As long as u can ride outside in aero and make ur target power outside, I’d keep doing what ur doing.
I myself have asked this question before as well. I have done both ways. Some will tell u specificity is key and keep aero always, others will say make the most power u can (usually upright) and train to that while making adaptations outside. Off-season go hard as u can upright as well.

I have had good seasons both ways, so who knows, but I find upright more tolerable with the trainer particularly on those long tempo type rides. I ride long Saturdays outside and never have issues with power or position outdoors so that’s the key I guess.

I try to ride most in aero position this year. Switched to a tt bike on the trainer. Last season’s I wasted to much time (months) to getting used to the tt position when the outdoor season started.

My training ftp is now my TT ftp (30watts lower as on my road bike)

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I train mostly indoors and have my TT bike on the trainer. Over the several months of training for an IM, I definitely do not spend every minute in aero position, particularly early in the training. As race day gets closer, I’ll spend more time in aero, maybe 75% of total time. I think it’s good to spend a lot of hours down on the bars, but if I didn’t allow myself some flexibility I’d go crazy.

As someone else mentioned, I think what is important is getting outside a few times before race day to make sure you’re comfortable in your race position. In six months of preparing for IMTX, I rode outside about ten times, but just about every weekend in the six weeks leading into the taper. I’ve been on the same bike for a few years and am fairly experienced, so it doesn’t take a whole lot to reacquaint me with outdoor riding.

I don’t do FTP tests; I rely on TrainerRoad’s FTP detection.

Spend very little time training on the tribars.
Probably won’t touch the TT bike till March or April.

Strange to ask if you would sit up if you went above threshold. Unless you are trying to sprint, which would be weird, all the hard stuff should be done aero, and really as much of the total as possible. Only for warm-up, cool-down, and recovery should you consider sitting up.

As I interpreted it almost fifteen years ago, Slowman's process of fitting riders to their aerobars strongly suggested, if not outright stated, that hip angles greater or lesser than the 100 degreeish ideal were not going to be as powerful. Go too low, lose power. But also, ride too high and lose power. This was then exactly my experience as both a rider and a fitter. Aero positions had a pretty narrow range of hip angles where it "clicked" and sitting it basically destroyed the ability to push good power, and was probably less comfortable to boot due to muscular verses skeletal support.

Point being, why is everyone looking for reasons to sit up when they are riding a bike with aerobars? That's what you should be asking yourself. Why do I want to sit up? Or what I would ask more specifically : What part of your bike fit is not facilitating a comfortable and powerful aero position as it should?

And of course, no position is going to be comfortable indefinitely. I'm not saying you should stay down for every moment of a 100 minute interval session for example. I'd roll a few minutes of warm-up sitting, go down to the sticks and finish warm-up with some openers, sit up to drink, wipe sweat whatever. intervals fully aero. recovery split. Cool down maybe sitting up but only because I was looing at my phone.

You should break aero just for a change, some general relief. If you are breaking aero because you can pedal better when you sit up, or because sitting up for long periods is more comfortable than the aerobars, your fit is the issue.

Aero as much as possible. you're going to race in aero, you're going to need to be as comfortable in aero as possible.

In reality, this probably means you wont' be in aero 100% of indoor time - as you push up your indoor volume, you'll have to take breaks from aero as needed, sometimes longer stretches. But practice that aero as much as possible, and if you can't do enough outdoor long rides in the buildup to race day, even wear your aero helmet (I'm not joking) on the long rides on the trainer to make sure your neck can sustain the added weight.

I have done seasons where I've done almost all aero on the trainer including long indoor rides, and ones where I did a lot less aero, and for me, it the results were absolutely better for the ones where I really pushed myself to stay in aero on the trainer. In those races, aero was a total non-issue (HIM distance) but on the season where I didn't emphasize aero as much (I still rode mostly aero for sure, but I didn't really push it to maintain that position on long indoor rides), I had some rude awakening outdoor rides (luckily before race day) where I found I had a hard time keeping aero on the long outdoor ride.

I do Z2 rides in TT position for >90% of the time, be it 2 or 4h long. For intervals everything over 1' and <125% of FTP.

So sets of 10 40-20's I do at 115-120% with the 20" rest at 50% but since I find it difficult to accelerate that hard all the time in TT position, I do them sitting upright.
But for instance 2-3' intervals at 115-120% I still do in TT position, anything longer in duration or lower in power I also do in position.

I guess that depends on what race your training for:

I raced IM Chattanooga which is hilly and I did both aero and non aero on my trainer. I noticed no difference during the race

I races IM Maryland which is super flat. I tried to train aero most of the time and stayed in the aero position during the race about 97% of the time. I felt that in my hips for the first part of the run.

Bottom line is train how you are going to race

Trainer time spent in aero position would be zero.

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My main challenge seems to be holding the aero position, perhaps because I have years of competitive cycling on the road bike, or maybe my position is slightly too aggressive. But, either way, I've noticed better results if I train in the aero position as much as possible. My first eye opening event was a 40km TT where I cooked myself because I thought I could do more watts (because I had been doing intervals mostly out of the aero position) and then my arms were fried from holding aero. So really a disaster race.

I only do intervals in the aero position now, and yes, that means I'm down about 8% power compared to my roadie or if I was to get out of the aero position. And I do all my long rides in aero as much as possible.

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Indoors I try to stay aero as much as I can. It definitely feels different than "outdoor" aero since you aren't moving along, more pressure on the saddle and arms, but the muscles trained should be nearly identical as when you riding outdoors in aero and that's what counts.

Outdoors I ride aero when it's safe to do so. If I had nice long stretches of relatively flat road with good pavement and no homes close by to ride on I would stay aero all day. Problem is with what lurks on the side of the road for me. Dogs have proven to be a major issue for me, and if I am riding by any houses I find it hard to go aero if I am moving fast. There's no telling when some mutt is going to fly off someones porch and into my front wheel. Went down hard the other day bc of this. Pavement quality is also an issue, and unless I am super familiar with a road I just don't go aero at all. Where I do practice aero outdoors 100% of the time is when I hit a slight uphill grade. A lot less personal risk moving at somewhere around 10mph and still getting my aero practice in.

I try to stay in aero whenever I hit race pace. Anything harder or easier don't bother.

The real answer is yes, anyone that races in aero should probably train in aero. The tighter hip angles absolutely make a difference. With that said, my TT bike is usually in pieces as I’ve borrowed parts or have the PM on a different bike at that moment, so I’m probably training about 5% of what I should be in aero.

Specificity of training is still rule 1.

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I think the right answer is to ride in whatever position encourages you to ride more. This might be interpreted as honing in your aero position so that you can spend all day there. It might mean that you ride your road bike because you like your road bike. The closer you get to your race, the more your riding should match your race day set up. The further away, the less it matters. Just ride and be happy.

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Take a short break from ST and read my blog:
http://tri-banter.blogspot.com/

Outdoor rides: I ride almost exclusively aero (except for rest and sprint sets)

Indoor rides: I almost never ride in aero

To me, the key is making sure you can hold your race power in aero for the amount of time needed to finish the bike leg in your race. If you can do that, then what’s to gain of doing it indoors also.

For reference, I podium local Oly’s and finish top 10% of 70.3s in M30-34.

I'd agree. Without doubt, if you are training for non-drafting tri when your whole race will be in aero, then you should be spending as much time as possible riding in aero - it definitely takes time to adapt to the position and training in different positions isn't as transferable as we would wish. However, if not riding in aero will encourage you to ride the bike more, then do that.

Interested to see your source for this (or for Slowman to jump in). Admittedly my physiology class was a *very* long time ago, but my understanding was the more open the hip angle, the easier force generation (hence riders always sitting up whilst climbing and sliding forward when needing to generate more power (hence the expression “on the rivet” meaning sitting on the rivets at the front of the saddle. I’d never heard that a hip angle could be too open (other than for aero reasons, obviously). Keen to hear if that’s not the case.