Agreed, and also what I said — more than one moving part seems to be too much complexity for the TR platform/users.
So…you get what you get, benefits and problems alike.
But you’d still have the same exact variability: FTP occurs roughly at lactate threshold 2 (or you could define it as such, I guess), so your FTP is going to determine where sweet spot is.
What you are proposing is to base your estimate of FTP on the lower range of the relation between MAP-to-FTP (apparently around 72 %). You could do that. But then the workouts would be too easy for the majority of users. And while for sweet spot it doesn’t matter whether you are at 88 % or 92 %, it matters a great deal for over/unders. These would become under/unders for the average person, and you’d miss the adaptations you are after.
I think the easier solution is to educate athletes about these variabilities (which are frequently mentioned), and to use your own discretion. If you know that the ramp tests “overestimates your FTP” (i. e. you are closer to 72 % MAP than 75 %), you learn that fact about yourself, swallow your pride and correct your FTP afterwards.
You can say the same about equivalents to 4D power, it’d be cool to know that about yourself. As a geek, I’d like to know! When asked @Nate_Pearson has stated (on the podcast and in the forum) that with the current technology they have 4D power tests have no actionable additional information to a ramp test.
You could interpret that as saying that their training plans do not accommodate for that, but I think it is more complicated than that. You’d also have to set your goals accordingly, and if you are a triathlete, you probably don’t care that your sprint is shite, so you don’t actually want more sprint workouts sprinkled in, you are doing just fine as-is. The whole weakness vs. limiter story.
And yes, even if you could tell the TR app “I want to improve my 1-minute power”, the training plans aren’t flexible enough. Once you push into this territory, you find that TR isn’t a replacement for a real, experienced coach.
I’d just like to offer that the discussion of testing protocols seems to be getting a bit i to the minutia of things that cause issues with the training plans.
Sure a test that gives values for multiple durations/energy systems would be an improvement…but do people really think that is the issue? Because if the issue is that the ramp test inflates certain systems, the opposite must also be true for individuals. I dont see a lot of people complaining about workouts being too easy.
Of course…rereading…that is probably a nature of the interwebz sort of issue lol…
A good handful of them exist…mostly re: “30/30”-style VO2max workouts and long rest interval SS workouts.
30/30s at 120% is pants on head idiotic.
Personally…I think the issue is that those are just easy workouts. And people like to find things to complain about.
Maybe I’m wrong. I HAVE noticed the same thing. I was always able to do those short duration V02s, while it took me quite a while to wrap my head around 3 min at 120%. BUT i dont think there is any question that the 3 min intervals are expected to be more demanding, correct?
I would disagree. We all have different constraints - time, age, genetic potential, stage in training, etc. It isn’t possible to come up with a single training plan that will be “optimal” for everyone. Instead, TR has come up with several plans, with several stages in each plan, so that users can choose the plan that will work for them. The plan they choose might not be the optimal plan to improve their cycling, but it works given the constraints they have. To complain that the TR HV plan doesn’t make sense because it is only doable for the minority is missing the fact that there are other plans to choose from. If TR were to omit or modify the HV plans then they would be doing a disservice to those who like, and benefit from them. Also, TR is very, very clear in their notes on the plans, in plan builder, on the forum, and on their podcast that the HV plans are only suitable for a minority.
Bruce
Is there such a thing as a “somebody” in the cycling world? Offhand I can think of Ferrari, Carmichael…Brailsford. Fuentes? Lim?
What did I miss?
Yes, even if you look at their Build Sustained Power HV2 plan, they add around 30 minutes of riding at 60-75% FTP to a workout of 105% intervals.
Masters plan just released, Trainerroad eliminated all sweet spot plans, and are giving away free trek madones to all forum members with over 1000 posts.
Let me see if I’ve crossed that threshold…
I saw what you did there.
The discussion about the FTP test protocol is interesting. When I signed up with a coach, his first instruction was to have 3-4 easy/off days, then find a route on Zwift that would take me 45-60 minutes (5-7 laps of a course that will take 7-10 minutes is perfect; make a call after lap 1), and treat it as a time trial. We’d base FTP off that.
His rationale: anything else is a guess, and we don’t want to guess. And if you’re serious about getting better, then riding flat out for 45-60 min once every 6 weeks shouldn’t be a big deal. Also, pacing yourself and learning mental fortitude are skills any cyclist should be looking to develop.
FWIW, I held 268W for about 52 minutes (when I completed the set course). Now in hindsight I started a smidge slow (following his advice to work for the first 15-20 minutes at 5-6% below what I thought I could actually hold), but a true best effort, perfectly paced, would have been 270, maybe 272.
The ramp test puts me at 286.
That difference turns over-unders into over-overs, sweetspot into threshold, threshold into VO2 max, etc. It changes things.
That’s not a criticism of TR as such, I would just rather not guess the figure that I’m going to be basing the next how ever many weeks of bloody hard work on.
Or the issue is, with non-newb users at least, that those workouts are presented as VO2max work, but in practice, they kinda aren’t; even more so if they are based off of FTP (which may be incorrect to start with).
Wait, riding at FTP shouldn’t even be borderline hard?
Riding at my FTP is excruciating. Usually 5 minutes in I’m like “there’s no way I can do this for 20 minutes.”. Then at 20 minutes I’m like “there’s no way I can do this for 10 more minutes…everything in my body is telling me to stop” then at 35mins I think “I can’t believe I just did that for 35mins, there’s no way I can do another 10”. And then somewhere in that 45+min timeframe the wheels completely come off and no amount of mental pushing will keep the watts at the target.
Thanks for the link. I usually drop the Z2 workouts from my schedule but I guess I won’t now.
A couple of good quotes in there. Jonathan says, to paraphase, “the best training plan is one that you follow consistently” and Nate says " you really have to listen to your body".
Bruce
I agree with this. Without getting into the whole FTP debate, I was listening to Seiler on a podcast and he tests with a 1 hour TT but acknowledged that this was not to appealing to many. He suggested that you do a 1 hour TT to estimate your FTP, then after a few days rest do a shorter test (I think he suggested a 20 minute but I don’t see why it couldn’t be the 8 minutes test or the ramp test) to see how your shorter test corelates to the 1 hour TT. Once you have that relationship, in future you can use the shorter test to estimate FTP.
Bruce
Yes, FTP is a bit of a fuzzy number. Coggan/Hunter define it as “the highest power a rider can maintain in a quasi-steady state without fatiguing for approximately one hour”. So there is no one test we can do with just a bike and a power meter that will work for everyone to determine FTP. I really like your thought that we are really using FTP, and the tests to determine it, to establish our training zones.