As you should. Reality can be messy, such that railing against it is a wasted effort.
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Agreed. I have made what feels like a full pendulum swing in the âtrainingâ spectrum. From not even having a computer on any bikes to obsession about single watt values and workout deep dives across maybe 20 years where I could say I âtrainedâ rather than just ârode bikesâ.
My personal takeaways are that nuance is underrated & underappreciated, along with the reality that we live in a training world full of gray shades rather than distinct colors & borders. I appreciate a hard, definitive answer as much as anyone. But for my needs at least, I have learned that âclose countsâ and I can still move my fitness needle with far less focus than Iâve done in the past. This translates to me having more fun overall without the prior obsession / worry that was more of a distraction for me than a benefit.
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This should be a banner at the top of the forum
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Definitely t-shirt worthy among other things 
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Thatâs a lot of data points to capture with fairly long and fatiguing tests. Is it fair to assume that you were interested/concerned/cared about the concept/limitation enough to measure it?
(of course, this could be race data).
How would you compare/contrast to measures of his straight up Endurance abilities over time?
Replace ftp with individualizing workouts⌠and the conclusion is that everyone should get the same workout!
I see below you back stepped away from this thought that we arenât robots and physiology is what it is.
- No, not at all from my view. That seems like a pretty large leap from âFTPâ values to workouts and training plan progression that well exceeds my statement.
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Again, no idea how you came to that ârobotâ conclusion.
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I went to some effort in that post to indicate it was about ME, MY journey and MY continued direction (not âweâ, not everyone and not even most⌠just ME) and my FTP related comment pretty much covers the variability in phys at the root of it all (despite not stating it that way).
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Why canât everyone start by doing 90 minute sweet spot workouts, and progress to 3 hours? And same question for the amount of time someone can hold ftp (not a made up ftp, but that small range of power between stable and unstable physiology).
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Good questions for someone other than me to answer.
The point is, we have all experienced that by increasing fitness (thru training), we can sustain a specific power target for longer and longer. At all intensities. Once you realize that training status (primarily metabolic/muscular fitness) impacts time to sustain a specific power, you should buy into the idea of needing to individualize time-in-zone. And then it should become clear that riding around stable/unstable physiology (FTP) has a variable time component. Physiologists and coaches tell us that ride around FTP is somewhere around 30 to 70 minutes for most athletes.
Sounds like you have this all in hand and certainly didnât need me or anyone else answer your question.
I canât find the study, but I remember that there were no significant differences in the other thresholds. Thatâs why this whole topic is interesting and people are measuring the delta of 10 min efforts fresh - fatigued.
Sorry, but if you meant to reply specifically to me, I have no idea what youâre talking about (âother thresholdsâ?).
No specific testing was done. This is just 1200 hours of training and racing. Only thing I would have him test would be that last 5min value, if someone asked for it or I knew someone who cared was looking.
Not sure what you mean âstraight up endurance abilitiesâ. His actual race results are excellent if thatâs the implication.
Ostensibly, what they did in the study was to compare the two groups (u23 vs pro), with respect to vo2, power at LT2 or FTP and power at LT1âŚand power after 2 or 3 kj of work.
They only found significant differences in the latter.
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I would expect not all 1,000 kJ to be the same. If you do 1,000kJ at Z2, SST, or with VO2 intervals, I would expect the fatigue and the performances after that would be very different.
With VO2 intervals, you will fatigue fast twitchs, with Z2 you will fatigue slow twitchs.
Therein lies the rub. Is there a need for a standardized testing protocol? To Andyâs point, what will we even do with the results, and will guide our training or offer us a data point that canât already be described by current tests or metrics?
Ah, that study. Again, this comes back to test sensitivity.
PPP: The best predictor of performance is performance itself.
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No. Just no.
Pick your imagined threshold duration, between 30 and 70 minutes. Now, whatâs your power there? Ok, now train a while, and you come back and you can now go longer at the same power. Do you just have a flat spot in your power curve? Someone can correct me, but I donât think thatâs possible.
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