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Old 03-17-14 | 02:25 PM
  #132  
achoo
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Joined: Dec 2009
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Originally Posted by Dunbar
It doesn't seem to make a difference. I tried the Monod protocol 3/12, 1/10, 5/10 and they all arrive the same number +/- 5w or so. And I wouldn't call NP from a 1h race useless for most people. Race efforts are arguably one of the most accurate ways to determine FTP since it's hard to push yourself that hard in training.

Critical Power Calculator | Two Wheel Blogs

http://www.cyclingpowerlab.com/MonodCriticalPower.aspx
Those are all short intervals, where it's easy for your anaerobic capacity to skew the results upward.

And using NP for an hour race to estimate FTP really is worthless. It doesn't need to be all that inaccurate to be so, either. For a 300W FTP, z3-z5 are what? About 30-35W each? If your FTP estimate is 10% off, you're going to be completely in the wrong zone when training. If the FTP is set anything over 10% too low, z5 VO2max workouts become z3/4 sweet spot workouts. And you'll only do 5-8 minute intervals - at a power level you should be able to hold for over an hour without too much difficulty. If your FTP is set just 10% too high, you won't be able to complete any real z4 or z5 workouts at the prescribed power levels.

The fact that you're only doing 2 ten-minute intervals is informative. You can't do four or six of them at those power levels because your anaerobic capacity gets depleted and your aerobic capacity (FTP) isn't high enough to sustain you for that many intervals.
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