FTP /= 1 Hour power for most, so let's stop pretending it matters

I was playing with Intervals.icu today and pulled this chart:

What caught my eye is that my % rank of eFTP is lower than my % rank of 1-hour and 2-hour power. Basically this translates to:
Even though my 1-hour power record is only 95%ish of my FTP, I can hold a higher % of FTP at an hour than other people with the same FTP, which means most (all?) are not holding eFTP or FTP for an hour.

Just thought that was interesting, and some “proof” (from 6958 athletes) that FTP/= 1 hour power.
The end.

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Not the end. Next stop in your exploration: TTE

Enjoy!

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Coggan always meant for FTP time to exhaustion to be a range.

“Approximately one hour” obviously doesn’t mean literally one hour.

Our body has no concept of 3600 seconds.

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are these 3.600 threshold seconds, or vo2 max seconds? :smiley:

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I have to say that puzzled me about the algorithm intervals.icu use. I had a similar profile. I trust my 1 hour power over the eFTP, but I also think that it does a decent job when I haven’t done any 1hr efforts recently.

This was discussed in a podcast recently (past 6 months I think) FTP is a range that can go from 40 minutes - 80 minutes you are not wrong

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No it doesn’t translate to that. It translates to: very few people do maximal 1hr efforts. A lot more do maximal shorter efforts (which is what eFTP is based on). There’s no conclusion to draw from that data that most people can’t go as hard (relative to eFTP) as you. Just that they didn’t do it.

You may still be right (probably are). But your data can’t be used to make that claim.

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We should be careful interpreting these types of data. Unless you know that the riders actually performed all out 60 min tests, the data may not reflect what different riders are able to do for that specific time period.

Unless we know that those 60 min data records are maxes under decent test conditions, I would posit that only a minority of riders actually have all out hours represented in the dataset. It just isn’t that common for riders to do all out 60 min work or tests. Even 40km time trials are going to be under an hour for many riders.

Edit — see that @gjdev was typing same thing at same time.

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Did a 25 mile TT on my road bike a couple of years ago and wanted to break the hour. Managed 59:46, but kept the pressure on for another 15 seconds so I could get a 60 minute power figure.

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I would have given you credit at 59:46 :slight_smile:

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Indeed, but wouldn’t show up on TrainingPeaks.

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I’m picturing the scene in Forrest Gump where they hand him the football and he runs the length of the field and then keeps going through the tunnel.

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Let’s be honest FTP doesn’t matter beyond setting the intensity and duration of your training.sessions.

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Similar to how a 10K won’t show up under personal records on garmin or strava if it is only 6.2 miles. A couple times I’ve just kept on running after crossing the finish so it would ‘officially’ be a 10K (or whatever distance) according to my watch

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You made me curious, so I looked it up and 6.2 miles is 22.2 meters short.

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Yep, that happened to me when I ran a 10k. I learnt after that.

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No! The only reason it matters is for bragging rights.

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A bit like that! A few years ago I used to go to my club evening 10 mile TT and do three back to back. I would get there early, sign in to go off at no1, do one before the start, get back for the official one and then after finishing come back again and if I timed it right the last rider had just started and the starter would wave me through to do another circuit.

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I can 100% relate - did same thing on 40k last season, and this just happened to me doing a ftp effort on a Rouvy hill climb race - finished the course in 59:59.2 seconds and was my best “hour” power by 8W except not counted as such. Fortunately I had a wahoo running in parallel to catch my warmup which included a nice pre launch sprint :joy:

But also, as to this thread, not sure if it was mentioned but the reference data on icu I believe is also just past 84 days - not all time or even all year. So it depends on what other people are doing.

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