Erg mode has made people think perfect adherence to the power target is somehow magically better. It’s really really not.
Obviously you need to follow the general structure but having a bit of variability in your power, interval length and rest is not going to actually change the physiological adaptations you are getting.
interval length and rest is absolutely going to actually change the physiological adaptations you are getting
The key part there was “a bit” of variability…
I did, yeah. I also did that sometimes during my indoor workouts, too. Life happens. I rode 75 mins (you see, I made sure to extend the recovery at the end to make up for the gap in the middle - by the way, the interval is prescribed as 0-160w or whatever it is, but it accepts 0 just fine) and completed 2x20 uninterrupted sweet spot intervals.
What’s interesting here though is that the last two sessions are the last two sessions before the predicted FTP updates. If I remove the completed workout for today, my FTP jumps 10w, based on a single workout. I have been told several times that that wouldn’t happen. I’ve also been told outdoor workouts are currently pass/fail.
So we can do 2x20 with a 10 minute recovery interval or do 2x20 with a 10 minute rest off the bike. If you can’t see that one will be harder than the other, I don’t know what else to say.
Did you do South Twin +3 or Septeret on Tuesday? I thought your activity was associated with Septeret before, but now it looks like South Twin +3…
In terms of adaptations to strain (the two 20m intervals) both approaches will yield basically identical results, assuming the rider actually rides at recovery wattages.
I would even posit that the active recovery one might feel easier as you are keeping the legs moving 
but that is a bit individual.
I have not changed anything, always South Twin+3
You must be joking. So when people take a back pedal during a 30/30 workout you think that’s more effective than continuing to pedal? If that’s the case, we should all surely just take 30 minutes off between SS intervals, right?
It depends… I was not talking about 30/30s at all 
. But sure, depending on the type of workout it may or may not affect the goals and adaptations you get from it.
There is nothing magical happening by riding at recovery watts between intervals to increase the adaptations you are getting.
So with that theory, my goal is to get to 5 miles. Surely I get there just as fast sitting on the couch as walking.
??? Obviously not but if you want to just deliberately misinterpret what I am saying go right ahead.
Hi Pbase. My post was about the large impact of one workout one day before my AI FTP updates, that was generally completed successfully albeit with a caveat in the recovery. I’m not interested in having a debate with you, I realize it wasn’t perfectly executed, but I think we can all agree that doing the prescribed work sets is by and large the most important part of the workout.
For what it’s worth, I tested this by removing the paused 15 mins and adjusting the power downwards so that TSS and duration better matched the intended work, and the predicted FTP showed 318 rather than 315. Both of those numbers are significantly lower than 325 and certainly lower than 331, which was my predicted FTP heading into my workout on Tuesday morning.
I absolutely agree and have posted many times that the AI FTP Prediction shouldn’t change massively without reason at the last minute. I don’t agree with the sentiment that skipping part of a workout or taking a break during a workout has ZERO impact on the actual workout outcome. It sounds like you agree with this too.
Having tried the new system, both in Beta and when fully released, and read many of the posts about it on here, I’m finding it hard to understand why people just can’t accept that it will work for some people and not for others.
It’s like any coach, some people will really respond well to their methods, other people won’t, sport is absolutely full of instances where a coach has had great success with an athlete or a team but on other occasions with other people has struggled. We’re human, there is no one size fits all for us, the endless arguments on here these days about AIFTP going up or down and what affects that is making this forum quite unpleasant.
I was watching the news the other day and a business woman was on and she said something that resonanted with me “You don’t own a business, it owns you.”. For myself, that’s how I found the AIFTP, and for me I don’t want to constantly be chasing a number, but others might and that’s fine. I think quite a few people on here just need to accept that we are all different, have different goals and priorities and have different opinions on how much they want to be a slave to the machine in order to achieve their goals.
I’ve been riding, racing(no longer race) and training for a long time though, and can say quite confidently, that chasing one number as a measure of your worth will lead to issues, many things to judge yourself and your cycling on, enjoyment being the greatest in my opinion, but a few watts here and there on your AIFTP doesn’t matter.
Well for what its worth i loaded up Marcus Baker -1, i didnt accept the new AI FTP detection that wanted to lower my FTP to 343, i left it at 352.
Session was 6 x 18 minutes fluctuating from 310 building to 331 for the 5th set and then slightly back down again. However on this occasion I just trusted the RPE that felt right, this put me between 330 - 340 for every interval.
This was a “hard” but not flat out session, it was actually around -1c for the first 1.5 hours this morning so i was in full blown winter gear, I only did around 50 grams of carbs an hour and no caffeine during the session (usual training method).
You will see the recover channels are pretty close to the plan with one exception being after the second effort, I had to skirt around a town before hitting safe road to star the next effort.
AI FTP detection now thinks my FTP will be 380 in 28 days time… that would be lovely if it actually was (it isnt).
I wouldn’t recommend doing such a lengthy and taxing session as this as a general rule of thumb, feels a little excessive but I had fun doing it none the less and I think it goes some way to proving my point that the 343 ftp isn’t accurate, especially given my NP of this whole ride was 313.
One observation is that its once again marked my Saturday threshold session back down to a level 3, basically the same level its had me at for months now hence my comments regarding a lack of progression.
Good job nailing something like that. My tip for the rest of the week. Don’t overdo tomorrow, ideally you keep it at max 1 hour easy. Then do a hard threshold session on Saturday.
Thanks for the advice, appreciate it but rest assured with over 17 years and 175,000 miles ridden I have a pretty good fix on my recovery rate. 
I don’t doubt it. The advice was more geared towards experimenting you can do to get the AI back on track. Doing (too much) more than it wants tomorrow and thus getting a threshold workout on Saturday well below your capabilities will only keep you in the same negative spiral.