I don’t agree with this idea that if only my workouts were pre-set at just the right wattage I would magically be a bunch faster. And I’m sure as hell not interested in dragging myself through Sufferfest’s 4DP test regularly enough to get any supposed benefit from it. If my workout is a bit hard on the day I nudge the power down a bit, if it’s a bit easy I nudge it up. Just like if I was doing intervals on the road.
8 Likes
If you take FTP for what it is, an estimation of the specific output that causes a specific physiological response, then it’s one of the most valid metrics around all of sport for not only defining aerobic workout intensities, but also anaerobic. If you know the functional ceiling, then you know that going above that ceiling trains a different system (anaerobic). In cycling, anaerobic is less important than, and ultimately still reliant on, the aerobic fitness. Virtually all cycling programs use FTP in some capacity, those mentioned included. They may not even call it FTP, but they use it.
So my argument is this: it doesn’t require continual maximal test data and the resultant nuance, in this case, to have “optimal” anaerobic workouts and get those cherry-on-top gains from higher intensities. Practically, feeding a model with a grueling maximal effort test protocol to keep your highly-specific zones dialed in doesn’t make a lot of sense. That’s not smart training when it’s a model that won’t necessarily represent your physiological capabilities any better than % of FTP can. You can fluctuate 5, 6, 10% in a week, just like you could on the day of a brutal maximal effort, self-paced test. Zones, and TR workouts, account for that just fine, so it doesn’t need to be much more specific. If FTP is roughly 95-105%, then 115% is a great place to start for anaerobic training. TR handles any further required nuance by saying “this is what the effort SHOULD feel like. Adjust up or down if that isn’t your experience within the intervals” rather than giving you a test that may or may not be a true maximal effort every time you do it. It looks fancier, but it’s certainly not always going to result in better training, and it’s certainly a lot of weight to place on a single day of self-paced training every month or so. At the end of the day, it’s an aerobic sport, and you can do more, better, faster anaerobic efforts by being concerned with aerobic fitness, which FTP corresponds to.
9 Likes
I’ll disagree with the words of Sebastian Weber:
If you don’t know what is behind the FTP, you can’t really establish a precise and focused training programme.
Decreasing VLaMax and increasing VO2max would require different training programmes.
Neither SF/4DP nor TR/FTP can test what a rider’s VLaMax and/or VO2max is; at best, they both provide unprecise and unfocused training programmes.
However, most of us are no where near requiring highly precise and focused training; we can get away with simply riding more. 
6 Likes
However, most of us are no where near requiring highly precise and focused training; we can get away with simply riding more
I think you’ve nailed the major question. What is precise and focused, and do I actually need it? Maybe? Regardless, I think it almost entirely relies on feel to truly determine what that is. Even in a lab test, you have to pace or put out the mental effort for a max value. I think % FTP allows the required precision to the extent that the precision and focus makes training more optimal. Knowing what’s behind an effort seems to me like identifying what a zone “feels” like and then adjusting based on that. I think that’s practically not going to change much for an individual even with highly specific measurements or tests.
We don’t test the other systems for the same reason why we aren’t pushing the 20/8 minute test. You need to know your result before you take the test in order to pace correctly and get an accurate result. What you’re most likely to end up with is an imprecise result.
There’s also the repeatability aspect of this, and what your score in the test is not reflective of what you might be able to do multiple times.
We also know that VO2/Anaerobic/Sprint can improve quickly, especially if you haven’t been working them recently. Ramp test gets you close, then we work you through progressions for supra-threshold systems. We’re fairly aggressive with our progression and suggest that people turn it down or backpedal an interval if they are on the edge. This tends to get everyone but we’re going to improve it.
The crazy thing is that people will not hit everything in their first vo2 workout in the plan, but quickly adapt and nail the other, hard workouts later in the plan before the retest.
Yup and the rate of progression are different for people too plus the inaccuracies of testing with a method that benefits from perfect pacing.
I don’t want to spill all the beans now, but adaptive stuff is right around the corner (being implemented now). It will be a series of releases rather than one giant AI that has sentience.
38 Likes
Another issue I have with the 4DP thing is the labelling at the end of the test.
I did the 4DP after my A Race (pre-TR days) and it labelled me as a climber. Yet I had just done 3 months of time trial training (w/ a successful result). And it showed when over the next couple of weeks the only KOMs I could nab were flat/rolling segs.
I can remember one of the <#100 podcasts where the TR team talks about training to be whatever kind of rider you want to be — be a sprinter one season, go be a climber the next season, etc. SF pidgeon-holes you right out of the gate, and if you are a complete beginner and/or believe the hype you could miss out on a heck of a lot of opportunity and fun to try other types of riding. At least TR provides plans for the type of rider you want to try to be instead of the other way around.
$0.02
2 Likes
Bradley Wiggens went from a track star to winning the TdF. I think far too many people label themselves too early.
5 Likes
8 Likes
Do the magic hand thing!
5 Likes
Haven’t Jones, Poole, etc., argued that critical power is a better indicator of the division between intensity domains than any physiological measurement? If so, doesn’t that make TR’s approach better than any lab-based test?
9 Likes
Lol, it will be small steps along the way.
6 Likes
Great.
Thanks @Nate_Pearson for triggering a soon-to-be endless string of excitable memes.
5 Likes
Tru dat.
2 Likes
I think the center of the bell curve is 68%, but point well made.
2 Likes
Interesting discussion… funny thing for me is I’ve never once given FTP a moment’s thought when tuning up my anaerobic riding ability (not that I know anything, mind you). I just go as hard as I possibly can for whatever duration I’ve prescribed for myself. Sure, my W will fade over the reps, but I don’t care as long as it’s not a total collapse.
When I see a 150% FTP spike in a TR workout I’m like… why is that so conservative?
1 Like
This is critical. For any of these models to work, you have to “feed the beast” maximal efforts, so TrainerRoad would have to adapt it’s training plans to have maximal efforts for various times frames
3 Likes
Weber of course has done amazing work. unfortunately he gives FTP a hard time in an effort to marketing his own research.
VLaMax and VO2 are just as much surrogate markers of fitness as FTP is, although more detailed/refined.
Surrogates because to train effectively, you don’t need to measure capillary density, cardiac output, cellular metabolic enzyme expression, glycogen storage, neuron-muscle synapse connectivity, etc. That would be madness and not “clinically applicable”.
In essence it’s fine to use surrogates as long as they work for the goal you have. FTP works pretty well. VO2Max/VLaMax might add a bit relatively to “just” FTP for some riders. but in absolute terms the two will differentiate fit riders from unfit ones pretty well and give broadly similar indications for training.
3 Likes
Not to open a can of worms here but more than just training went into that transformation. #marginalgains
I do agree though that as an amateur we should stop labelling ourselves as too early or even at all tbh.
3 Likes