I stumbled yesterday against this podcast with Sebastian Weber. He explains how they are evaluating your performance on a 20sec, 3min, 12min max efforts.
He has some interesting points on the validity of training zones based only on %ftp, as we are all different type of riders.
Interesting part starts at 29 min
Search for “inscyd” in the forum. Concepts ofrom Weber are based on old Mader research. If you want a way cheaper alternative based on the same concept - aerotune does this. Overall the idea of vlamax has also many opponents and is a little bit “muddy”. Some more extensive article from WKO and Kolie Moore with introduction of vlamax in WKO:
But Weber is a brand of itself and has many proponents, even if the concept itself has a lot of flaws.
I would also caution kollie’s findings as anecdotal and not peer reviewed. Some of the logic he used to say weber’s views on vlamax are incorrect are a bit misguided when not also considering vo2max.
Most experienced cyclists can confirm that a power curve can be either steep or more flat so there is great benefit in understanding your own individual power duration curve. Even if we don’t agree on why it may be flat, there seems to be a lot of agreement on how to change it.
Yes. But I think the issue is not Vlamax itself as a concept but tying the Vlamax so strictly to FTP and the whole rider profile, that is quite a separate thing. It is like doing VO2 max that is based on the percentage of FTP.
Hmm, I think the key takeaway from weber is knowing vlamax in relation to vo2max can predict your pd curve. It is not a single variable but part of the equation.