I’ve done 5-6 20 min FTP tests in the past 2 years since I first started structured training. I’ve honed in on and used this strategy for the last few which has gone pretty well.
- Have a realistic guess for what I think my FTP will actually be. Should be able to come up with an educated estimate based on current FTP and my feeling and performance of recent workouts.
- Break the 20 minutes into four 5-minute buckets.
- Aim for “target FTP” (guessed at above) minus about 8-10 W for the first 5 min, and increase the target power by 5 W every 5 minute interval. I sometimes adjust the bump up in power (more or less than 5 W), depending on how I think it’s progressing.
- The last 5 minutes, I should know if I’m barely hanging on for dear life, if I think I could hold, or if I think I can push a little. Obviously I try to push a little if I think I can finish it out.
- Through the entire test, every 1 minute, I switch between the higher and lower end of my natural cadence range. This usually means flipping back and forth by 1 gear. This is typically something like 1 min @ 93 rpm, 1 min @ 85 rpm. I don’t know how this impacts the relevance of the test or my physiology during the test, but it helps me mentally, even if it is only something to focus on for “1 minute at a time”.
No idea if that is a good or faulty strategy, but it has worked pretty well and at the end of the day, I try not to overthink it. I figure that if I’m relatively consistent in my approach, that even if my FTP result is off from my “real” (actual physiological, but not possible to measure) FTP by even 10-15 W, it should be productive and result in an FTP that will produce good training adaptations.