

He’s definitely got the bike handling skills, but it’s a slightly different athletic exertion. Would be interested to see how he fares.

lacanuck24 (Apr 4, 2020 at 23:10)

Hopefully he "retires" to the enduro scene after the Olympics.

Some people clown on his mini-whips, but what do they expect mid-race on "small" (who are we kidding, bigger than 90% of people would attempt) XC course doubles.

I wanna see him having fun on a Gambler just to show off his skills on big hits. Some of his instagram videos riding for fun show that he's ready to go full braaaap

ksilvey10 (Apr 17, 2020 at 11:11)

@SonofBovril: I'm just wondering if he thinks, "Man, it looks like they have so much fun over there."

ksilvey10 (Apr 17, 2020 at 11:11)

@SonofBovril: Because I don't think EWS people look at World Cup XC and think, "Boy, that sure looks like more fun than what we are doing (other than the money)."

VTwintips (Apr 4, 2020 at 21:02)

For anybody else out there... are those numbers superhuman?

PapaStone (Apr 5, 2020 at 4:49)

Yes, 450+ watts for 5 minutes x 6 times at 67kg is superhuman. Wait, he is the reigning Olympic champion! Haha!

Azowehn0 (Apr 5, 2020 at 7:44)

yeah 6.7+ w/kg vo2 with that repeatability is pretty high.

cparrett89 (Apr 5, 2020 at 11:38)

What do you mean by superhuman? They are very very good, but exactly what you'd expect a top level pro bike racer to be doing. It really depends if we're comparing him to mortals, to other pros, or to the very pointy end of the wattage producing world (top-level road pros, who of course don't have to have amazing skills on tech singletrack, etc, etc).

alexisfire (Apr 5, 2020 at 19:54)

Watch the GCN video on youtube where they try to do the world record 1-hour pace for as long as they can. A very good rider made it about 3 minutes (not watching again to verify). That was 440 watts. I use trainer road and do know my FTP and do HITT training multiple times a week with a power meter. I can't do 440 watts for 60 seconds. Most city heros couldn't do it for 2 minutes.

dick-pound (Apr 6, 2020 at 3:13)

Looking at FTP alone, in road those would be the numbers of a super domestique, with an FTP of around 5.5-5.8 W/kg.
If more money was involved in MTB, loads of the roadies would be doing XC or other MTB disciplines, which is a pitty considering a lot of the best roadies started with MTB...last TDF winner is an example.

RoadRunner13 (Apr 6, 2020 at 3:38)

@cparrett89: You are right, Schurter's numbers are good, but not superhuman. Not at all.
Actually, if you look closely at his past races, he struggles at altitude.
He would be blown out on a mountain road climb, even by domestiques.
Schurter is made for short, powerful and repetitive efforts, not for super high and long efforts.
Just look at what he did the only year he tried road racing at Tour de Romandie...

cparrett89 (Apr 7, 2020 at 3:39)

@RoadRunner13: Yes, I agree completely, you are spot on. I was a road rider and am a coach so I look at a lot of power files, and I'm familiar with his past road racing results. And although I agree he's great at short, repetitive efforts, it still wouldn't be much compared to the top guys on the road. That said, being at the level to ride OK in a Protour race like Tour of Romandie, while also having to be good at all the facets of modern XC racing is very impressive. And personally I think it's great that the modern XC scene is built for a guy like Nino.