I remember coach @Jonathan saying in a podcast he did his test tired and it didn’t affect his result much. Is that specific to a high-intensity phenotype? I do long course triathlon and never do sprint/crit so intervals above FTP are not my forte.
Yesterday i did Bashful+2 (3sets of 5x90sec @ 122%) and found it brutal but doable. Since I had long good night rest and my last test was mid Nov, I tried Ramp test today and ouch! Legs couldn’t do much above FTP and I bailed out early. I didn’t update FTP and rolled into Tray Mountain (3x20min @90%) and it went fine. That validates keeping the 2 months old FTP value.
It does raise question: I’m rested enough for over an hour of SS but not for 5min of Vo2max?!?!
Looking at training plan ('m doing SPB MV), testing is scheduled after a week of recovery. So rest is prescribed after those build intervals.
Intervals over ftp are still useful for long course triathletes. Don’t resign yourself to “I’m just not good at those.” I don’t think the intended purpose is to make you a good crit rider. It’s another way to help raise your ftp which benefits all types of riders.
I don’t think Jonathan is a sprinter
It’s probably more attributed to his endurance and ability to back up a hard day with other hard days.
For you, the goal is to find the baseline FTP for which to train at and base all your intervals off that. Do you think you have it or are your intervals too easy.
With regards to the ability to back up hard days…
Your body may not be used to the efforts. After many years of training you get used to the different efforts and build strengths. For example a sprinter will be used to 125% efforts for 15-30 seconds whilst a Time trial-list will thrive on long steady efforts just under threshold.
As far as I recall in all of the TR plans that I’ve done the ramp test is normally located directly after a recovery week. I’m on a mv plan right now and due to test on Tuesday. I did 1-1/2 hours of endurance work today and Monday is a rest day. That would put me in a pretty good place to test. I
I’ve put in the work for the last three weeks, recovered this week so my body could “adapt” to the stress I had piled on and in theory should be in an optimal state in which to test. If you are making your own plans or picking and choosing workouts I’d suggest a similar approach. Work-recover-test. Increase ftp and repeat. Granted, you will likely not see an increase every time (I don’t) but you may notice other tangible improvements such as the ability to maintain a certain power for a longer duration.
why not experiment? I think everyone reacts a little differently.
Maybe you were tired. Maybe you just weren’t mentally there that day. See if 1 day rest doesn’t get you back there. Somehow I think taking the whole week for recovery is excessive. If you bomb it again, maybe you need more rest.
Also - you’re doing the ramp tests in band with the plans? or out of band? I generally just stick to the schedule. Stops me from overthinking things like this. LOL.
This was an experiment because I had not tested in a while.
During Dec-early Jan, I did semi-structured training using Sustained Power Build MV as a “to do list” 3wks of workouts over 6 wks of time. Between business travel, holidays, skiing and nursing a pulled muscle, that’s what I could do. Soon I’ll start IM Base MV and just follow it.
Corrected my post : @Jonathan isn’t a sprinter
What I meant is that as a MTB’er he’s used to high intensity efforts so maybe he can handle back to back days of VO2 max which i know now i cannot do (yet).
I think what you have done is totally fine given your circumstances. Between condensing the workouts into 3 weeks and your work and injury you may have suffered a decrease in FTP. Take what it has given you and work through the first few weeks at the prescribed amount. Test again in the 4 weeks. Keep at it and try and find that consistency.
to the idea of ramp test comparations, I would add my personal observation. If I do ramp test few days (2-3) after another one, the result tends to be much higher than first one (FTP from 300 to 310). I also see the this performance bump after hard race, so my body probably reacts to time spent at high % of VO2max with short timed performance bumps… So for me, not good idea to compare two tests and I assume I am not the only one.
