In other words, more sweetspot 
. I have this on deck for tomorrow (indoor… sadly)
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I suppose every time I do a 25m TT I do…because I try to avoid leaving watts on the road…certainly not in training…that would be awful without a number on. 
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I kind of love long form FTP assessments and efforts. Both because they are a great mental challenge and because it really lets you dial in the feeling you should have during a long threshold effort. I’m not an FTP purist in that I think everyone should be able to do 60 minutes at FTP on any given day - but I do think thank being able to sustain your FTP for 40+ minutes in a regular cycle (i.e. without a significant taper, but after a recovery week) is important
Pacing is the most important part of getting the most out of yourself for this duration. I’d strongly recommend you not start at your FTP, but as much as 5% below. Make a mental agreement with yourself that you aren’t going to adjust by more than 2-3% at a time and never more frequently than 5 minutes. Numbers there are a bit arbitrary, but adjusting too much (up or down) can be as painful as starting too hard.
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^ great advice
I think rest is really critical to being able to nail an effort this hard.
I spent my first year of indoor training doing exclusively 1 hour tests (bumping up by 5 watt increments) and my experience was that holding a full hour always required at least 2 days of rest or zone 1 beforehand.
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I only test 1 hour now because that’s the only test that gives me remotely good idea what I can hold in my “main event”
If you don’t ever have a 1 hour (more or less) TT or a climb that you want to set a personal best or anything like that, then I guess no point? But if you do, don’t rely on ramp, 20 min, 8 min tests or anything of that sort to give you a number that you can hold for an hour.
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I like this thought process. Not necessarily a “training FTP” but a number to be accurate about when talking about long efforts. Trying to gauge this off of a 20 minute or ramp effort will probably not be optimal.
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I don’t think it makes sense to do that during training, unless you have a specific event like a 40k TT or a hill climb TT that you train for. It takes a huge amount of mental toughness to get through that and causes a lot of fatigue afterwards. Even for events you likely won’t be putting out 100 % FTP flat, for such long events you need to consider pacing or e. g. accelerate out of tight corners or power up short tight sections on a hill climb TT.
On longer rides where you want to climb long, sustained climbs, you likewise won’t climb up at FTP but typically sweet spot. So my suggestion is to look at your goals and train for those rather than insisting on the simplistic hour power = FTP.
There is no difference between FTP and “training FTP”, both should ideally be your lactate threshold. Everything else is x-minute power, e. g. 60-minute power or 30-minute power. Without specialized training and aptitude, you won’t be able to hold your FTP for 60 minutes.
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Sometimes we train the mind. There is a place for the long solo threshold ride, and from where I sit it’s about once or twice a year. When you wanna know what you are made of, and not rely on estimates and educated guesses.
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True, if you like this kind of stuff, you can just test your mettle. Personally, I prefer to combine that with a hill climb TT 
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Yeah, far easier to get a better adaptation and increased volume from doing 3x8 threshold and longer.
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Are you German?
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I’ve never even tried a 1x60. The closest I’ve come is 45 minutes of a Kolie Moore FTP test on a trainer.
I just have no desire to do this effort. Plus, there is no flat ground where I live and it’s basically impossible to do steady state anything for more than a few minutes.
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I’ve never tried a 1x60, but I hardly think it’s “worthless”. For those saying it’s too much of a physiological toll, where is your evidence of this? Where is your evidence that it’s worse than 3x20 or 2x30? Do you have studies showing no benefit of this?
And a legit hour power number that you know you can hold is a great bit of information to have when pacing for races. Call it “FTP” or hour power or whatever.
Lots of opinions here but little fact.
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I think the idea that 1x60 is worthless in threshold development stems from the argument that FTP is not necessarily your “hour power”. From what I remember in my reading, FTP can be anywhere from 35 minutes to 75 minutes depending on the individual (athlete phenotype and training experiences, maybe more). I know this may be controversial but I believe TR’s general stance is that FTP is closer to that 35 minute mark.
If you have a very well-developed aerobic engine, it really doesn’t matter if you can hold FTP at 35 minutes or 75 minutes. But for new athletes or anaerobic athletes, it would behoove them to try to stretch out that threshold effort to 60+ minutes to get a good idea of where their aerobic engine stands.
For me, I know I can hold 295 watts for 35 minutes but I also know it’s because of a huge anaerobic contribution. When I based my training on a 295 watt FTP every interval over 15 minutes was a knockdown drag out fight and I ended up overtraining badly. I finally bit the bullet a couple months ago and dropped my FTP to 275 watts and my fitness has been improving like when I was a new cyclist.
How did I end up at 275 watts? I ran some tests and the only way I can explain it is that I could feel when I crossed the line over my threshold power. I think Kolie and Kyle talked about this in their podcast, but it’s like a switch gets flipped within 5 watts for me when I cross into super threshold power. My breathing gets markedly more rapid, I sweat much more, and my HR starts to climb from a steady 155bpm to 165bpm within a couple minutes.
I figure my FTP has increased in the last four weeks of training because my RPE has gone down despite my interval lengths going from 3x10 to 3x20. I think the 1x60 would be useful as a fitness test as well as training for durability, especially for a heavy anaerobic athlete who wants to stay relevant in longer rides.
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Agreed, which is why I wrote “training FTP”. Even experts, which I’m not, disagree about what FTP truly means. Our bodies are all different. But since training is based off FTP, in TR at least, you may need to increase your FTP for anaerobic efforts or VO2 Max stuff, but lower it for Threshold and Sweet Spot.
Some people are very rigid in their descriptions of what FTP is, but I think that rigidity leaves potential gains on the table.
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I also like the FTP by feel intervals. Go do 3x15 at what you think is your FTP without looking at the head unit.
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I do have some evidence of benefits of different workouts, some posted above with estimates of time above 90% relative/estimated vo2max. But you have to buy into WKO estimates of relative VO2max. FWIW I don’t share the opinion that it takes too high a physiological toll, rather, I can get more time at a high % vo2max from other workouts, and I can get more time doing strength endurance from low tempo workouts.
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No, it means that anaerobic & vo2 max efforts at a % of FTP are not representative of actual capability, and you’re better off doing those all out rather than at the TR prescribed %s. Threshold and Sweet Spot %s tend to track FTP (the physiological MLSS, that is) with less variation.
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Fair point! Im assuming they’re set at the percentages they are set at in TR as those are a “one size fits all” average, and that the progression levels at least helps address this to a point.
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