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.
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 .
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.
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.
To illustratrate your point, today I accepted a change from 246->254W 2 weeks after and this is what happened (tldr my planned threshold workout changed from 3x15 min @246W 75 mins to 3x12 @ 241W for 60 min with my new FTP) , so increasing my FTP by 3.3% actually made my threshold workout easier:
Yup, as expected. Remember the framing that TR likely had in mind, with the FTP Detection meant to replace the Ramp Test in normal use. The resulting drop in PL is meant as a helping hand in what is usually the start to a new training phase. It helps form a “soft start” to the new phase along with the background programming of the workouts assigned via AT.
FTPD is made to be an easier replacement for testing. But it’s not meant to be used more often as a result. Maybe they will look to change that in the future and manipulate how PLs are altered as a result of FTP changes? But unless or until they do, following the scheduled test timing (usually every 4-6 weeks) seems the best practice generally speaking.
Do you think Mount Goode -2 (15min @ 241, 251 and 246W with 5 minute rests ) would make a good substitute for Starr King (3x15 @246W with 5 minute rest intervals)
Indeed, it probably is. The way I came to that conclusion is using the “Alternates” tool. Open the Starr King workout, find the alternates tab, and Mount Good -2 happens to be the first one listed there.
