Wednesday’s Zwift Group Workout: Micro Burst Intervals

TRI247 Workout Series #54 – Micro Burst Intervals

Wednesday, 9th January 2019 7.00pm UK time on Zwift

(ZWIFT LINK >>> https://zwift.com/events/view/128941)

Are you a Zwift user who is currently completing the nine-stage Tour de Zwift during January? I certainly am, and judging by the vast number of riders in all of those events, it would appear that a huge proportion of the online cycling community are too. With that in mind, I’m guessing that right now your indoor training in the endurance / sweetspot / threshold zones is likely more than covered by those events.

To complement that, I thought that for this week’s TRI247 Group Workout Series of Zwift we would focus on some completely different power zones in our session – step forward the Micro Burst Intervals set.

The Micro Burst Intervals session

This week’s workout is a main set of three blocks of ‘micro burst’ intervals – short in length, high (relatively) in power with eight reps in each set. All of the efforts are significantly above FTP level for short periods of time… over and over again!

The interval length will decrease through the set (30 seconds in set one / 20 seconds in set two / 10 seconds in set three), but the power targets will be increasing… can you hit the power, recover quickly and do it again (and again, and again…?). As the three main blocks are quite intense in terms of effort, the warm-up will be relatively long and progressive this week – with a series of ‘spikes’ to make sure the legs are ready and firing before set one begins!

Join us at 7p.m. on Wednesday 9th January 2019 (UK time) on the virtual roads of London. Set your reminder now on the link below or via the Zwift Companion app.

[To set your reminder, click here: http://zwift.com/events/view/128941]

You can find the custom workout files from all of the previous TRI247 Workout Series sessions on these links, to download and do ride again in your own time:

Custom Workout downloads from previous Zwift sessions:

• Lucy Charles ‘Over-Unders’
• Lucy Gossage ’12 Days of Christmas’
• Lionel Sanders ‘Intervals’
• Joe Skipper ‘ Burner’
• John Levison ‘High Five’
• Ruth Purbrook ‘Over Gears’
• Tim Don ‘Comeback’
• Reece Barclay ‘Mix Session’
• Harry Wiltshire ‘Grim Reaper’
• Paul Shanley ‘Pyramids’
• Karl Alexander ‘VO 2 The Max’
• Jenny Gowans ‘Norse Steps’
• Matt Bottrill ‘Lactic Builder’
• John Levison ‘Russian Steps’
• Sam Begg ‘What Goes Up, Must Come Down’
• Paul Shanley ‘70.3 Minutes’
• Karl Alexander ‘The 13:50 (10 to 2)’
• Richard Stannard ‘FTP Advancer’
• Race Force ‘ChainGang’
• Simon George ‘The Giant’
• Natarsha Tremayne ‘Stomp The Pedal’
• Chris Standidge ‘The Championship Decider’
• Lesley Levison ‘Spiked Tempo’
• Bex Rimmington ‘ Maximal Efforts’
• Coach Kevin Poulton’s ‘Progressive 11’s’
• ‘The Kitchen Sink’ – set by TRI247 Editor John Levison
• John Levison ‘A Bit of Speed too…’
• ‘Glasgow Revisited’ – John Levison
• ‘Club Relays Madness’ – John Levison
• ‘John Levison’s A Bit (More) Speed Too’
• The Dragon – John Levison
• Sweetspot with a Kick – set by TRI247 Editor John Levison
• John Levison’s ’40/20’s FTP Booster’
• Micro Burst Intervals
• Short and Sweet(spot)
• Micro Burst Intervals 2
• Sweetspot Sandwich
• The Sweet Ladder
• 50 Shades of Power!
• Lucy Gossage’s New Year Set

Joining Instructions:

The workout will begin promptly at 7.00pm UK time, Wednesday 9th January 2019. It is worth logging in 10 or 15 minutes before the session to make sure you are set up and ready to go, where you will be able to warm up in the virtual ‘holding pen’.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XNTXAkky4qE

Look for the TRI247 Workout Series event in the list on the right of the screen once you have paired your sensors. Click to JOIN and you will be taken to the start line ready to begin the workout.

Make sure you have set your FTP level correctly before you join the workout as all the intervals are based on a percentage of FTP so it is important to get that right. If in doubt, dial the FTP number down 10 or 20 watts as it is better to finish the session than to feel like it is too challenging.

If you have never used Zwift before but don’t want to miss out, head to the Zwift support page for tips on how to get the most out of your setup.

After the session head over to the TRI247 Facebook page for some post ride chat.

Zwift Group Rides: TRI247 Workout Series

The cool thing about a group workout on Zwift is that varying levels of ability can ride together in a group and all finish the session together having done the same relative effort, even if the actual watts are significantly different. It is not a race, but a shared goal to get a good session in the training log.