Bro I did a vo2 block and didn’t gain anything ftp wise I can confirm lol as @Gnome can attest my aiftp staying under 300 has become a bit of a running gag in other circles we run in. Before this last vo2 block I did 295 for 35mins (and stopped for work reasons and not fatigue). Wasn’t quite able to make 300 happen this past week possible due to other factors but I don’t think I’ve leveled up
Then it’s probable that VO2max wasn’t your limiter. I didn’t say VO2max works for everyone. There’s a reason you periodize. If you just threw VO2max in willy-nilly instead as part of a periodized plan, then yeah. It’s not panacea or magic. Nothing is.
But also… AIFTPD.
Here’s a general approach I use for a lot of my athletes:
Base endurance → TTE extension → VO2max → FTP and Over/Unders → Race specific development.
The stuff before VO2max matters and so does the stuff after it.
Dean Golich would do:
Basic VO2max → Endurance → FTP
Guys who coach Ironman athletes do:
Basic VO2max → FTP → Endurance at LT1.
It depends.
@Gnome if you’ve not already found it the WKO4 - Webinars - YouTube
I’ve not listened to the WK04 stuff yet but the WK05 stuff looks interesting and the one on Zones I listened to is.
I did sweet spot block (capped it off with 1x90 at 90%), a block with over-unders, and then vo2 block. Right now I’m doing a split focus threshold vo2. Vo2 is def a limiter, my ftp is 295, 5min power is 340ish and 3min 366. My prior post was also super tongue in cheek, but my aiftp the last three months was 299, 298, 297 so it’s become a bit of a joke that it’s not cracking 300
Gotcha. Missed it. 
I’d suggest mental, to be honest. I’ve been over 300 before, but every time I bump right up against it (as I am now), it takes me a minute to get over it. And then when I do, I like go straight to 315. 
Do you mind sharing your approach to raising FTP after VO2? I’ve only really done the TTE extending part successfully in the past. It used to raise my FTP, but not anymore.
Also please share your youtube channel! I’m always looking for insight while riding the trainer.
Thanks, I quickly found them.
Part 1 with Dean Golich:
and Part 2:
YouTube pulled up the 2nd one around minute 32, so that is one of my “bookmarks” lol.
If you back up to minute 30 and listen for a good 3+ minutes you’ll hear Tim and Dean both talk about their belief in doing max aerobic intervals where power falls off in later intervals. Rather than doing them at say 95% and consistently hitting power targets. To bring this back to the point that @kurt.braeckel was making.
Those are opinions of some experienced coaches, do with them what you will.
If I think back to my best period, I wasn’t using ERG and I’d start a little harder without be scared of that naturally fall in power, whereas with ERG I’m starting at a power I know I can hold too often to avoid the spiral of death at the end 
I always see the intensity of VO2 max intervals as a range. Stay above the minimum but don’t be afraid to push more watts if you can. Don’t make your recovery intervals harder than necessary, it’ll dilute the intensity intervals.
Yup, I’m pretty sure I mentioned in the vo2max series that I picked the high cadence style up from Dean, even before I knew him someone gave me a Carmichael dvd way back in the day that was 3min max efforts at 120rpm, and I haven’t breathed that hard before or since.
This is almost exactly my preferred approach, but it ends up getting deviated from more often than not for some reason or other.
Quoting this but responding to the whole post, which I think is very good. Here’s the issue I run into: I have no idea how to pace myself indoors. If you told me to do VO2 work for 4 minute intervals, I’d blow tf up. Goes back to my days as a sprinter (track and field). When I’m doing my 5 minute hill outdoors, I can get it right. But inside…no chance. So do you give your athletes a starting power target for the intervals, recognizing that they’ll fall off but that’s okay? How do you pick that target?
Honestly I think these type of workouts are hard for everyone. I know for the 3 minute efforts I had to lower the intensity to 117% instead of 120% so I could do them. Even then they were very hard.
I much prefer the short short format for Vo2 where its for example 30 seconds on, 30 seconds off repeated a bunch of times. You can even do them where the rest period is less than the work period to challenge yourself.
I’m not Kurt but one option I’ve used in the past - go out and do an all-out 4 minute interval. Preferably at least a week or two before your vo2 work. Then target 90% of that on the first interval. And whatever you do, turn off erg. I prefer to do them on a flat course in Zwift/RGT, in sim mode. Alternative is standard/level/slope mode on a Kickr direct-drive.
What did you drink during the workout ? For V02 max you really want to be necking bottles of sweet drink.
Are most people doing longer VO2 max intervals (2min+ per interval) at 115-120% FTP? Based on my experience with TR, anything over the 2 minute mark is usually 106-110% FTP and the 120% stuff is only in the 30/30 style intervals.
I can barley do 4x4 at 110%. I can’t imagine doing 117%!
I give them a lot of guidance… for a hard start, I usually try to be pretty directive because those can blow an interval. For big sprinters, I use a shorter hard start and tell them to keep it under wraps… general guide is 2min MMP, but that’s just a number I’ve used to make sure they’re not going all out sprint crazy. For big anaerobic athletes, shorter hard start, 5-10s. For guys without big anaerobic watts, go a bit longer 20s or so.
For power, it’s just “all out”, keeping in mind you gotta do 20 minutes. My structured workouts in TP use a range from like 130-103% of FTP. It generally takes them a workout to figure it out. And I tell them to expect power to go down over the course of the workout… if they find they can’t stay above FTP for a big portion of an interval, they’re done for the day. 110rpm or more… ALL of them want to lower cadence and do more watts - NO! It’s not about the power.
So now you see why erg mode doesn’t make sense.
It’s nothing magical, and usually amounts to extending TTE type sets AT threshold. For some guys I’ll do more over unders, those are usually the guys who are being stubborn about growing watts. The guys that get BIG bumps from VO2 work, I just focus at threshold more.
Eventually I get everyone into some over unders at least the roadies because I think they’re great race prep and they grow FTP. The FTP over unders are more 105-95 with quite a bit of time at 105. The race prep stuff I tend to do more like 125-85 with shorter overs, and often I’ll add a longer hard start to that. Purpose being simulate a bridging effort then a rotational breakaway. Plus they’re fun, and a really good lactate shuttle.
Sometimes, if there’s not racing around, I might do some intervals above threshold and attack above the curve for 5-8 min at a time, 20-30ish min sets, but that’s pretty rare. I generally think with over/unders and VO2 intervals you’re getting enough efforts above the curve to pull FTP up.
Here’s the link to the channel: https://youtube.com/@rocketmultisport-coachkurt7879
It’s pretty sparse right now but I really only got my website up in November. I like writing a lot more than videos, but the world wants short video tips, so that’s what I’ll have on there for the most part. I’m also being pretty conservative in pacing my content, and hopefully one day I’ll wake up and have 50 articles and 30-40 videos and it’ll be a whole thing… but my focus is a quality product for my 11 current athletes first and foremost. Not sure if I’m going to try to grow a business like Kolie and others with multiple coaches or stay solo… it’s more of a passion play for me and a tertiary income source for my family. But its what I do “full time” now in addition to helping my wife run her gymnastics center, being daddy, and my own training! 
As mentioned here I don’t really prescribe them by % of FTP, but for reference in my most recent block, I was doing 3 to 4 minute intervals and my power was generally sitting about 110% of FTP or so on average. Hard start was more like 130-150% of FTP or so for 15-20s. My FTP at the time was about 280, and for a 4 minute interval with a hard start, it’d be like 15s at around 380-400W, then I was usually sticking around 310 for most of the working part, but that was usually dictated by whatever felt about as hard as I could sustainably go at 110rpm on my preferred hill. It’s all about getting the breathing going as hard as possible.
I’m usually about 100rpm and breathing very hard. I’ll have to pay closer attention to how I’m failing these workouts but I’ve been using ERG mode and usually fail them by rpm slowly dropping before giving out. Based on this thread I’m going to do these in resistance mode now and try for higher RPM and keep going unless my power drops below FTP.
How key is this 110rpm thing? The goal is to fail cardiovascularly vs leg strength? Is that what this is ensuring? Thanks for the tips
Kinda? The high cadence forces a higher rate of blood return from your legs (more contractions) and reduces the force required from the muscles in your legs. The former is part of “maximal oxygen uptake” and the latter helps preserve your legs for future reps/sets.
You can’t really “fail” cardiovascularly because that would be death. That’s not the goal. Something just short of that. As I mentioned, what normally happens is you get a severe case of the "I don’t wanna"s which is indicative of CNS fatigue before your legs give out if you’re doing this right.
High cadence is critical to these. Obviously if 110-120 isn’t realistic, you do the best you can. With athletes who I know struggle at high cadence, I do a lot of neuromuscular cadence manipulation before their VO2 sets to help them be able to spin like crazy people. These are spinups, cadence ramps (up to 125-135rpm holding for a minute). I do those as part of their warmups if they’re trainer riders, but also as dedicated sets. Leg speed is totally trainable, and I’ve seen that it can come around pretty quickly for most people. The benefit of improved leg speed and ability to move at higher cadences is improved “snap”, improved sprinting, and the ability to accelerate from the field without shifting twice to give away what you’re about to do. You’ll accelerate faster if you spin up your current gear from 90 to 120rpm and then shift than if you shift and try to drive the big gear up from 65 to 90rpm or whatever.
Have you seen Cory’s vo2 max block prescribed by Kolie? I wouldn’t be so sure about that…