FWIW if you develop a feel for riding at threshold AND ride on the trainer… then do SS/threshold in resistance (not Erg) and you can gauge current fitness without a formal test. Ditto for riding outside. When I’m ready to re-test becomes obvious after a couple threshold (or SS) sessions in a row start pushing over currently set FTP.
I might be reading the program wrong, but it looks like you’ve only selected part of your effort. The FTP number is the average including the 10 minutes before the 25 you chose.
You take the average for the whole TEST interval, you do NOT include the warm up
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Ah yes, correct, I need to have another swipe across the screen, thanks.
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Yes. TBH I stopped as soon as I had done 25 mins more or less, I wasn’t especially after a definitive figure, I’ll do it again one day when I’m more rested. Given my error I averaged 239W for 35 mins which is probably the duration from the start of the main test.
As per previous advice I’ve received I’ll knock down my FTP value before I start and aim for a longer TTE.
That’s a good start. In a day or two try the progression 2 and just see how long you can hold that 239, you might find your TTE is a bit longer.
Are you using the ones in Team Gold or direct from the Training Peaks article? The Team Gold ones seem to be modified based on their descriptions.
I made my own. I don’t really know the sequence that well, I’d just go with whichever one lets you do more than 35 minutes at FTP before finishing or ramping. Just to see if you can get a bit further.
Have you ever done a long time trial or a long climb? I’m more a fan of progression 3 although back in 2017 I just kept going longer and longer wanting to see how my 8-min and 20-min tests compared with longer steady-state power:
Its not all hour-of-power wine and roses, far from it, also doing shorter tests (similar to progression 1 or 2) with a hard finish at various times to test how I feel or feed WKO like this 31-minuter in February:
Mentally I wasn’t ready that day (and to be honest that week or month!) to go longer.
You learn something on every attempt, just do it 
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Do you train using power? Specifically do you do any threshold or sweet spot workouts with power? If so, then having your FTP set correctly is very relevant to you.
Also “1 hour power” is not FTP. If your true TTE is 40 minutes, that doesn’t make it any less your FTP than if your TTE was 60 minutes. And a TTE of over an hour is possible too, doesn’t necessarily mean your FTP is wrong if you can hold it for 70 minutes. There is a name for one hour power - Critical Power or CP60. If you’re interested in learning more refer to the Empirical Cycling podcast (with Kolie Moore), start with Watts Doc #1.
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Yes I do train with power. But only on the trainer. I do not have power for my outdoor bikes.
I realize of course that having an “FTP” is important for the training aspects you are talking to.
What I am looking for is other people’s experience with using the ramp test “FTP” versus using the KM “FTP” (which for me is at least 15% lower). The whole point as I see it, am I working out too hard using the ramp test and the TR plans, and could I get just as much gain by lowering my “FTP” to align with KM.
So far using the ramp test FTP with TR has led to some hard workouts, and some good gains, so I am reluctant to change unless, others have positive experience with it.
Well yeah I’m one of those people. The ramp test worked for me at the start, but sometime into Sustained Power Build it diverged and things got messy.
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Also hard does not necessarily equal good (or progress-inducing), as I have since learned. I would repeat to myself “it doesn’t get easier, you just get stronger” as I struggled to finish over-unders more than 8 minutes long, which previously had been some of my “favourite” workouts.
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Without reading the posts which followed this I’d say there is a high probability of this being the case, many many people train with an inflated FTP I’m convinced.
This is such a good post.
This is exactly what I am pondering!
I was hoping to hear from a few people who had tried following a LV cycle with the reduced FTP number, and see how their progress is. I don’t want to work any harder than I have to for my gains.
I can see it being different from people following the LV, MV & HV plans. Following the LV plans, you got 3 hard workouts and plenty of time to recover in between.
I have no problems seeing working with the realistic FTP is better if you’re working with a coach, with a personal plan and using it to pace. I’m specifically pondering if it isn’t better to stick with TR test regimen when exclusively using TR plans.
A few notes about using the KM FTP test result to inform power levels on a LV TrainerRoad plan. As I hear it, one of the points KM makes throughout his podcast on effective FTP testing and training is that, for riders using ramp tests which overestimate their FTP, a “Sweetspot” plan actually ends up with that rider hitting threshold numbers during workouts. Another point he makes is that, depending on the TTE (time to exhaustion) of a rider, riding at Sweetspot with a realistic FTP may not provide enough Tiz/stress at the appropriate power level to meaningfully bump up a rider’s FTP. If someone re-assesses using the KM protocol and finds they have a FTP of 245w and a TTE of 45 minutes, versus what they thought was a 260w FTP using the ramp test, going back to a series of Sweetspot workouts that are now in the proper, accurate, lower zone may not provide enough stress to raise their FTP at the lower prescribed power levels. A workout with 8-15 minute intervals and a total of only around 45 mins TiZ at what is now accurately zoned as Sweetspot may not provide enough stress to increase threshold when they were unknowingly previously riding at threshold.
In other words, plan structure, interval length, and total TiZ may have to be reconsidered in light of a new assessment protocol that provides a more realistic FTP AND TTE.
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That’s exactly what I “fear”.
Previously my sweetspot workouts have indeed included meaningful time in zone for sub & supra treshold. So they have been hard, but manageable due to the short length of the intervals.
This is specially true for the SSB1 LV, which becomes very easy using the appropriate FTP. So I am curous to see how I will regress or progress at the end of the cycle. Decided to go with the more realistic number, but sticking with the TR plans
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