How Did VO2 Max Booster Program Work You?

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• What feedback have you received from your readers regarding the VO2 max booster programme?
  It would be useful to make this information available. I am planning on implementing this 14 day programme into my own training scheme shortly as an end-of-season peak to improve my race form for the final few weeks of racing.

• Hi,

  I tried your VO2 max program as well. I do not really have a powermeter but I can say, that my threngh definitly increased.

  However, I changed your program a bit and did a full rest day all 3 days instead of your shorter 30min intervall days as I felt really exhausted on these days and I recover even faster without doing recovery rides. In addition, I think you have to know your body quite well as over-reaching/training is a thin line when adopting this program especially when your race season has already started. I also increased the amount of recovery liquits in order to recover even faster during that time. Otherwise, I think I could not have finished that program without failure rates or reaching overtraining.

  I race MTB Races, mainly marathons of 2-3 hours race time and I think this program is even more helpful for Mountainbikers than long distance road cyclists. I would consider it even perfect for a Cross Country training program as this involves a lot of strengh and power output for a shorter race duration.

  The intervalls involved were really interesting and way more exciting than only long and short term intervalls which you know from the literature.

  Thank you for such great training programs.

  greetings from Austria

  Stefan

• Jai> There has only been positive feedback so far. People get stronger on the VO2 Max Booster Program without discussion. There have also been some useful suggestions that I plan to implement in future training programs here on Training4cyclists.com.

  Good luck with your customized training program! :-)

  Jesper

• I'll post my progress in 10+4-6 days!

  Feeling strong so far and I've completed Day 4 today. I on the other hand will not try and change anything in the program, this however will ofcourse depend on how my body reacts after a few more days. When I'm done and when its all evaluated and processed I'll concider changing stuff to suit me and my goals better. If necessary.

  And I agree with Stefan about this program beeing (on paper) excellent for forrestjunkies, like myself.

• It was extremely hard and much harder than any training I've tried previously. I got a really nice increase in VO2 max power (Before 398W, now 416w)

  You need to be familar with quite high training amount to complete the training as scheduled. I quess riders who train at least 14-15hrs per week could benefit most from this program.

  Still, amazing how this program worked for me even though I only train app. 10 hrs per week.

• Just started the program yesterday, excited about all the good results Im reading here. This is my second season of riding and hope it will help me keep up with my more experienced stonger buddies. Will get back to ya with my results in a couple of weeks.

• I did the program as well. I have not retested so don't know what the gain was. I can tell you on my group rides I am much stronger on some parts I used to get dropped. However I did this work out to get ready for a 2+hour hill climb race. I found although I was stronger for a short time I had lost of alot of my fitness and was 15-20 minutes slower (I blew up in the second hour averaging the same watts as before) now then I was before hand. I believe I can get that back quickly or at least I hope. I am going to do workout again but length them to about 1+30 or 1+45 .

• Jeff, thanks for your report. Sorry to hear that you haven't made a test after finishing the program. Also, it would be great if you did a test of your performance at e.g. 20minutes maximum. I think it is very unlikely that you improve your VO2 max significantly at the cost of a significantly reduced aerobic performance after only 14 days.

  Are you comparing your performance with previous years' finishing times or finishing times 14days ago?

  I would love to read the power meter files you talk about.

• I also want to start the program today but I have a race in 3 days? Should I wait after this race to start the program? (to be fresh). Or should 3 days of training already get the legs in better shape for a good result???

• Here is my results:

  Max VO2 Power.
  Before: 362 W. 4,3 W/kg.
  After: 382,4 W. 4,72 W/kg.

  FT.
  Before: 246,5 W. 2,93 W/kg.
  After: 270 W. 3,3 W/kg.

  Body weight.
  Before: 84 kg.
  After: 80,9 kg.

  I'm satisfied with the results, but as always with numbers and tests outside a laboratory you might have to have some faultdifference +/-, but I'm more interrested in knowing if I'm going forward or not, and I think it's safe to say that I did make progress.

  Total time spent is only 4 weeks of my life. 1 week restitution from previous training and tests before entering program, 14 days executing program, 1 week restitution and tests after program was completed.

  I did one extra thing that was not in the program, and that was one easyride with friends at Day 5. That should not make any difference in either way. Other than that I stuck to the program.

  And also I have to thank the Swedish summerweather for beeing utterly disgusting these 14 days which made it easier to sit inside on my testbike doing this program :)