Kolie Moore on the ramp test

[jjmc]

@redlude97

These types of questions are also easily understood if you have a good guage on your rough threshold and TTE also. I understand that TR has the ability to adjust for each individual, but if each individual understood themselves better and how training plays a role in that rather than it being such a black box it wouldn’t lead to so much overreaching.

I say this as someone who has gone down that hole myself

Amen to that…

I’m loving AT. But I for sure don’t give it full authority, and it’s way way more likely to keep me on track than the old stock plans.

[Dylan_van_Green]

@Bbt67

@Dylan_van_Green

It’s not quite a principle but if FTP is a proxy for MLSS then TTE @ FTP is limited by running out of glycogen rather than overcome by lactate/byproducts/acidosis/whatever. Glycogen storage sets some physiological boundaries around TTE@FTP in that way.

That is not really true as it ignores muscle fibre fatigue and recruitment.

You are right on this I am sure - fatigue is going to be multi-factorial and I’m no biologist, but I’ve found this a useful ‘mental model’ for finding FTP - legs are searing hot but not burning away, breathing is full but not gasping, it’s hard but if the mindset is there I can just keep going until I gradually start running out of fuel… and when the effort is over I know I had nothing left to give, really ran the tank dry, completely spent. vs going slightly above FTP - like moving closer to the flames and what will stop me is yanking my hand away because it hurts too much. And then a couple of minutes of recovery later thinking, ‘I definitely could have held on a bit longer’. I’m sure my feeling isn’t really running out of glycogen vs lactic acidosis but I have found that a very helpful cue for my intervals, for now anyway. All models are wrong etc.

@Bbt67

If it was true you would get a lot more people with TTEs over 60 minutes and beyond.

I basically got the above idea from thinking about the @empiricalcycling early podcasts which came along in late 2019 I think, at that time I was also starting to suspect my ramp test FTPs were a case of ‘if it sounds too good to be true…’ KM mentioned some cues for the feel of FTP that really resonated for me, more so than anything I’d come across in the TR text by that time. KM also said that TTE of 60 mins should be a goal for any cyclist. I guess the point is that setting a more conservative FTP number would give a lot more people that 60+ min TTE. Whereas Coach @chad via the TR workout text and workout instructions would (I imagine) have said something along the lines of, ‘60 mins at FTP!? Time to reassess son!’ But I suppose that’s just more FTP semantics.

[mailman]

I see Kolie is replying which is awesome.

I had a similar experience to you with using an EC type method of establishing an FTP, and what riding at Threshold is supposed to feel like, but I don’t think it’s running out of Glycogen that limits TTE.

Many of us I suspect, can ride at FTP for whatever TTE and then after a moment to regather our composure can immediately carry on at Tempo or even Sweet Spot. This, to me, wouldn’t be possible if you’re talking about depletion of glycogen.

[Rizzi]

@empiricalcycling Kolie as you’re here…what’s your take on VLaMax dependent VO2Max training?

Especially these suggestions: from this paragraph here (Training, testing, metabolism and physiology with Björn Kafka | EP#286):

• For an athlete with a low VlaMax I would recommend the following design of a VO2max session: 1.5-2min @ VO2max power + 7-9mins @ maximum lactate steady state intensity, which is repeated 3-4 times.
• For an athlete with a high VlaMax I would recommend the following design of a VO2max session: 5x7mins of 40/20s.

[empiricalcycling]

I heard this thread had turned into something about and then there’s something cool to comment on. You’re really paying attention, nice work. What I want to note is glycogen depletion and increasing motor unit recruitment as causes of fatigue are not mutually exclusive, they’re compatible. The big question is whether that glycogen go away aerobically or anaerobically. The fatigue may in part be due to metabolite accumulation since typically after an FTP block I see 1min power go up a whole lot (with zero training) and that is an indicator of buffering capacity improvement. And we wouldn’t develop that capacity without some stimulus, ergo it must be a dimension of the fatigue. In other words, nobody’s wrong here. Good discussion, a pleasure to read.

And on the topic of FTP semantics, whether someone’s TTE gets out to an hour or more or not is just one factor to consider of many; the context of where someone is in a long training block tells me whether an assessment (via a workout or the wko5 model) of 60’ or more TTE means FTP has gone up, or if it’s the same and just gotten longer. On the subject of FTP as a number, what I’ve tried to do, and TR is also trying to do, is take the guesswork out and develop a methodology that’s the shortest point between training and fitness assessment. TR seems to think it’s okay to fail a couple workouts to adjust your FTP, but for what people pay me, I don’t. Probably because I’ve been trained as a scientist, I like to isolate variables, so barring total stupidity on my part (which does happen 2-3x per year) I can isolate a relatively rare workout failure quickly to something like recovery, diet, stress, or sleep, rather than wondering if FTP is set too high. I obviously also use coaching cues and read feedback for even more information so instead of workouts getting pass/fail, the approach gets to be more nuanced.

Hi @Rizzi, I’ve never seen these protocols before but wouldn’t assign either one of them to any athletes with the purpose of raising vo2max unless they were just off the couch, and in that case just riding endurance and middle intensity intervals would do the same job just fine. You could pretty easily justify swapping those intervals for their intended targets.

[WindWarrior]

@empiricalcycling

I heard this thread had turned into something about

sorry, next week I won’t post from a microbrewery on my rest day, as that seemed to set off a chain of events ending in … and here I thought with my Billy Madison reference would have steered the convo to a bag of flaming :poop on a porch, but apparently no Adam Sandler fans in the house.

Thanks for dropping in and sharing your thoughts on TTE/FTP/etc. Really enjoy the podcast!

[rolaand]

Hehe he called the s&$@ poop

[Bioteknik]

Lactate would not be lactate if it hadn’t donated a proton, so without another proton acceptor to buffer the solution, lactate indirectly means a rise in H+. You can make that claim with just about any other acid.

[Dylan_van_Green]

@empiricalcycling

typically after an FTP block I see 1min power go up a whole lot (with zero training) and that is an indicator of buffering capacity improvement. And we wouldn’t develop that capacity without some stimulus

That is fascinating. Last spring I one-off absolutely smashed my local 1 minute hill, after extensive FTP training the first three months of the year. I mostly forgot about it afterwards and went on to do other things. But never had a theory to explain it. I’ll be testing that again this year then.

Thanks for the input, and all the free pod content.