Oooo!!! Brave! 
Returning to doing outside structured intensity, I’m finding it definitely requires practice to get it right.
Thanks, that was my interpretation of your original comment.
If you do an anaerobic effort then keep pushing after your power falls off… that (mostly) aerobic at that point. Doing the hard start just gets the anaerobic energy out of the way faster so you can actually load up the aerobic systems.
Thanks all for the interesting data!
One of the things that surprised me is how O2 consumption remained consistently high and consistently plateaued even at relatively lower power post-hard-start. After an initial washout interval, 160% FTP would get me to an O2 consumption plateau in 30s to 40s…that oxygen consumption could be maintained at 110% FTP for a relatively long time. Let’s say 3.5min, for example, without too much muscle fatigue. You just have to fight through that feeling that you’re suffocating.
But that’s nothing compared to what Bilat did to those poor souls that volunteered for her study…where she subjected them to 15+ minute intervals at VO2max. Now that’s a whopping long VO2max interval.
Suffocating feeling is definitely not a problem for me - whole life is suffering so this is no different 
During these hard start workouts my muscles simply fail and I cannot hold the high enough power. What was quite interesting (I am very new to cycling so maybe this is very obvious) - changing the way I was breathing and really controlling breathing pattern delivered strange “boost” feeling to the muscles - like clearing the lactate. The 4 minutes intervals were the “sweet spot” for me between muscles fatigue and repetability.
The longest Vo2 max with hard start I have done were 8 minutes (I was able to hold 90% of VO2 max modeled by WKO for the whole time). They were horrible to endure to be honest.
I just gave you some love @empiricalcycling.
A note on the wko5 vo2max modeling. It uses exponential weighted moving average based on average o2 uptake kinetics at exercise onset for trained athletes. It does not and can not take into account the slow component, or contribution of anaerobic power contribution. Plus it uses “vo2max power”, which I have some opinions on but the L/min is pretty good if sometimes a bit high.
You may be starting too hard, which recruits a lot of motor units and fatigues them, then you’ve got nowhere for your slow component to go 
That may be a benefit or a drawback, depending how you want to perform your intervals.
Thanks that is helpful. In your opinion what types of scenarios does it model well? I’d hazard a guess that 6-12 minutes above threshold might be a problem due to slow component. And really short 30-sec jobbers with high anaerobic power might also be a problem.
<3
I’m hard pressed to find a situation where I’d say it models very well all the time at the workout level. It’s such a simple algorithm and bodies are so complex. It’s sort of like… 4mmol blood lactate at LT. It’s probably “fine” if you’re average. But please don’t quote me on that. Honestly I don’t use it at all despite getting a credit on the vo2max modeling (along with Andy Coggan and Steve Palladino) and having done some work for wko5 since. I just don’t have many thoughts on it.
@empiricalcycling – while we have you here, re: max efforts – what’s your take on research protocols such as the following (transcribed from a published paper; I’ll try to dig up the link):
Duration 2:00:00
TSS 267
IF 1.16
kJ 1,511
Workout is done every day for 7 days.
The intervals levels provided are general guidelines; perform them at the highest intensity possible.
Follow with 1 week of recovery.
Test
15 minute warm-up
10x each:
15 sec @ 300% FTP/1:15 min recovery @ 40% FTP
30 sec @ 250% FTP/2:30 min recovery @ 40% FTP
45 sec @ 200% FTP/3:45 min recovery @ 40% FTP
15 minute cool down
Results
20km TT Performance
Power: +6%
Time: -4%
General Performance
PPO: +7%
VO2peak: +3%
LT Power: +4%
Aerobic Economy: +4%
Gross Efficiency: +5%
Is this waaay too much work/stress for the given gains?
[edit: all subjects were of ‘average’ fitness and test compliance was 100%]
My take is that the farther your intervals are from your FTP in terms of duration, the less sense it makes to base them on your FTP power. For someone like me, I’d be breathing through my nose the whole time. I’d like to see the paper though if you can get a DOI.
Thanks. It’s fun to look at the sometimes ‘entertaining’ results. That’s been my take 
And the forum kind-of-discussion:
(The German 4000m team analysis is also interesting in terms of very different athletes achieving very similar results.)
This was the first time I was trying these types of intervals (or rather whole block of them) and have no “feel” how hard I can go. After some tim I have tried to start around 2-3 min power for 1 min and it has improved the results. My FRC is non existent and my short power is on the level you can achieve with left to of your one leg Nevertheless stacking workouts back to back worked, and 5min power has improved, so the plus side of being new - everything make you better.
I actually prefer 40/20 to the vo2max power continuous intervals. Even if they are much longer like yesterday. I’ve always struggled to do the continuous intervals at 120% and was usually just spent afterwards. These intermittent one’s are hard too but I don’t care about the power - I just go as hard as I can rest a little and repeat. Did only two yesterday and it was a right call. I could ride higher aerobic back home but still can feel it pretty good today.
So I’ve listened to all the relevant podcasts multiple times, read loads of studies online, gone through my TP data and for my next training block I’ve decided to perform the above intervals instead of the 3 sets of 15 x 30/30s. I’ve enjoyed the discussion in here, I feel like I’ve learnt a lot but I still feel like I’m having a massive stab in the dark as to whether I’ll be properly working my VO2max 
The point is to have as much time as close as possible to your maximum oxygen uptake. Just monitor your heart rate while doing those sets, if you hr goes up to vo2 max but drops too quickly while doing the 100%, you need to shorten the downtime or do the over efforts at a slightly higher effort.