Load Focus - almost no anaerobic load despite intensive training & FTP not as entered

For me at least, anaerobic workouts are focused on short intervals at very high power around 2xFTP with a recovery interval around 0.5xFTP. Around 10 of these intervals during the workout. 

An example of such workout, which i used to do exactly as configured there when using zwift, is here https://whatsonzwift.com/workouts/less-than-60-minutes-to-burn/the-wringer

I can only assume that you rode in that zone4/zone5 a consistent  time at a constant power/hr. For me, this would increase high aerobic load. 

Whether an exercise will yield anaerobic and/or aerobic training effect (TE) has nothing to do with your FTP settings. I know this that these types of workouts are often set up using a % of FTP, but it is not how the watch calculates the training effect.

The TE depends indirectly on how you set up your HR zones as well. Because zones are user defined, they can match actual physiological thresholds, or not all.

The TE is calculated based on the rate of change and values of the peak Excess Post-Exercise Oxygen Consumption (EPOC) estimates. These estimates are calculated during the workout, based on the deficit of oxygen. This deficit reflects the relationship between the work you produce (pace, power on a bike) and the metabolic energy (based on HR and HRV) that you use at the same time. This relationship can be linear for a while, then becomes non-linear at higher intensities. The estimation uses pattern recognition (neural-network).

Additionally, spending a "long" time in a high HR zone doesn't mean you get anaerobic benefits, although we tend to call this higher zone "anaerobic". If you run a 5k or a 10k, you heart will end up mostly in the "anaerobic" zone, but you are in fact using mostly your aerobic capacity and your TE will most likely be "VO2 Max" (high aerobic).

For anaerobic workouts, an indoor bike is recommended. Using Dr Coggan Individualized Levels (ie based on FTP), here are some guidelines to design a workout:

- each high intensity should be between 146% and 282% of your FTP, 206% as suggested by  EyessOnlyy is a good number because it separates extensive anaerobic from intensive anaerobic zones.

- each high intensity interval should be between 21s and 1:07mn below 206% and between 7 and 21s above 206%.

- target between 4 and 12 mn total accumulated time below 206%, and at least 2mn above 206% interval

- the ratio between high interval and rest interval can be anywhere between 1:2 to 1:10. Less rest when lower targets. If you create blocks of intervals, the rest between these blocks should be about 8mn at least.

- as you can see, targeting above 206% is close to maximal sprint efforts, but not quite.

Finally, make sure your HR Max value is correct. An anaerobic workout will higher targets and lower rest periods will be extremely intense and will take your HR close to your HR Max, so it is a good way to check HR Max anyway!

Just looking at those graphs:

• 22 minutes in HR zone 5 and almost no time in zone 1 and 2 - your HRMax is wrong (likely signifcantly higher than what is registered in Garmin Connect. HRMax is a key input into many of the workout algorithms, if this is wrong, then many of the outputs are likely misleading. 
• That does not look like an anaerobic workout. Anaerobic workouts basically mean sprint intervals. Both EyessOnlyy and Etupes25 are heading in the right direction, but you don't need to be nearly so precise as their suggestions. Sprint hard, REALLY HARD for about 20 seconds, then recover at an EASY pace for a few minutes, repeat a few times - it doesn't have to be complicated or specific.
• Any effort that you can sustain for longer than 30 seconds is probably more high aerobic in nature than anaerobic.
• You don't seem to be doing much of a warm up or cool down as part of your workout (apologies if you have recorded them separately from your workout).

Thanks for all the answers, that makes really sense to me - will try the suggested training setup!

Regarding warm up and cool down: yes, that was not recorded as part of that exercise.

FTP: does somebody know why the cycling FTP is show at 2.78 if I manually set it at 2.01? The ride on Dec 30 was not even that hard, and I did not even reach  the 276 W during that ride

Thanks a lot,
Sascha

Sascha said:

Regarding warm up and cool down: yes, that was not recorded as part of that exercise.

I guess many users are wondering about the question of warmups and cool-down: should I not record them with the "main" workout?

Know that recording your warmup and cooldown periods will not impact negatively the training effect (TE), or any other performance metrics. TE is based on peak EPOC, and EPOC calculation automatically take into account lower intensity periods like rest intervals. Warmup and cooldown will marginally increase your training load.

Sascha said:

FTP: does somebody know why the cycling FTP is show at 2.78 if I manually set it at 2.01? The ride on Dec 30 was not even that hard, and I did not even reach  the 276 W during that ride

A couple of possible reasons:

- you have another device with a more recent FTP calculation, or you entered another FTP on Garmin Connect before synching the watch, or

- the watch has detected a new FTP threshold during a prior ride. While the FTP test is very accurate, the automatic FTP detection is not great, in particular if you do very hard intervals. If you do hard intervals of more than 15-20mn each, then a new FTP might be right. In my case, I very often get new (lower) FTP values during VO2 max or anaerobic intervals. I just ignore this, but I do a long threshold interval (around 30mn) once a month to test the FTP "for real"