Originally Posted by
Enthalpic
I both of these “primers” make more sense than a 5min all-out effort. Even the often given explanation of “using up your anaerobic energy” is bogus, as your high energy phosphates will be fully recovered after 10min of rest (as demonstrated by 31P NMRI). All you’re really doing is pre-damaging your muscles and using up some motivation that could be used during the 20’.
This is exactly what I was considering. I never subscribed to the "using up anaerobic energy" line but have traditionally thought that an all out 5-minute before the 20-minute test would more closely approximate an hour at FTP. Since 95% of a 20-minute is an approximation already, I didn't want to "do it wrong". But having done an hour at FTP, I can empirically say that its much much worse (on me).
Might be a question to post on the wattage forum also but I think in my n=1 study, I'll start ding 5-minutes at my current FTP as a warm up.
Thanks everyone.