Originally Posted by
TheKillerPenguin
I would wager my FTP is between 355 and 360 but I really haven't tested this year. GoldenCheetah says 360, but when I do ftp by feel I tend to settle in around 357-358. Earlier this week my 3x20 were just below 360, yesterday my by feel 1x29 was 352 with a higher NP due to rolling uphill, tight turns, and such, but I could have done more.
I wouldn't say my legs give out per se, it's just obvious that they fatigue more quickly than my lungs do. For example, 3x20 day didn't really feel like much aerobically but my legs were not so happy by the last interval. So I am trying to figure out how to get legs and lungs to fatigue at roughly the same rate, but maybe that's not really possible.
Even during 20' intervals some portion of your power is going to be produced anaerobically. Maybe only a 5%, but that 5% is most likely what is causing your legs to "fail". Improving vo2 and efficiency is going to allow more of that power to be produced purely aerobically, increase the time to failure and increase your 20-60' power. Improving lactate clearance will allow you to use more of the anaerobic glycolytic system, while being able to keep blood lactate levels lower. Some of the 'efficiency' can be gained with low cadence / high muscle tension work, so you need less muscle fibers recruited to generate the same power. You might also do some 5-10' intervals as well to work on lactate clearance and possibly bump up vo2. Doing long endurance rides will also help improve stroke volume, not just at the beginning of a ride, but allow you to keep the higher stroke volume during longer rides. Lots of people don't understand that the reason the pros have the same FTP at the beginning of the race as at the end of the race is because of that. Lot of text book stuff, this isn't anything I came up with on my own. Hopefully it helps.
That's a lot of power too man, I'm jealous lol.