In his latest TP article, he now suggests 5 very different, very vague ways of estimating FTP that could potentially result in quite different numbers e.g.
- "simply evaluate the power that you can routinely produce in training during long(?) hard(?) efforts" vs
- "you may wish to perform formal testing to determine your 'critical power' vs
- "you can use your Normalized Power from a ~60min mass start road race"

Add to these, as you brought up, the 20min * 0.95 with or without the recommended warm up and anaerobic 'blow out' from the original Training and Racing with a Power Meter and you're very right, when it comes to answering the simple question, "What is my FTP?" it all gets, well, confusing!

Surely, if we move away from physiological testing to a 'functional' test, it is essential that we define one specific functional context that we're testing over!

Much less confusing IMHO to stick with a finger prick and the simple question...

"Is my blood lactate steady at this power output or going up?"

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Alan Couzens, M.Sc. (Sports Science)
Exercise Physiologist/Coach
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Alan_Couzens
Web: https://alancouzens.com