Who is we? Listen I like your posts so don’t take it personal, but Si on GCN has a lot more reach than you and when he puts those ideas in the ear of millions suddenly this idea of a solid definition starts to get eroded.
I know Cogan’s definition and I know it’s polite to give him appropriate credit for being a frontrunner in the sport, however his definition itself is highly limited in how it can be tested which is why many new systems make use of an effective FTP for which most riders will never practically accomplish 1h at this power and certainly not after other exhaustive tests to reduce AC.
Point being the tragic fact that everyone seems to use the same term to be talking about different things leads to this kind of meme definition of FTP that has very little practical use in the broad public facing sense (like in the context of OP’s post) because so many people get their definition from so many places… You can have one guy with a cogan tested true 1h FTP showing up with another guy who got his FTP from intervals ICU eFTP based off of a 15 minute set of 30/30s vs a guy who did a ramp test vs a guy who did a ramp test with AC reducing pre-intervals vs a guy who did a 45 minute race all out and said heh I could probably have held on for an hour and ill just subtract 5w from the power.
It’s important to dial in what they are talking about because all of these people have a wildly different thing that they all call FTP hence my original claim that “FTP is such an annoying metric because it’s loosely defined” Maybe I should have added the key distinction [In the public space].
Maybe this is an unpopular opinion but “FTP” these days is just a training number (unless you do formal lab testing) and is ultimately personal to each individual. As long as you get to that number consistently and it works for you… who cares?
People can throw out FTP or w/kg numbers (or whatever value you like) but if you really want to see how you stack up sign up for a race!
Oh yeah a tale as old as time itself, remember the church sentenced galileo to house arrest for the rest of his life for suggesting that the earth centric model of the solar system was wrong and that the sun was at the center.
They weren’t right about that, but it doesn’t matter because their reach is what shapes the definition. This is why I brought up the idea that FTP is a meme or an egregore - A collective thoughtform — an idea so heavily believed in that it takes on a life (and thus definition) of its own, influencing people’s behavior and decisions. FTP is a prime example:
I disagree with this line of thinking. FTP is MLSS and it’s easy to measure on a bike with a power meter. You don’t need a lab. The only real problem is that people don’t actually like measuring.
Just because so many people bastardize FTP doesn’t mean that it’s meaningless. Intervals.icu giving one an FTP bump based on some 30/30s or a 3 minute PR is dumb IMO. They have given me the most ridiculous FTP bumps based on short efforts. TR has tried valiantly to have AI software divine rider’s FTPs because those same riders hate testing. It’s still software looking at the riders power duration curve. It can only work with the data that it has been shown. It’s not magic.
Of course there is… that is one of the earliest known case studies into the idea that the “correct” definition ie the cogan FTP definition will lose out against the popular.
We just spent some time checking out your account. It looks like some recent time off and your switch from a cycling plan to a triathlon plan (which means less time spent cycling and more time spent on swimming/running) may have contributed to the decrease.
Looking ahead, though, it seems like your plan is going to ramp up to where you were hitting previous peak volumes:
And? Just because people misuse or misunderstand what FTP is does not mean that there is not a solid definition of it that we have had for ages. Just that the general public is ignorant as to exactly what “FTP” is.
Yeah which makes using it annoying, I find it’s better to benchmark riders by seeing their 2-3m power. There was a method under the CP model that effectively did the same thing, as I recall the area under the power curve of a 3 minutes all out is W’ and the average of the last 30s is = CP.
If you ask someone what is your FTP or they tell you, then you have to do the whole song and dance figuring out if it’s cogan, ramp test. AC reduced ramp test, KM, intervals icu eFTP, zwiftFTP, etc. very inconvenient.
I don’t think the cogan FTP is really relevant to racing for most amateurs because they never go hard for 1h straight in their races, for 3/4/5 it can be 5-15 minutes, for P1/2 20-25m for reps, for conti guys going over to europe similar but with 6.5w/kg+ climbs lasting 5-10m
Then the rub is the fact that for those durations AC can contribute significantly to their performance so why would you look to exclude that when trying to benchmark.
I’m also a fan of MLSS as a proxy for FTP. But at the end of the day, it’s just another imperfect approach for estimation. What I like about it is the lack of subjectivity and ability to replicate the protocol. But it still has challenges. In the testing I’ve done, it’s blood test at every 10 watt increment, so it’s still only getting you in a range. And it’s a challenge to administer outside a lab. I know it’s done all the time in the field these days, but tough as a diy protocol and better suited for folks with support staff ( in my opinion). The equipment and consumables for lactate testing have gotten reasonably cheap, but I haven’t bitten the bullet and probably won’t.
I’ll keep going off feel and o/u workouts to lock it down, gets me close enough. I’m a big believer in ftp as a base metric for training, not a big believer in FTP needing to be estimated within a few watts to function as an effective metric. It’s moving around constantly.
Gonna have to agree here. While coggan often pointed to one hour power or 40k TT power as a reasonable proxy for ftp, he was also the first to say FTP does not equal one hour power but could vary quite a bit by individual and training status. One hour power and 40k tt power were convenient because they had a bunch of data points from trained athletes, not because it was the recommended/best estimation approach. If you want to choose one method of estimation as the “Coggan” approach, id say it’s the 20 minute test (5 minute blow out, then take 95% of 20 minute power). But all of these are imperfect protocols to estimate ftp. That’s not the same as a definition of ftp.
