2008 Ftp?

Alex Simmons

"Training is testing, testing is training." - Andy Coggan

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daveryanwyoming

Yeah what he said about what he said....

But to be real clear. I do put aside test days occasionally but not very often and then it's typically a Monod style test. Ideally your FTP is continually climbing during the season making it a moving target. I know some folks that schedule a testing day every third week or so in hopes of pinning down that moving target.

I'd rather be training more than testing or at least use tests that provide decent training intensity and volume. Tracking long intervals and other methods that use existing training data don't interrupt training but you can still track changes in FTP. Sure a full blown test, ideally in the form of a 40k TT, is great from time to time and it can confirm what the other data suggests.

The thing about dedicated test days is that folks want to do well so they usually rest up a bit beforehand, IOW they taper for their tests. Then the tests themselves even if they feel hard like a full lab VO2 Max test to failure, don't necessarily provide that much training but folks are beat afterwards and tend not to follow it up with more time on the bike. So it can be a bit like entering race and recover mode, you back off prior to the test in hopes of good results, the test itself may be hard but probably not real long and then you try to resume regular training. Sure it's worth it from time to time but there are other ways to get good FTP estimates that don't interrupt your regular training.

-Dave

Piotr

Speaking of planning (or lack of planning) for a test. This Saturday I sat on the trainer intending to do some SST interspersed with L6 efforts (to punish myself for missing a crit ). After a 10 min warmup I began at Tempo and proceeded to visualize myself in a race. Within a few minutes I was riding at my FTP... so I decided to continue for an hour . Despite not being overly fresh, a rather short warmup, a nasty side stitch half way through and taking a few minutes at low L3 to recover from it, my 1 hr NP came to just 3 W short of my current FTP. Since it was indoors and I didn't taper for it, nor was I super motivated, I'm happy with that result. I suspect my real FTP may be even higher now.

Oh, and after 5 min recovery I did 40 more minutes at L3. You're right Dave, you can't rest on your laurels after only 1000kJ of work and let a silly test interupt your training. Not on a Saturday.

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tehpr3chr

74kg...315ftp=4.25w/kg....new cat 3 racer...

swampy1970

I'll agree to disagree on that statement....

doctorSpoc

but why this fascination with 1 hr power?

unless i'm doing lots of 40k TTs all year, who the hell cares? seriously...

if i can get my FTP within 3-5%... i'd say you can approximate by 5-10W to set your training zones (which are approximations themselves... everyones actual zones will be slightly different than what is predicted by those zones) that's good enough.. really easy to know if you are off the mark because you just won't be able to complete it or it will be too easy.. so you adjust.. or use that Monod (sp) approximation etc

why not use your 20 min power as your test? people do those all the time so no special training/testing session is necessary and since it incorporates more anCap it's probably more indicative of all round road racing fitness... i use 20min and 10min power as well as just my perceived endurance performance for longer rides and day over day performance as my indication of fitness.. as well as plugging number into Mondo every so often

my interpretation is WAY too much over think here...

rmur17

we are Borg. Be careful

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doctorSpoc

c'mon man, you are not Borg...

you're supposed to tell me how i'm going to be assimilated... and how my uniqueness will be incorporated into the collective and all that... Borg? yeah, right!

daveryanwyoming

Uhhh, because these are the Power Training forums. What should we be discussing, knitting?

-Dave
[edit]P.S. Actually I agree with you in terms of just tracking 20 minute or power for whatever you do as your regular long training intervals. It's my primary way of tracking fitness and I know it's rmur's as well, something he often refers to as "working power". So yeah we may be pretty anal but it sounds like we're using similar methods to track power progress....

acoggan

Because 20 min (and even 30 min) is so short that the results can be significantly influenced by changes in anaerobic capacity as well as by changes in aerobic fitness. The result is that some people may be misled into training the wrong way, and/or not understanding the real relationship between how they train and changes (or not) in 20 (or 30 min) power. Indeed, even you seem to implicitly recognize this fact, in that you use the Monod approach to differentiate between changes in critical power and changes in anaerobic work capacity.

doctorSpoc

isn't this just as likely to be the result of just blindly taking FTP as THE test of racing fitness as well?

a 1 hr test is just, far too long to provide a proper indication of anaerobic work capacity (an extremely important component in the repertoire of competitive cyclists).. mightn't someone foolishly think they are truly prepared as well as they could be for racing, but in fact have a gigantic hole in their fitness and as a result their potential by only looking at FTP..?

you are right and this is the point of my post.. taking 1 power reading for duration x is not enough to know where you are at... that's goes for 20min and even for power at another duration, even if it has a fancy acronym like FTP... otherwise known as 1hr maximal power.. but if i was going to take 1 test it wouldn't be 1 hr power, it would be 20 min power for the reason i gave in the previous post... it's practical because i do the all the time and it probably more accurately predicts all round road racing fitness

but notice i routinely take power readings at two durations 10min and 20min (2 data points).. and also less frequently at 5min and 1min.. 15sec is also another reading i take note of.. these are all done in the course of my regular training though... and then i use monod periodically to extrapolate to other duration not typically found in my training (like 1 hr TTs)... doing this, by FAR, has more utility than just looking at FTP as the gold standard for racing fitness. and yet there is this intense fascination, obsession actually, with knowing this number, and knowing it to accuracy x,y,z... what's even more crazy is most will take that 20 min number to estimate the 1 hr number... if you are going to do that, why not just forget about the 1hr number and use the 20 min number directly? but some will say... well you don't really know it because you haven't done a real 1hr test... it's crazy!! i'm sitting here in my chair having a good belly laugh... and why not just use what you can historically do for a duration to guide the intensity you train at those durations for instead of some rough estimates of what those values should likely be that you find in a table online? yeah, yeah, yeah.. good for the newbie starting out, but why are people who have been riding with power meters for years doing this?

FTP... if you can estimate it to +/- 5-10W that's fine.. outside of that... who the hell cares? and what of 15sec and 1 min, 5min, 10min, 20min or 67.5min power?

why am i suddenly reminded of the Fight Club movie when i hear people talking about the intricacies of FTP...?

Porkyboy

I found this post strangely relaxing, practical, and down to earth.....

PB

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wiredued

Lately as my FTP test I just turn off the music and do a 3x20 based on RPE this puts me at about 98% FTP so I ad 2% and I'm in the ballpark. Testing really is training or is it the other way around.

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rmur17

.....

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