This is probably your issue.
Probably going to be difficult to improve with as much extra load you are carrying, especially when they are opposite adaptation pathways.
I’d wager if you dropped to 1 day of cross fit and replaced those 2 extra days with workouts, you’d see some watt gains.
I had a somewhat similar experience and decided to try gen build. I gained as many watts on my FTP in the first four week block as I had in the prior 10 months. Mixing it up with some higher power efforts has seemed to help. Gen build is fun too.
@Captain_Doughnutman… Curious - what do you define as a “VO2 max block”? I’m having some of the same challenges as the OP. Thx
Basically a ~2 week time-in-zone progressive plan, e.g. 30/30s → 3min intervals.
Coach Chad has this detailed somewhere on the forum, and others have expounded upon it.
Please search for it, or ask around.
I should keep it bookmarked…but I don’t.
Coach Chad explains here:
I Would think you probably should drop a cross fit day and work in rest or foam rolling. You are putting your body through a lot.
Some of the plans have this progression of VO2Max built into them without only doing VO2Max workouts for the entire block. Sweet Spot Base MV II, which I just completed, progresses from 30s intervals to 3min ones. I haven’t looked but I would bet that some of the other base plans also have this built in.
Yes, some of the triathlon base plans have a vo2max progression.
Man, that’s a really underdeveloped V02max power you have. As the someone else mentioned, the 270w from the ramp test indicates you maxed out at 360w for one minute, yet you’re able to hold over 330w for 20min.!
If I were you, I would use the 20min test to set your FTP when doing tempo, SS and threshold, but it sounds like you’re not going to be able to use this FTP value for your Vo2max work, so you’ll need to lower them manually which is totally fine.
The good news is it looks like you have room to grow for your short term power, which will really improve your power curve.
I will throw my hat in the ring with the “Crossfit is too hard” crowd. I expect with driven athletes, or basically anyone doing TR, you’re probably committing a lot of effort to both Crossfit and TR. They’re sort of polar opposites in terms of physiological signaling, so I think the low hanging fruit here is to back off or stop Crossfit and see what happens.
Second to that, I love the VO2 block idea. I’ve found that’s definitely my weakness at the moment. Legs feel good and I don’t really feel the effort in my muscles much, but I’m gasping for air through. Balanced, I’d be about even strain on muscles/aerobic. Bonus: it only takes 4-6 weeks to get MOST of the benefit from VO2, so you won’t lose a lot by giving it a shot. Maybe a short power build or crit specialty would be a good option?
All that said, I’m a perfect ramp tester and it always ends up being dead on for me.
Man this is exactly the situation I’m in. I’m 37 5’8” 150 lbs and my FTP has been stagnant at 215, it even went down on my last test by 3W. 
I’ve followed TR for 2 years and been stuck around this FTP. In the past I’ve been doing the normal progression of base, build, specialty. Now Ive been doing plan builder for the last 3 mos in preparation for some events but, I feel like that was a lot of wasted time. I feel more fatigued even after rest weeks than I should and the training feels very disjointed. My non training friends are smoking me just off their “base miles”. Frustration has become a large mental block as my fitness doesn’t feel there and my performance in races has failed me. I’m trying not to “give up”. I’ll always do TR but getting out on low intensity long rides is sounding more appealing.
My issue at present is I’m very stressed and want to see gains ahead of my new born due in May which I’m realizing was an unrealistic goal and very short sided and too broad.
also, everybody, especially the masters athletes among us. Just a reminder that if you have been doing lots of aerobic training for year over year (and I count tempo as part of this; tempo and SS are not really high intensity in the sense we’re talking about), you may need to focus some trainings on touching up the fast-twitch fibers in order to really maximize your supra-threhsold (i.e. the so-called “Vo2max”) zone.
TLDR is that it takes a certain level of anaerobic capacity in order to hit and maintain the power level that will elicit Vo2max.
The good news is that those “tabata-style” workouts (short hard efforts, very short rests) also work the anaerobic / glycolitic system, until it’s exhausted and then aerobic takes over (provided there’s enough intervals :)), along with lactate buffering.
Might be worth looking at your diet and how you’re fueling your workouts. Eating during high intensity workouts has really helped me.
I also haven’t gotten great results from the FTP tests. Manually nudging up my FTP has worked for me. You may actually be improving but not testing well like myself. If the workouts become too hard you can always just reduce intensity during the workout if you’re unable to complete at the prescribed level. You can probably push yourself harder than you think.
On the newborn note. I had my first in January and have still been managing to get time in on the trainer. It’s sometimes difficult and unpredictable when you’ll get to work out. FTP tests can also be difficult if you’ve had a crappy night’s sleep the night before. We try to feed our daughter first and bring her in the basement, where the trainers are, when my wife and I work out.
I had this issue a while back… and honestly it all came down to nutrition. I was eating good foods, and a good amount of them, but was always still in a moderate calorie deficit. I started eating EVERYTHING burned plus my base metabolic rate-gained 5 lbs and my FTP has been shooting up with each RAMP test.
honestly I think it goes beyond touch-up when you hit 50s and beyond! I was doing “leg day” on the bike only, and not in the gym. In August when starting base training after a couple months off I noticed my bib shorts were fitting loosely at the leg gripper - a clear sign that I was losing muscle! Have since reversed that trend via strength training in the gym, and now my legs are fitting tighter than ever and as added bonus I hit some new all-time PRs on 1 and 2 second sprint power 
fair point. and, great job! nice to hear stories about how the theory translates to practice
Yeah what happened in August led me to that Alan Couzens article you referenced, and I’ve read it a bunch of times. He notes that early in the article:
Fiber type conversion and atrophy of your fast twitch fibers ain’t the same thing!
A natural side effect of the aging process is an atrophy of muscle fiber size (& consequent strength). This is most observed in the larger fast twitch fibers. This leads to the better endurance relative to strength and speed trend that we noted above. Older athletes have less ability to ‘fire’ and to train these fast twitch fibers when they are ‘out of the rotation’.
Similar info in Friel’s Fast After 50 book, the two biggest age related issues we as endurance athletes face are loss of muscle mass (especially fast-twitch type II fibers), and loss of vo2max.
nice. it’s a good article. I’ve seen the Friel ones as well.
This one (you might also have seen) is also useful for some guardrails on programming anaerobic trainings: Anaerobic Training | Alan Couzens
Thanks and I don’t recall having read it, but have lived it?! The first sentence was good for an LOL.
I could be suffering from calorie deficit. I’ve always had a hard time understanding what was enough for refueling. I don’t feel like I’m under-fueled for my workouts or recovery but maybe in between days I’m not fueling enough.