Any idea why my FTP is going down, not up?

Interesting - how are you measuring power?

Thanks for the comments everyone. I think you’re probably right that the programme might be a bit too intense for the amount of sleep I’m getting! I’m doing the plan with my partner and we decided to start with 3 days a week and supplement with low intensity rides where possible - so as not to feel too guilty about skipping rides. However, as we’ve been able to keep that up quite well, we are now considering changing to a formal 5-day/week plan, which might reduce help reduce the stress as well.

My nutrition is quite balanced. Porridge for breakfast, rye salad sandwich & salad for lunch and buddha bowl-type dinners. I don’t eat a lot of meat, but try to at least get a reasonable amount of protein in every day (e.g. eggs, chicken breast, yoghurt). I snack on yoghurt, fruit, peanut butter, nuts, seeds, chocolate :slight_smile:

I’m measuring power through our Elite trainer. We do all our rides indoors now as we’re in lockdown in Paris.

PS: Here is the link to my calendar: - TrainerRoad

PPS: And yes, I think we’re on a Gran-Fondo-focused Plan Builder plan

Wow, so you’re used to quite a lot of stress, looking at your calendar.
It might actually be the other way round.
You might be getting too little volume/intensity :expressionless:
Going for a formal MV plan is probably the way forward, if you have the time and you feel like you can finish the workouts.
But, also, maybe you should try an alternative to the ramp test. Can you “easily” complete the workouts that are at threshold… How was your recent mount goode, for instance?

Interesting perspective. I do sometimes wonder if I’m just not suited to ramp tests, as I’m not a sprinter and much better at time trials!

From memory, Mt Goode was doable, though I was struggling a bit towards the end. I suffer most in the over-threshold sessions. Dicks-1, Kaiser+2, Dade+1, Bashful+2 were all rides where I had to lower the intensity by 5% to finish the ride.

Your workout compliance looks good so it doesn’t look as though your FTP is set too high.

Can you tell us what FTP values the ramp tests gave you each time? I can’t see that info on the calendar.

One thing to note, personally, is that you could work on improving compliance of the plan itself. You should see gradual increases in TSS each week, with a low TSS week for your recovery week. These incremental steps help build you up. I don’t think that is to blame for FTP going down, but it’s something that may help, especially as you continue to get stronger.

Check out this thread for lots of discussion on why the ramp test doesnt work for everyone. However, note that if you are doing the ramp test everytime, then that shouldnt explain your discrepancies in FTP either, unless you are making huge shifts in anaerobic capabilities.

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Ok looking at your calendar, you’re knocking all the threshold work out of the park – the over/unders, the horror shows like Washington and Mt. Hale – and the only places you consistently struggle are the VO2max sessions (Kaiser, Dade, Bashful). If you’re finishing stuff like Mount Goode +3 with perfect compliance, I’d be surprised if your FTP setting is that far off your actual threshold. How often are you doing a spin-down calibration on your Suito?

My first (uneducated, layperson’s) guess is that right now, your threshold is on the higher side relative to your current VO2max capability. If that’s the case, then all those workouts are scaled too high, and you’re going to exhaust early on the ramp (and end up with a lower result). Plan Builder set you up with a ton of threshold-focused work to prep for Amstel Gold, which is great, but it’s (intentionally) not training your ability significantly over threshold. I think it’d be worth trying a steady-state test instead of the ramp just to see what you get.

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I think you may of just had a bad ramp test today. Based on workout compliance after your October 27 ramp test, I can’t believe your FTP would have dropped as much as the most recent ramp test has estimated. I would be inclined to manually set your FTP at the prior number and continue. You can then adjust FTP or drop workout intensity if you start to fail workouts. Or you could continue and increase workout intensity if the workouts are too easy.

I am not an expert but I don’t think the training stimulus would have decreased your FTP by as much as you have experienced. Perhaps it is fatigue or simply a sans jour on the ramp test day.

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Yes, you’re probably right. As I mentioned, I’m switching to the medium plan which should take care of that issue.

Re FTP rest results, from memory I started at 245, then 220, then 244 then 219 this morning, roughly 4-6 weeks apart.

I have this same problem: I’ve got good time trialling diesel power but a rubbish 1 min power and sprint and so ramp tests give me silly low numbers.
I often think that the ramp tests work better with people with more “normal” power curves.

If in doubt do a 20min test. They are pretty horrible but they tell the truth…

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Thanks very much for the detailed advice. Good food for thought,

I do the spindown calibration once every week or two.

Good idea about the steady state test. I’ll give that a try and report back.

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Yeah, that’s exactly what I’ve been doing. I’ve kept my FTP at the very first reading (245W) for the past four months and adjusted the intensity as required - usually 5% down for some of the VO2 efforts. If the 20-minute FTP test doesn’t help I’ll probably continue doing just that.

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Do you also have another PM that you use to powermatch?
Wrong calibration could also explain why your FTP is all over the place. It does seem like intense fluctuation.
Taking my badly-trained-self as an example: i got injured in august, and had to take 3 weeks off the bike.
This is my first year of training, and my ftp dropped from 225 to 214.
That’s with 3 weeks off. Shouldn’t happen to you :expressionless:

Exactly. Frustrating as it is, I guess that’s the flipside of doing well at the over/unders and threshold work. I also enjoy it a lot more.

I doubt that’s the issue, because my partner uses the same trainer and hasn’t had these problems. In fact, his FTP has been steadily going up on the same plan. Also, he has a separate power meter that he used to check the Elite Suite and it’s fine.

I fear I might just be mentally weak! :slight_smile:

Wouldn’t think so. Looks more like you have high fractional utilisation of vo2max - your FTP is at a higher-than-average percent of vo2max. TR assumes that power at vo2max is 120% of your FTP, and for you it is maybe more like 115%. So when TR asks you to do 120%, it is actually higher than you should be doing. Short term, you can solve that the way you have done, by dropping intensity for vo2max workouts.

Long term, it might limit how much you can improve your FTP - you’d need to raise your vo2max first. Maybe see if you can fit a dedicated vo2max block in somewhere, or do a plan that includes more of those workouts.

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It’s a bit hard to tell with that short of a training history to go off of but…

You had been doing a lot more volume. You had a string of several weeks that were 13-22 hours and then it dropped significantly (probably lockdowns and colder weather) to about 4-6. Volume (even low intensity) plays a large part in VO2 so I’m not surprised that your power would fall. If you can, I would add some longer rides to the low volume plan while you are stuck inside. Long trainer rides can suck but I’ve found that with some form of entertainment (movie, TV, bike racing, youtube, etc) I can get through 3 hours without too much issue.

However, the caveat is only do more if you can handle the additional stress. You say you probably don’t sleep enough and have a stressful job. Both of those things can severely limit the amount of training stress you can handle as well as how well you adapt from it. Then add in the not so obvious stress of being stuck in your house during a global pandemic. It’s possible that those long outdoor rides you had been doing not only were good for your fitness but also for lowering your stress. So maybe you need to be more diligent about finding other ways to lower that.

And finally, maybe the ramp test just isn’t great at modeling your FTP. But without HR data its a little hard to see how the workouts correlate to one another. Do the threshold workouts at the ever lowering FTP feel easier and easier or do they seem to stay consistently difficult?

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That was a big thing for me. I would constantly underperform in the TR ramp test and it would make me mentally nutty. I use to use the Joe Friel 30 min TT test and call that FTP, but I’ve also used another ramp test that does 2:30 steps and the high end of the ramp does not need to go that high and find it much better for me.

Thanks everyone for the really helpful feedback. Apologies for the late reply. A few late nights at the office…

Judging from all your responses it seems likely that the reasons for my fluctuating FTP must be a combination of:

  • fatigue
  • lower riding volume since the lockdowns / end of summer (as suggested by @mwglow15) . We used to do lots of long weekend and holiday rides, which are impossible to do when you’re on a 1-hour a day outdoor exercise curfew.
  • my focus on long endurance riding (and therefore lack of VO2 work) in the past few years, which means my FTP is high in relation to my VO2max (as explained by @ellotheth and @splash). This would explain why I can usually complete the threshold workouts at 245W without trouble but not the VO2 segments.

Going forward, I plan to do the following:

  • Move to a medium volume plan (as suggested by @holybinch) in order to up the volume / intensity somewhat, perhaps adding some time to weekend rides.
  • I will continue to use my current FTP setting (245W) and adjust manually according to how difficult the rides feel.
  • For my next ramp test, I will try to use a different method, such as the 20-minute test or the ramp test that uses 2:30 steps (as suggested by @onemanpeloton and @JT_34 ).
  • And to address the fatigue… I will make even more effort to prioritise sleep and reduce work-related stress. Come spring the outdoor riding will help as well.
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