A certain VO2max is necessary but not sufficient for endurance performance whereas muscular metabolic performance is sufficient regardless of VO2max values.
I’m gonna add option ‘D’: start the workout at 60% of FTP. If you get to the hour mark and your HR is holding steady, then you can decide to increase power or not.
TWO POINT I ASK YOU TO CONSIDER:
Point the first: I’m not a big believer that you get much incremental adaptation from a 70% workrate vs a 60% workrate.
Point the second: If you can’t pedal at Z2 for two hours w/o material HR drift, that’s a sign you need to work on your ‘base’ training or Z2 endurance. Or that 70% FTP isn’t really w/in your Z2. (but it can be with a little work!)
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That is a very good point! 
Can you be too fresh? Maybe…
Yes. Happens to me.
I’m not. As I wrote, muscular metabolic fitness is the primary determinant of endurance exercise performance. That doesn’t mean that it is the only one.
To put it another way (as I have many times before):
Having an adequately high VO2max is a necessary but not a sufficient condition for elite endurance athletic performance.
We can now debate just what qualifies as “adequate” and “elite”, but one thing is crystal clear, and that having a high VO2max alone doesn’t cut it. If it did, I would have been a pro cyclist, as I topped out in the low 80s when I was young.
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Yeah…you have to have a high VO2max and no other options, maybe.
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Thanks!. The only thing left for me to understand is:
- Is threshold or FTP the right measure of muscular metabolic fitness?
If it is, given that threshold is always below vo2 Max……doesn’t it follow that FIRST you need a big engine ONLY THEN threshold is the determinant factor?
Thanks a lot!
All else (e.g., duration) being equal, you’d get more of a benefit going from 60% to 70% than going from 50% to 60%.
IOW, contrary to what many seem to believe, increasing intensity results in a increase in the signals for adaptation, and not a plateau or even a decline. Only if you go way up the intensity spectrum and start doing really high intensity short intervals with long rest periods do things start to change.
Define “high”.
There are folks completing the TdF who can’t break 70…is that “high” to you?
For sure! Here’s where we drift away from physiology a little and into coaching philosophy…This time of year with that HR response…athlete: earn that 70% workrate. Build the base. Once HR response is under control at a 60% WR then let’s try working at 70%. Might even be just one workout to set an anchor point.
HR drift at the 110th minute of Z2 shouldn’t be a thing. Let’s fix it.
It’s the thing you said, goofy. ;-D I’m just saying, you made the correct career decision as far as I’m concerned.
Maximal metabolic steady state is THE gold standard measure. The former can estimated numerous ways, including determining FTP.
Since maximal metabolic steady state is usually lower than VO2max, and they are both determined in part by the same factors and both are responsive to training, separating them as determinants of performance can be challenging, especially in exercising humans. That doesn’t mean that it is impossible, however.
For example, you could test a bunch of individuals with comparable VO2max values but differing muscular metabolic fitness (as determined based on LT), and seeing whether performance is comparable, or not. (We already know how that turned out - I was participant #1 in that study, BTW.)
Alternatively, you could test a bunch of individuals with comparable muscular metabolic fitness (again, based on LT) but differing VO2max values, and see whether performance is comparable, or not. Here’s that study (which, BTW, is what stimulated me to do my PhD under Ed):
Of course, these are the extremes, but the literature is rife with examples of how changes in performance with training, detraining, aging, etc., more closely parallel muscular metabolic fitness than cardiovascular fitness (i.e., VO2max).
One question that “aficionados” of VO2max should ask themselves, but never seem to do so:
If the highest rate of whole body O2 uptake is so critical to performance, why doesn’t it leave an easily recognizable “fingerprint” on the exercise intensity - duration relationship?
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Getting my butt kicked by Greg Lemond at the 1977 Junior World’s team trials (along with everyone else, of course) was a bit of an eye-opener, such that I chose to focus on my career rather riding a bike. However, it took until 1983 (when I started my PhD) before retirement really took hold.
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Interesting question, perhaps because the whole curve is a function of VO2max?
Clearly not.
OP, did you figure out what to do yet?
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What is an example of a “fingerprint” in this scenario?
The flat part of the power-duration curve is FTP. The fact that it is flattened out (generally) at that point in the curve is notable. It is, in effect, a “fingerprint” (also why obsessing over a single number is futile…there is error, but even without the error, the “movement” along the y-axis at that x1 - x2 range is small). If a line just goes up or down straight, nothing to note. Doesn’t tell you much other than something goes up very predictably against something else (time, work load, whatever).
Above that range (not a POINT, but a fairly narrow range in practical terms), the gorilla is on your back.
I think what oldandfast is trying to say is: (but of course this is a mistake for me to even type this LOL) the entire curve (not the disposition or shape of the curve) is altogether higher with a higher VO2max. (whole body O2 uptake). So you can do anything you want to that curve but if mine is so much higher than yours (at all points), then too bad. I’m Greg Lemond and you are you. 
The counter to that is: be that as it may, if everyone at the party has a high VO2max, then it is not the primary determinant of performance. We’re all high. It’s something else. In our case, metabolic fitness. So then, since that is the case, let’s find a way to measure that. I reckon in the 80s this was a very novel idea.
Ok, folks. Let’s rip those three previous paragraphs apart, and hopefully in the process, I’ll learn something.
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Clear as mud.
For long slow rides, I just ride my bike at a comfortable pace.
People love to argue about this but I’ve never seen anything that’s convinced me the “right way” to do this is more complicated than that. Maybe if you’re already riding 20-30h/wk and have a 5-6w/kg FTP then this stuff could make a difference.
If you were aiming for a power target and by the end it still felt comfy, i don’t care what my HR is. If it didn’t feel comfy, then I don’t care what my HR is, and I’d drop the power.
I’d look at my HR after the fact to see how I was trending in the long run, and if there was anything weird going on (illness, etc).
I think people would get more benefit from using the time they spend arguing about minutiae in training on riding their bike more instead 
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