But if you want to focus on aerobic the obvious answer is ride more. Are you saying you are looking for a shortcut because you don’t have time to ride more? Again it all depends on lots of details that are specific to you. Shortcuts for cycloplat are very different than shortcuts for me.
Yes yes ride more…tell my husband and he will disagree 
. At the moment I spend my time with testing, testing and testing for alle the priorities in 2021. To reach my goal the important things in training for me (!) are: Training Fatigue resistance, degrease my VLA-max and making use of my AWC or W or HIE (but what’s in a name) by doing individual intervals (and these intervals are made for me based on my testing).
@Lilian W’ is not usable for Treshold. Maybe for the harder VO2max (shorter then ~5min). But using W’ to create interval workouts works best for anaerobic. And that’s what it was developped for. What I do for VO2Max intervals is this:
- Get your best 8min effort from the Power curve and multiply by 0.92
- Design a workout with 6*8 min at that level, short rest for about 2min in between
- Aim to complete at least 4 intervals (if you can’t, reduce intensity)
- Increase VO2 time untill you can do about half of the sixth interval before raising intensity
This gives you significant time at VO2 level. It’s basically Seilers VO2 intervals.
I’m combining these with 3min intervals (where W’ is usable) but I’m doing this kind of work only about 8 weeks before season start.
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I believe you are asking questions that none of can answer directly as they would require a lab and a scientist and even then it would not necessarily be accurate. All we can tell you is the stuff you sound like you already know. I personally would still focus on the basics but any experimentation outside of that may or may not produce better results but it is very individual as you say and requires lots of testing. Just keep testing and you can tell us what works for you 
The type of question we might be able to answer is: I train X hours per week, my FTP is about X w/kg and I want to improve my hill climbing abilities for 150km races. Even that is too generic but it’s a start. We can’t do a scientific analysis of what is best for you we can only answer what is best for us, what is generally recommended or what we believe is a good way to accomplish this. I would say you should not try to limit any particular area of growth as your strengths might be what cause the best results in you. Bridging the gap with a maximum W’ might be what helps get your best results and might be where you get the most benefit when your training time is minimized. Generally you are the same as almost all cyclists that want to or need to improve your aerbobic engine on a limited amount of time. This is what pros focus on and what almost every rider should focus on. This is what gets you in the game.
Another higher level way of looking at your personal needs are. Is your primary limiter peripheral or engine based? Answering this question will likely help you better understand where to focus.
Sorry I know this is not the answers you want from your questions but I personally believe this is where you need to focus unless you want to spend time in the lab with a scientist.
No, I don’t want to spend my time in the lab with a scientist but after the tests I do know now what are my strong and weak points and you know: the chain is as strong as the weakest link.
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Hi, thanks for your answer. This is what I needed 
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Oh my, I had no idea that is the question you were looking for an answer to… So glad you got it.
Be carefull though, these are very taxing workouts. Both physically and mentally. Physically because you push your VO2 system to its limits. Mentally because you basically always “fail” the workout. Dont focus on that “failure”, focus on the slowly increasing time in the 5th or 6th interval. And always take at least one rest day after such an effort.
For me this works great and I don’t need a “perfect” FTP value. I’m using FTP almost solely to base my endurance work on. If it’s a couple percent off, that’s not a big deal.
So my friend is arguably the best lab science cycling coach in the world and advisor to many of the top teams and coached many high profile professionals. He says there is no such thing as a “perfect FTP value” because every test produces different results and even lab tests are not overly accurate. He says a ramp test, you take the last minute and close to an accurate FTP is some where between 70-80% of that last minute. He still feels the ramp test is the best test and the only test you can think about getting a pro to do. A ramp test is reliable in monitoring progress and general setting of training zones/targets which he also agrees is not that important for total precision. I know Jeremy feels differently although if you want to do these very long SS intervals lowering your FTP will help
Again to your point just take your intervals to failure and that is what matters. W’ again might be something that just shows progress when you are improving your anaerobic work capacity and very ball park training intervals. So I am 100% in agreement with what you are suggesting here. As well as being careful. Even tabata stated their is limited benefit beyond 8 tabata intervals and 4-8 is generally recommended. I am not sure if that holds true to VO2max intervals but it sounds like from your perspective it is the right ball park.
The quotes around “perfect” where there for a reason 
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I got it!!! and like it!!! Maybe it was not obvious, I was 100% agreeing with you
I just hate periodic “testing”, period. I know that even if you follow Xert’s XATA, you’re still doing continuous evaluation (and in a sense testing), but I loathe the ramp (or Conconi) tests…
Who am I to say that it is wrong? If it’s working for you, it can’t be wrong. Personal preference or individual related I guess. There are a lot of people doing HIIT for VO2 increase.
I’m no coach. I’m just really intrested in all that stuff and read a lot. I’m not racing either, so i’m not wasting my season if I’m trying out something different. It’s by trying lots of different things that you find out what you’re best responding too. Just refrain from changing things completely all the time. Stick to the basics for Base training and try out alternatives for more intense work is what I’m doing.
I test only 2 or three times a year. Incidentally I tested yesterday 
. Used Xert’s What’sMyFTP field on Garmin IQ and followed more or less their procedure for testing. Warmup, some max sprints and then a maximal effort for 8-15min. Had to quit at 11 min around 110% and Xert told me FTP=166. Garmin afterwards was 164 and Golden Cheetah calculated 162. All pretty close and it aligns with my feelings. Numbers are low, I know 
. Last 3 years have been hectic due to a move and only now I’m getting back to some decent training. Hoping to increase quite a bit for next season.
I do like this Xert field on my Garmin because it is motivating to see the number slowly creeping up. Indoors is always more difficult to really push true. This just confirmed that I am doing my endurance work at the correct intensity.
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Then you probably use the TTE and TTR fields, maybe the MPA field too? Those were my favourites.
That depends on what you think you are capable of, given the time to train. I once made the mistake of telling a guy that an FTP of 70 was impossible, as you would not even move, but I found out I was wrong 
I do my warming up at 150 Watts 
Some pretty good advice, better than the typical "just do 115-120% of FTP for Vo2 workouts. @MedTechCD That’s a neat idea of how to do Vo2, I haven’t heard of that one before!
I was wondering if I should bother sharing this, but since we’re on the subject…
@Lilian I do Vo2 workouts a little, I prefer to do hard starts, high cadence, all out efforts for 3-8min to get more time at actual Vo2 Max. By doing hard starts, you’re getting to a more realistic Vo2 max level. By keeping cadence high, you’re getting more skeleton-muscle pump. By going all out, you’re naturally getting progressive overload since every workout is near your limit.
Breathing should be hard, like a fish out of water . If you can’t make it to the end, then go a little bit easier. It’s normal to see power drop off over time on one of these, just keep cadence high and keep plugging away. These are hard, as a Vo2 workout should be
It will look something like this:
Another option might be variable vo2 efforts to achieve a similar result… Something like this:
Just throwing a few ideas out…
Here’s some articles and references to the above
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/228104183_The_sustainability_of_VO2max_Effect_of_decreasing_the_workload
What does the W’bal look like on that?
Don’t have a Xert account. Never had. Only using this one:
It’s free but stops calculating after one hour.
4 years ago was probably my best season with an FTP around 220 at 62kg. I’m hoping to get back around 200 next season. Work to do …
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Okay, I keep your warning in mind. I am used to do hard efforts so I am gonna try them as you adviced me and we’ll see.
Thanks Jeremy for your inspiring contribution. I see this forum as sharing the knowledge with each other instead of piss off each other.
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