Yes. It would seem that you are less fit, you’d have to do intervals at a higher %FTP to reach VO2 max.
Not dissimilar, but those are designed from a race-specific point of view rather than with the intention of ramping up VO2. In a race situation, your inital surge has to create separation, so is more like a max 30s (ish) effort than 90s at 130%. From my experience this is more demanding in terms of repeatability, and doing more than 3x 3-4m race winners requires in-season condition.
new one from Ronnestad
however, for me the more intriguing question is: why did LI get worse? Three times per week too much. Too much in the context of elite cyclists? And “effort matched” via “rate of perceived effort” ?!? Was the physiological load really equivalent?
Would love to read the discussion, they must address this somehow.
And you know every corner of it!
Yeah we need to see the full paper on this one.
Also, I don’t know anyone that does 2:1 work to rest ratios for long VO2max intervals. You are probably severely compromising your ability to drive an sustained oxygen debt in the later parts of the session with that short of a recovery.
For long VO2 max intervals, work:rest is almost always 1:1 -1:2
I thought the goal was to keep VO2 high? Wouldn’t that reduce the oxygen debt?
It depends. Sustaining a high percentage of VO2max and extending that capability if its near the peak for a season is good for performance, but not necessarily optimal for increases.
For driving absolute oxygen uptake, you need to be able to recruit enough muscle fiber at a high enough rate/force to drive adaptation. Increasing fatigue from shorter rest intervals is only going to make this harder.
I’ll hold judgement until the paper has been published, but I’m suspicious of the protocol and measurement.
For example, the fact that the long interval group performed worse across every single performance measure they looked at says a lot more about how bad that set of intervals was designed more than it says anything about 30/15s.
Do you mean stuff like Bago (3’ 110% FTP, 3’ 40% FTP) etc?
I’m completely new to TR workouts (just signed up today and currently scrolling through the library), but that’s precisely the thing that struck me: for VO2max there are lots of intervals that seem too short in my eyes with rather long&easy recovery. So I’m not saying that this kind of workout won’t be hard (if power is sufficiently high), but won’t it rather train anaerobic capacity instead of VO2max? [Edit: I guess you are saying the same thing, just wanted to make sure 
]
There are surprisingly few long “classical” VO2max intervals (5x5, 3x8,…) in the TR library. Why? Do they not look “sophisticated” enough? Or not enough entertaining?
Sorry if I’m bringing up stuff that has been discussed elsewhere, these are just the initial impressions of a newbie .
They are in there, but they are labeled suprethreshold instead of VO2Max
In light of the great info and links shared above, I also notice there are very few TR workouts that use the hard-start principle, or at least starting at the top of VO2 max and then hanging on at declining power while your physiology stays in VO2 max. Rattlesnake and Mills are all I see, and those are the brief on-off or short duration approach, respectively.
Of course, Workout Creator is a great tool for us all to make our own…
The Hickson and Seiler intervals both do this. Search above for Hickson, and Seiler is 4x8 with 2min rests. Power will obviously be a touch lower than a 5x5 with 1:1 work/rest ratio.
Being grossly VO2 maxed out when I started TR*, I asked the same thing, “Where are the looong intervals?!”. We have to remember that VO2max is a physiological process and not a power target. As demonstrated by the research paper I posted, runners were eliciting VO2 responses & adaptations at sub-Threshold power. From 95%FTP to 150%FTP could be considered an appropriate VO2max zone! (Understood that VO2max measures differently in running vs cycling but the concept still applies)
Also consider the plans in which a workout are included instead of taking them out of context. Bago is a Full Distance Triathlon workout, 110%FTP is appropriate to the goal. The CX plan includes 130%FTP type workouts. Etc. Train specifically for your race but if you have no planned event and simply want to boost your VO2 capabilities, then know that various types of riding can provide increases (e.g. long Z2 rides).
Guess what I’m trying to say is that you should try all the different types of interval styles, see what works for you (e.g. >90% HRmax) and put those in your workout library.
Jem @SpareCycles has a wealth of short vs long interval data published on his website (a worthy afternoon of reading!).
*(Looking at my 2018 training when I started back racing I was attempting to do 6x5min @120% w/ 2min rest. 
I failed almost all of these and ended up doing 5x4min w/ 2min rest, a 33% reduction in work.)
Thanks, yeah I know Jem’s website is a gem - slowly reading through it…
I think I will experiment with some of the shorter VO2max intervals (<=3’), just for the sake of diversity. I’m more of a diesel so I feel like I can really work the engine with 5-8’ intervals whereas in shorter intervals I feel like my legs fall off before I accumulate lots of time at high HR / (speculative) VO2. On the other hand this just means that for me these shorter intervals might be great as specific training for road races (-> explosiveness).
Edit: As @G650 pointed out, many of the workouts I was “looking for” are in the threshold section instead of VO2max. So all good.
I guess Mist +1 might have been a good fit for you (2 iterations of 4x4min intervals with falling power). I’m wondering why this workout is never referenced in this forum 
. Besides 30/15s and 4x8min and Rattlesnake +2 that’s one of the best VO2 workouts in my basket…think more users should try it out:
https://www.trainerroad.com/cycling/workouts/369812
Here you go: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/sms.13627
I haven’t read the full text yet.
Yikes, this protocol is a mess…
Too busy at work, so I skipped ahead to the end of the paper.
Seems like they set out to answer a very specific question based on this use case:
elite cyclists have a very long race season with a corresponding short preparatory period before entering a new race season. Taking into account that they need some vacation from cycling followed by a larger volume of low-intense endurance training and threshold training, there might often only be a sub-optimal period to prioritize focus on HIT training.
And therefore I assume this is the reasoning behind the protocol:
The present study demonstrates that subsequent to a training period focusing on high training volume, can a 3-week period with three weekly multiple short intervals induce superior training adaptations compared to longer intervals.
Along with usual caveats:
The findings would be strengthened if reproduced after a longer training intervention and preferably with inclusion of muscle biopsies or other methodological approaches to investigate the underlying mechanisms.
FWIW I’ve been substituting the 1-3 minute VO2 workout progression in SSBII (Mid) with short-interval alternatives the past few weeks. I’ve done/plan to do the following sequence:
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Brasted (30/15 at 120%) - Manageable but definitely a step up from Taylor (30/30 at 120%)
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Clouds Rest +1 (30/20 at 130%) - I was grateful for respite by the end of each set, while still being able to repeatedly hit the targets and even push them a bit. Definitely closer to the maximum intensity I could sustain in this format.
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Clouds Rest +2 (30/15 at 130%) - Scheduled for next week – let’s see what shaving 5s off the recovery intervals does.
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Rattlesnake (90s at 140% followed by fifteen 30/15 at descending intensities from 120% to 110%) - Two weeks out; will provide some info on how an extra hard “priming” effort affects things.
Do 1 minute @ MAP directly foloowed by a block of 7 minutes 30 on 30 off @ 150%. This 4 blocks with 3 minutes rest in between
Have been doing similar, switching out TR’s VO2max workouts for my own progression.
Let us know how you get on with Rattlesnake… I found the first half of each set was the right intensity, but I was recovering too much at the end of each set as the power dropped off.