I decided, on an easy day, to toss in a max 3 minute effort to feed my WKO5 model.
The next day, I’m wrecked. Not totally but wow.
On the plus side I set a new PR for 3 minutes and Intervals.icu think my FTP went up by 25 watts!
I have to feed the model a 1.5 minute effort next. Maybe I should insert that on a hard day to keep the easy days easy?
Should one do max efforts with more regularity, even during base season, to stay used to them?
This is always something in my mind - when to do efforts to feed the model?
I remember seeing some references to it in the TC WKO webinar series but cant quite remember what he said, but having seen some of his plans he has days scheduled during regen/recovery weeks specifically targetted at doing these max efforts at the required durations.
I guess it all depends. Every 6-8 weeks seems too long. I prefer Dr. skiba’s approach…monthly CP testing.
Estimation from 5 min max effort is off about 30W for me, so take ftp estimation from short efforts with a huge grain of salt. But congrats to your PR.
Nice! 
Have you been doing any short/hard efforts during base? Two days ago I did six all-out 45-sec efforts with 30-sec recovery. Wasn’t wrecked, was surprised at how well I did after blowing out all anaerobic/PCr on the first couple. But I’ve been doing some above threshold work for last 2+ months.
To answer your question directly, Coach Cusick’s masters full season iLevels plan includes ad-hoc testing every 4 weeks (during recovery week, using short/mid/long from WKO). So if you follow his plans the answer is yes.
I’m on a tempo / sweet spot block since the beginning of January. My fitness feels up, confirmed by the 3min PR but I haven’t been in the habit of max intensity for a while. I think in December I was trying some 30/30s (uphill) but haven’t done them since then.
Now that it’s late in the afternoon, I’m feeling much more recovered and ready to rock and roll tomorrow.
If you are programming yourself, Kurt and I were talking about "way over’-unders (criss-cross intervals) over here: How do I get better at 1-3min power in the middle of threshold/sweetspot/tempo, aka avoid getting dropped on zwift race climbs? - #17 by WindWarrior
May not work for you, but these have been gold for me. So much better than steady tempo or sweet spot.
And apologies for my earlier comment, Coach Cusick’s masters ilevel plan puts the PD curve unstructured testing in the first week after a recovery week.
If you have another 3min to spare for a test and want to wreck yourself even more try this one 
(NOT RECOMMEND!)
