Do what works for you. I prefer resistance mode to go all out and not get pulled into the spiral of death, but as you say the first part is subjective.
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That may not be hard enough to get you into what is typically classified as VO2max territory.
Once you’ve done enough workouts, you’ll be able to tell which ones are the right level of hard.
The benefit of resistance mode is any workout can become the right level of hard. If you ride in erg mode, then the workout needs to be pretty dialed - not too easy, not too hard.
I do all my VO2max workouts in erg mode. But I have only a few different workouts I pick from, so I know how I’ll respond to them.
This is the one I do most often. Has an IF of 0.9
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Makes sense. I sort of like erg mode as it forces me to keep up my cadence which is a weakness of mine 
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Great advice and this is what worked best for me. The VO2 max gains were some of the most rewarding parts of my training, I could just feel it in my body/lungs/heart. But you’ve gotta get the cadence up to start pushing your aerobic limits.
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If you’re just starting out with vo2 work, 3 minutes at ~123% is pretty difficult. doing vo2 on the turbo is harder than it is outdoors too.
When doing vo2 work on the trainer, I would often get psyched out by intervals longer than 2 minutes, because I knew it was going to hurt. Maybe try starting out with 30/30s, these are less daunting I find, but they are pretty well regarded as being effective, as far as I’m aware.
Don’t let it get to you, your progress won’t be linear, and you’ll have off days. Maybe it was just an off day, but as I said previously I’d rate any intervals over %120 at the hot end of vo2 work.
Don’t be discouraged, if you are able to, maybe try doing the intervals outside on a climb, if you can’t do that, try 30/30s and work up to longer intervals. 3 mins at 123% is hard, if it felt easy something’s wrong. Sometimes TR gets it wrong, don’t worry.
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This, it will hurt but eventually you will be able to dig soooo deep. I use ERG mode, as originally I also needed to work on developing a high cadence. I’m finally cracking averages above 95 rpm/hr and now just fall into a blind, self-selected torque figure I like to sit at for the workouts, regardless of the power targets. That is, the target power will increase as will my cadence, so it’s the same pressure on the pedal feeling. Of course, the HR also increases! It is wild to see in post-analysis.
I only get VO2 stimulus in three ways now:
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“Hard Start” 30-30s: (60sec + 9x30sec at the same power) 30sec recovery. I’m usually near 2min power for all reps.
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Classic 4-5 x 4-5min. When fit I can do 5x5min. When less fit I’ll do 4x5min or 5x4min.
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Online TTT races. I’m generally gasping like a fish out of water for a majority of the last 15min.
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