I decided to wrap it up in a blanket of apology in the hope that the OP would see that it comes from a good place and it might land well. 
Agree. I did 28 mins of Threshold last week. I am not a time trial specialist , I just have an FTP set from a long form test. Hard but manageable. I don’t have an inflated FTP to massage my ego.
FTP is not hour power.
OP is struggling to do 3x8 at 95% while fresh. How does that even remotely indicate an appropriate ftp?
OP is saying Z4 is hard, but doesn’t actually describe specifics which can explain it. Some time ago we tried to diagnose another athlete with same feeling, see if you get any ideas from there:
That doesn’t align with science.
https://nutrabio.com/blogs/endurelite/muscle-fiber-recruitment-patterns-during-aerobic-activities
That’s a blog. I don’t see the sources linked in it but maybe I missed them?
ETA:
I would recommend reading:
OP please listen to this post. It has your answer.
AIFTP works for me and I’m sure it works for most people and I’m a massive fan.
But there have been a few cases pop up on these forums where athletes have been given high FTPs and really low progression levels - I think it’s something TrainerRoad needs to look at.
I’m not opposed to lowering my FTP and doing some testing but I haven’t seen anyone really explain what happens to all other zones?
Say I lower my FTP by 20 watts. Threshold workouts become way more manageable, sounds great. But what happens all other zones, I can only imagine they’ll feel ludicrously easy. How would I set the benchmark for those workouts?
Congrats, in that case you’re figuring out you don’t need TR
Do endurance rides by RPE.
VO2 max and other maximal workouts should be done to max.
Ideally the tr ai will adjust once you do a couple workouts.
FTP is a functional Proxy for your MLSS, that’s it. And it strikes me that the OP’s is set too high.
But with that said, Pretty sure there was a study posted here recently where they looked at Pro FTP’s and how long they could hold that power level. There were some that were up to 80 minutes, but pretty sure there was one outlier that was like 25 minutes on the low side. If true, that to me says there are some people that just have really low ability to hold threshold.
That just a link to the figure, following it takes me to the book “exercise physiology” but I don’t see the source study anywhere. Maybe it’s linked and I am not seeing it?
Well with FTP right, sweet spot and threshold workouts fall into line and you’ll quickly push out time in zone there. Endurance is a big range from 50ish% of FTP to 70ish%, and adaptations are pretty much the same across the range so doing endurance easier doesn’t matter, because if I remember correctly most of the TR endurance stuff is the top of the range. You already said you like vo2, so use workout alternatives to pick stretch workouts until you feel like your PLs are right.
And if you REALLY like vo2, look into 3 to 5 min intervals. It’s a really special time I promise 
Ahem:
In terms of the TR ecosystem, if you lower your FTP, you’ll probably want to choose an alternate workout to keep yourself at the same absolute wattage as before.
So if your last endurance ride (that felt good) was at 150 watts as a level 4.2, say, before you changed your FTP, that same workout will now be at 143 watts, and that’s no good, so instead choose a slightly more intense (level 5.2, say) workout that brings you back up to 150 watts as before. Do it. Rate it appropriately. TR will progress you from there.
Same for your other zones. You’ll only have to do it once for each zone. Then all will be well in your world.
You either wait for adaptive training to catch up or you can go ahead and choose a more challenging workout.
If you lowered your FTP so that you were doing level 4 threshold workouts I’d start out with a level 5 Vo2max workout and see how it feels.
Hey there,
Just chiming in with a TR perspective too…
If you’ve been riding for about eight years, I have a feeling that you may have a pretty good idea of what kind of power you can hold for certain durations/zones.
Threshold is certainly a tough zone – it’s plain ol’ hard and uncomfortable and you kind of just have to deal with going hard and being uncomfortable for pretty long durations of time.
A big point that sticks out to me is that you mention skipping a lot of your Threshold workouts. I reckon that’s a major reason why you find them so hard!
I like @Jolyzara’s description of getting your “sea legs” as you adjust to certain types of efforts. I’m personally pretty similar when it comes to Threshold stuff – I’ve often had to start out with 3x8 style Z4 workouts (like Shades) and then slowly progress into harder workouts. For what it’s worth, I’ve been able to get through those shorter types of Z4 sessions and work all the way up to “gold standard” 3x20 / 2x30 types of Threshold workouts. They’re still hard, they still suck, but it’s definitely possible! “It doesn’t get easier, you just get faster.” 
The key, though, is actually doing those tough workouts in the first place. A good starting point would be to commit to doing them – skipping Threshold workouts certainly won’t make things any better. If necessary, you can even stick with some of the “easier” Threshold workouts for a few sessions in a row by declining adaptations proposed by Adaptive Training to make them harder or by using Workout Alternates to find a more doable workout for a given day.
You also mentioned that doing Z4 outdoors feels much more achievable, which makes me think of your indoor training setup. Do you have sufficient cooling when on the trainer? To us here at TR, a blower fan or similar sort of industrial-strength fan (or two, or even three…) is a must for successful indoor workouts. I know that if I don’t have good cooling on the trainer, Threshold sessions become impossible because I’ll overheat. For other zones, I’ve found it to be a little bit less of an issue as either the intensity isn’t quite high enough for it to be a problem, or the duration goes down as the intensity goes up (so while it’s hard, it may not be quite long enough to make me overheat and blow up).
Beyond that, I think it would be worth working on some sort of mental approach for your Z4 workouts. You’ll have to find what works best for you, but here are a few ideas that might be worth a shot…
- Meditate on the discomfort and accept it – work on blocking/ignoring negative thoughts telling you to stop and power on
- Loud music (a personal favorite of mine)
- Count to a number (say, 30) and start over once you reach it for the duration of your interval
- Sing a simple song (like the ABCs) in your head over and over…
Hopefully those tips help you out – Threshold is tough, but it can be improved if you commit to building that zone up like any other training zone!
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Erm, of course it works for most people. Simply because people it didn’t work for frustratedly left, mostly without opening a forums thread about how hard FTP workouts are to them beforehand.
FTP, the bikers bench press.
Better kill yourself with that 10..20% too heavy of a bar in front of the whole gym doing 2.5 shitty fake reps with your two friends pulling with you from behind rather than just training with a weight you can actually lift and starting to improve from there.
And now it’s all even AI approved! AI! What could go wrong?!
The smaller the FTP, the more potential for a larger anaerobic component in a test, and the more skewed and less accurate shorter tests become. If someone’s AIFTP is around 200 watts, they are even more of a candidate for a longer test than someone who is getting an AIFTP of 400 watts.
For example, an HIE / W’ (sort of) / “Anaerobic Bucket” of 30 kJ will give an absolute anaerobic component of around 25 watts in a 20’ test. For a 200w FTP, that’s 12.5%, but for a 400w FTP, it’s only 6.25%. If you only do a 5’ test, you are getting a 100w anaerobic component, which means the 200w FTP guy can do 300w for 5’, or 150% of FTP, and the 400w FTP guy can do 500w, or 125% of FTP.
Simply put, longer you can do a test, the less percentage the anaerobic component makes, and the more accurate your data is, especially when dealing with good anaerobic capacity and low-ish FTP.