First of all, as I predicted.....Somebody would disagree with me. My recomendation was purely meant to give a reasonable protocol that would provide some benchmark information and structure to legs gone training.
As far as Conconi goes:
This method is highly controversial, but is still an appealling noninvasive test, which only take 20-30 minutes to conduct(which allows it to be incorporated within or as part of a training session), and it has been widely used European pros and their coaches to assess training programmes and evaluate endurance capacity (Bodner & Rhodes, 2000). And, most important of all, this is a test most people can try out for themselves with little or no help from others.
And, as far a critical power goes:
My aplogies in the wrong choice of terminology...A simple mistake. what I meant was that the final power output during the test (peak power output (Wpeak or PPO)) defined as the highest workload sustained for 2 to 3 minutes during a progressive or graded exercise test to exhaustion. This values has been shown to be highly related to time trial performances ranging from 21 to 40km (Balmer et. al, 2000; Hawley and the man himself Timothy Noakes, 1992; Weston et al., 1997).
Actually in this last study Weston and collegues (Including once agian Noakes) investigated skeletal muscle buffering capacity and endurance performance after high-intensity interval training by well-trained cyclist...And they found Wpeak or what I mistakenly called critical power to be a effective measure of training adaptations.
And, finally....If you can suggest something more productive than what I have....i am sure legs gone would appreciate it.
Take care,
Scott