Fair enough, not over thinking it, just back calculated a few recent PDC model maintenance efforts.
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Not necessarily. This podcast episode on the science of duration of rest periods is pretty good.
FastTalk ep 113
Honestly, I just round to something closeby thatās easily measurable. Today I did a ā19sā residual testā¦ of course, that was just a 20s sprint (I did two). I ended up setting power records from 16s to 25s. And thatās happened with almost every residual test Iāve done this season, I end up setting a bunch of PRs around the intended target, regardless of if itās the short, medium, or long test. So, all that to say, I just kind of āwing itā with a nice round number near what the residual says.
My next long one is 45 min, so thatās easy. My next medium is 1:52, so thatāll be a 2-min power test. Iām sure Iāll hit the 1:52 power record along the way. I guess thatās one thing: I tend to always go just a hair longer (round āupā the time).
Exactly this, more succinctly put.
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For those of you experienced with strictly VO2max/polarized blocks, is it your experience that you see a small decline in FTP and long duration interval performance immediately following your recovery period?
It makes sense to me that āuse it or lose itā comes into play here, and one might see a small 2-3% or so decline in performance on a 20 min or full TTE test immediately following this block, and that following additional FTP training is when the breakthrough in sustained performance is realizedā¦ but thought Iād crowd-source experienced answers.
My experience is RPE on efforts higher than FTP but not āsprintā goes through the floor. Efforts right at or below FTP stay the same/suck. Iāve made notes in over/under workouts of āit almost felt better during the overā.
Finished a v02 block end of January that had me working about +10% over last year, popped about 6 sessions in. Took about a week and a half before I could get back to consistency (Mid February) and last week I did 2x30 at last years FTP (from last September) that had a TTE of ~70 min but it sucked a bit. I havenāt tested FTP yet this year.
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Iām about 12 days removed from my last VO2max workout - I did seven in about 18 days. Felt pretty good Monday and waited till today. Tried a TTE test and definitely higher RPE at my past FTP. Held it for about 20 minutes and then started pulling off. About 5-7W lower than last test felt right today. But last sustained effort was four weeks ago, so today definitely sucked. Seems like that should be normal - short term step back for longer term benefit.
I had a similar experience last year with a 8 week block of vo2max (incl. 2 restweeks). Must say I lost my mojo after 4 weeks. This year I will only do a 4 week block (incl. Rest week). In total 8 workouts. I think that is enough to have most of the gains.
sorry what?!?! thatās insane.
here i am planning three weeks thinking it will be a lot
More 3+1 and that 2 timesā¦
I just checked and had my all time 5ā max after the 3 weeksā¦
I did the vo2max block directly after sweetspot block. But this year I did longer sst and a FTP block after SST
this seems weird as your aerobic capacity (extensive and intensive work) should not degrade that quickly compared to short power which, which very much is use it or lose it.
Are you sure you are fully recovered?
Last years 5x4: Log In to TrainerRoad
Test shortly after last years v02: Log In to TrainerRoad
This years 5x4: Log In to TrainerRoad
This years 2x30, no test as of yet: Log In to TrainerRoad
Itās all relative/individual. I donāt have a huge training history and seem to be constantly coming and going from injuryā¦ but that might give some additional context.
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I felt pretty good Monday. Rode easy and did my sprint residual test (20s). Rode easy again yesterday. That was after a week of nothing but Z1/Z2 and lower volume at that.
In context, I felt probably a 5W decrease from my last test. mFTP before my VO2max block was 279. Now itās 273. I started the test at 275 and progressed up to 282, then backed back down to 277. 275-277 felt about right. So Iām setting FTP to 275 and going, down from 280 entering the block.
We arenāt talking a big decrease, more of a stagnation or a 2% drop and probably a bit higher RPE. Seems like thatās normal given not having done any kind of sustained effort for about four weeks. Could just be one of those days, too. Either way, Iām not really concerned, just curious about othersā experiences so Iām not learning from just my n=1.
I think my way ahead is to conduct my SST intervals at 250-255W and start at 60min TiZ. Last block I was doing 75-90min at 247. Iāve done 2x30 at 252 once, so in the spirit of progression agnostic of FTP, a small bump up in power and working back out to 90min+ TiZ over the next few weeks should do the trick. Plan to add an over/under session every 10 days or so to get some of those bursts up at 5min power to keep that sharp while working the sustained progression.
Next block after that will focus again on FTP intervals and over unders again.
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hereās a question;
Did mFTP drop because you cant do long power efforts, or did it decrease because you yanked up the front of the curve?
I suffer from the latter any time I touch my sprint, as (humble brag) any time you throw a 1500+w 5s sprint into your curve it destroys the back end of the curve and you wind up with a lower mFTP and extremely high TTE (my n=1 experience)
mFTP went down before the sprint effort, probably due to lack of long residual testing the last few weeks. Sprint didnāt impact it at all, really. 20s sprint at 840W up from 778 on the PDC didnāt make a dramatic difference either way, I donāt think.
Regarding Intensive aerobic, what else are you guys doing besides Over/Unders and FTP work? And I apologize, as Iām quite certain this has been covered beforeā¦ 1680 comments are a lot to sift through 
Iāve pushed my TTE out to 60min @ threshold and 100min at SS, and now looking to do an intensive aerobic block. I had a good idea in mind a few weeks back, but canāt recall what my plan was nowā¦
Iāve got the scaffolding (still a work in progress here ā just have some workouts in without really planning how long and where) of 2 weeks planned so far, but not really sure what else to add in, especially for the 3rd week. Are you guys making the Threshold workouts at a progressively higher % of threshold, ie 102% ā 105%, or just getting the intensity in through over/under workouts while continuing to push out threshold TTE?
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While it might not true in your case, some mFTP changes happen because a strong effort from 90 days ago just fell out of the 90 day window. Here is a fun one from last year:
Increase in mFTP when a strong effort from 7 to 28 seconds fell out of the 90-day PDC window. That one effort caused Pmax to drop 19W and mFTP to increase 8W. Interestingly at the time, the April 12th workout didnāt even set a 90-day best. Fun with PDC.
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Actually no. Last summer I did a nice little VO2/Z2 Polarized block that was around 6-7 weeks long and then smashed threshold intervals for a while. I was strong coming out of that POL experiment with my best ever ramp test that netted me a 344w FTP.
Galena was a good benchmark for how high SS feltā¦numbers were the best Iāve ever seen:
Then I was doing 2x50 and 1x75 Sweet Spot rides that felt amazing
My takeaway is that the polarized block netted me a TON of aerobic fitness and the VO2 workouts just piled on the ability to ride hard.
Everyone is different.
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Dudeā¦ you smash vo2max for weeks then you do a test that is directly correlated with your vo2max (ramp test is more correlated to pVO2max than it is ftp) and then you are surprised when you get your best ever result. Of course you would.
What would be interesting is to see the effect on your hour power