How often do you do it? (FTP Detection)

Only when they’re scheduled in the plan. AT deals with any other progressions.

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Every 14 days. My logic is why not? It doesn’t take away a training day anymore and the more accurate that number is the greater the benefit I’m getting from training.

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Because your PLs decrease and you end up always doing short unproductive / not as productive intervals (this is assuming FTPd is giving an increase each time?)

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Only done the one but the next one (and those after that) will be whenever a Ramp Test is scheduled, other than ego I don’t see a need for any greater frequency unless I become ill or injured and need a reassessment.

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This has been my approach and logic.

Echoing this, we have touched on this in several other discussions and it depends on personal goals and training plan timing. Keeping the current FTP helps push further into Progression Levels of related workouts. This can be good for working on overall intensity (gets pushed up with higher levels), or time to exhaustion (longer intervals and shorter recovery with higher levels).

It can also depend a bit on the delta of the FTPs. A couple of percent may be worth pushing forward without accepting the new value. But maybe 5% or higher deltas is worthwhile to accept the increase.

There is no single or simple answer, and people need to consider at least a couple of factors IMO.

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I’m suprised noboby else mentioned this. I will only change my FTP according to the plan (in fact I’ll actually do a ramp test), but a few times a week I take a peek to see what my FTP “could” be.

I manually add an FTP test for the day, get it to calculate my FTP, reject the answer and delete the scheduled test. Rinse and repeat after any good workout where I feel progress was made.

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I did that too, for science but even completing stretch VO2max, threshold or sweet spot workouts didn’t alter the estimate in fact sometimes it was lower after a hard workout

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Interesting, I hadn’t considered that complexity. I’d always assumed that lower PL on a higher FTP would equate to the same outcome. Would be good to see if there was some data backed verification of your 5% rule of thumb.

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Well, I am not claiming any hard data background with the 5% value. It is a concept, that if there is a notable change in FTP, you are likely better to accept it.

  • Specifically, consider the simple case of training at Threshold of 100% FTP. If your FTP value is off by 5% or more, you are very possibly not training around the Threshold range intended for you. This is potentially less than ideal if not a “problem”.

We all know that these zones are more fuzzy than concrete lines of demarcation, but if you stray off enough (like over 5%), there is a strong chance that you are not training in the desired zone, regardless of your current Progression Level, because of the way that TR assigns the work as percentage of your current FTP.

With enough delta from current to actual FTP, you may well be doing some training that is outside the prescribed ranges. So, big swings in FTP almost require accepting the change IMO.

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This is how my obsession with the feature began. Two weeks into SSB 2 I was curious to see if I increased since I manually tested at the start of the training block and when I saw I had gone up 11pts, I decided to accept it since it seemed like a significant increase to me.

Then two weeks later, I decided to check again out of curiosty and it showed I had increased another 11pts so I again accepted it.

As far as Progression Levels dropping, they do drop a little but I feel like working at the higher FTP has been worth it.

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I wouldn’t do it more often than is scheduled in the plan. The exception being if you are completely new and improving on a week to week basis or coming off a long lay off, sickness, injury, etc.

As has been pointed out, if you are constantly upping your FTP you’ll never get to those ‘harder’ workouts. e.g. you’ll always be doing 5x6 at FTP and never progressing to 4x10, 3x15, 2x20, etc. Even though you’re doing that 5x6 at a higher wattage it’s just a different stimulus and you’ll be missing out on those longer, steady state intervals. Unless all of your events, rides, goals are races or efforts that are <20 min then those extended efforts are going to be important.

Most coaches I’ve heard from only test FTP (for relatively experienced riders with maybe 3+ years of training) about every 3-4 months unless RPE has severely decoupled from certain efforts.

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I’m keeping my ftp where it’s at til my threshold level gets to at least 5*. This way I get those longer intervals in the “ zone”. Also after a season of short power build my muscular endurance is now my weakness .

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Good thread, I learnt from this one. Thanks all

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Me constantly asking AT if my FTP changed:

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Can’t you use the estimator every day if you want? Or did they change that? I check it when I’m curious, but accepting it is another matter. I only plan to accept any change when the new FTP changes quite a bit and my PLs are out of wack.

You can only use it once every 14 days.

You can check it daily if you don’t accept the FTP offering and then move the ramp each day.

But there is a 14 day lock whenever FTP is changed.

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Oh, gotcha. I have accepted each time I have used it so I didn’t realize you could use it every day since I always get the 14 day notice. Thanks for clarifying.

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That’s what I thought, but I remember hearing in the podcast that they might limit the ability just to look at it.