I think this depends on where you are in your maturity-level fitness-wise. For folks new to training that are still getting the “easy” gains, I think you might be right. But for those that have been through a few seasons and plateaus, the threshold doesn’t increase like it once did and I think extending duration becomes necessary to move the needle. You can’t get those longer duration intervals in the lower PLs.
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Isn’t that how people end up training in that middle zone? Not hard enough or easy enough to cause you to get better but enough fatigue to impact the rest of your training.
It’s a bit like those who always ride at one speed. They get good at riding like that, but they plateau fairly quickly.
I am not sure this is pertinent. To me, the question is whether doing 20 minute intervals at 210, 220, 230 etc., implies I will be able to do a 60 minute interval at 200 watts faster than doing intervals at 200 watts for 20 min, 30 min, 40 min, etc…
In my view, the OPs question boils down to what will get them to level 10 PLs in all zones the fastest: keeping FTP constant and increasing PLs or keeping PLs ‘constant’ and increasing FTP.
Not necessarily. It depends entirely on the specifics involved.
- If he’s bumping from something like 50% of FTP to 55% of FTP in a recovery, that’s probably not the case.
- If he’s kicking up enough to move between training zones, it might be an issue.
So much of this depends on the goals for one thing.
- If a person is trying to “amp up” a workout by cutting the recoveries, that may be ok. But it’s likely better if they just chose a more appropriate workout with that shorter / harder recovery to begin with.
- If they are trying to “add more stress”, it’s probably not the best approach. I tend to prefer taking on cool down time at Endurance power (5-20 mins or so) or a full workout when I want 30 mins plus.
The comment about it not apparently affecting later workouts is at least not a negative sign. But it falls short of a positive one too. There’s simply too little info shared (actual change and long term goal) that it’s not easy to make a call.
I don’t have any, but please note that I said “I would hypothesize” 
You might be right. But for me, and obviously this is anecdotal, this would not be the case.
edit: Also, I think your wording might be a little biased. “they can already hold it for 40 mins” vs. “someone who can only hold it for 20 mins”. If we worded them similarly, your statement would be “I have a lot more confidence in someone that they can hold 200w for 60 mins if they can only hold it for 40 mins”.
Either way, I don’t have any evidence so you still might be correct.
Sure. Thing is, if you don’t let your FTP go up and you do a longer-interval Threshold workout, likely what you’re really doing is a longer-interval Sweet Spot workout. So maybe “AI Chad” should be smart enough to give you some long-interval Sweet Spot workouts instead of a short-interval Threshold one. Now it’s not, of course; the workout types for each phase are fixed.
Maybe, but this type of behavior of completing short duration intervals at the expense of time to exhaustion usually does the opposite of what you are saying. A typical trainerroad user is probably really at threshold when they think they are doing sweetspot.
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It’s extremely amusing to see people sandbagging in a training app.
If you’re at 10 in one category, your progress there will be hindered if you keep your ftp low while you get to that point in the others (if that’s even possible for you).
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Maybe, maybe not. As many others have stated, after noob gains, true fitness increases are very gradual. Then there’s the specificity of training. Low pl workouts, typically have shorter work intervals with longer rest. If you have specific power/duration needs for your event, it doesn’t really matter if you’re at threshold or sweet spot, it matters how long can you hold a target wattage.
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We can all increase IF of workouts by pedalling harder in rest intervals, shortening the warm up or cool down. But I’m not convinced that will drive bigger increases in what the session is targeted at. Sure it’s good for the ego to see your average / normalised watts higher one week to the next on a workout. But I think that’s about all it’s increasing.
For me I want to see the work interval power increasing and the number of intervals increasing over time. I don’t really care about the IF, it’s the quality of the work intervals I’m interested in. For instance I prefer a longer warm up as that means the interval sets are better quality even though the IF goes down due to a longer warm up.
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Thus why not extend the length of your threshold work intervals rather than raising the rest interval power to a value only 70-75% of it? I can’t see a rest interval at that power level, will do much for your threshold TTE.
That FTP related limitation may be true in some cases, but certainly not all. FTP and it’s disconnect from things like Sprint, Anaerobic, and even VO2 Max work levels is well known and a real consideration.
If someone is tapped out in these, it may or may not mean FTP is inappropriate. If someone is maxed on Threshold and maybe even Sweet Spot, that is more likely to indicate FTP assessment is due. As ever, the “it depends…” aspect must be considered, and broad stroke statements lack nuance that exists here.
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I think some responses are comparing apples to oranges. If you are a beginner there is some evidence that you will improve regardless if you focus on Threshold vs. VO2 Max. As you get closer to the peak then it becomes a different conversation. If I had to bet, I would say the majority of people are over estimating FTP.
Would people be happy if TR came out and said, “If you are this PL in this category, or you are this PL in this category should you retest FTP?”
For what its worth from an academic perspective, regardless if you are a zealot of Coggan, Seiler, or Skiba etc. repeated intervals over a period of time are best indication of training success. You only know what different PLs feel like if you have trained enough to know what they feel like. If the intervals start to feel too easy, raise it up. If 3x10 at threshold can’t be completed time to knock your FTP down.
Just my two cents.
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Partly related, but Nate mentioned the near term goal for AIFTPD is to actually prompt the rider when it sees a change in FTP. This seems meant to replace regimented scheduling of testing / AIFTPD and offer an updated FTP when TR sees some amount of change.
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We have almost no info on the specifics like how much delta it takes before TR will offer something and how it handles gains vs losses, so there is plenty to learn here once they get around to releasing in beta or final version.
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Point being that there is a new option headed our way, so we will have more than one path or trigger to FTP changes.
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100% I was more replying for the sake of discussion. I am self admitting I am a Trainerroad fan boy. I have had a subscription over 10 years and have been in varying phases of fitness. Love the future vision of it all.
I just cringe when people ask questions like this because I think anything in cycling that is talked about in extremes isn’t good. The answer is always somewhere in the middle. If you are peaking for a race and specifically it demands sweet spot. Go ahead and try to max out sweet spot. If you are doing a crit. Go ahead and max out VO2 and above. Specificity will be key.
But general fitness… Its always going to be somewhere in the middle. Good initial question though, because I think it gets people to think about goals and more importantly why we are doing something.
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It was an example that highlights the issue. 
So the thing is that your FTP is your FTP regardless of what number you type into TR. So you shouldn’t be artificially keeping it low to get all 10’s on the PL’s but you also shouldn’t artificially raise it to keep them around 5.
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@mwglow15 said it beautifully.
Try to have your FTP and your PL’s all reflect your reality. These should be indicators like the needle on a speedometer. They are not targets or levers to be manipulated.
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