“slow”?
The half-life of changes in mitochondrial proteins as a result of training is about 1 week.
Measurable capillary neoformation takes about the same amount of time.
hey old you got to a pretty high level cycling, right? Well I got started cycling late in life and seem to be an aerobic hard gainer. A bit of educated speculation on my part, but over here those peripheral adaptations take their sweet time. I’ve read a lot of those pubmed studies, most involve people a lot younger and with very high vo2max relative to myself. FWIW.
So you’ve had a muscle biopsy?
Or if you don’t quite have enough time for a KM test. I’m usually within a couple of watts Ramp test vs KM (35-40minute TTE) so will swap between them depending on how much time I have.
This convo should be moved to the kolie more podcast wisdom and leave this one just for info about the testing protocol…imo
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I know you’re sceptical and possibly being tongue in cheek (and also “unimpressed by anecdotes”), but that is exactly what I did and I got a ~50W increase to my ~3 minute power in just 3 weeks. This was after doing SSB1, SSB2, Sustained Power Build, SSB1 and SSB2 again. So whilst obviously not elite, I definitely was not untrained or just “mildly active”, and no I didn’t see such increases with “traditional” VO2max work outside of initial newbie gains in the first base blocks.
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Back to the protocol discussion…
Monday was my 3rd attempt at the Baseline protocol. Previously my best TTE was ~20 minutes. This time I managed almost 33 minutes TTE.
This constitutes a valid test, right?
For those more familiar with the protocol: [edit due to my lack of clarity] After how many tests did you start the progressions?
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My understanding is at that 20:00 minute mark that you started on. That’s what I use anyway.
Apologies for my lack of clarity. I meant after how many of these baseline tests to start Kolie’s progressions. I’m thinking one valid test, although in WattsDoc 24 it was mentioned that some athletes went straight to the last progression.
Think it depends a bit on what you want from the test. If you’re looking to find TTE, and have a good grasp of your FTP, you’d be better of with one of the longer versions, where you basically just ride at FTP for a long time. If you’re still unsure about your FTP, or don’t care much about accurate TTE, you can stick with progression 1.
I think once you get a feel of FTP (for which you have to ride at/below it for a decent length of time, then slowly ramp past it hence the baseline/prog 1 tests) you can pretty much freestyle it. My last test (somewhere upthread) I realised I was sitting on FTP, in fact had already tried bumping the power by 5w and felt I was going to blow so dropped back down therefore I ignored the ramp and went for TTE. Riding by feel and not on erg mode is something else I’d highly recommend.
In the specific example above it looks like heart rate doesn’t flatten off and TTE isn’t mega long so I’m not sure what I’d have done personally. If you were suffering before the ramp maybe the ramp was slightly above FTP, if not then maybe next time lengthen the middle bit and/or ignore the ramp for a higher TTE.
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Can you elaborate on what the feeling we should be chasing is?
If I get it “right” should I see HR increase in the start of the test, then plateau for the remainder of the test?
Should HR increase to a plateau, remain there for a time (TTE?), then start rising until I can no longer hold power?
What is typically the HR (% of LTHR) after it has stabilized when riding at FTP?
The following is my opinion, happy to be corrected!
Controlled breathing, no feeling of needing to take a mega big breath or panting, mild burning in the legs that you really would rather wasn’t there, but isn’t intense.
From my successful tests it looks like slow ramp for the first 15 minutes, then sitting just under what I’d call LTHR. From here if HR rises even 2 beats I need to either back off or I’ve got about 5 minutes max until my legs stop going round.
I would assume so, but I don’t have mega amounts of data on this. I believe similar concepts have been discussed either here on the other KM thread that once the slow twitch fibres give out HR will increase for same power due to fast twitch fibres creating more lactate - I may have that wrong though.
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Thank you!
Your first description sounds a lot like “sweetspot”?
Maybe I have this completely wrong, but shouldn’t it be harder? Shouldn’t this be akin to doing a TT attempt? So hold as much power as possible, finish completely drained, fighting for “survival” the last imaginary kilometers?
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The feeling changes as time goes on (just like a TT)…starts off ok…gets uncomfortable…gets bad…BUT should be a slow gradual change that kind of just creeps up on you rather than fast destruction!
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My last test:
Start - 3min, quick ramp from 60-80% maxHR
10min in - 84% maxHR
20min in - 86% maxHR
30min in - 89% maxHR
40min in - 91% maxHR
Finished after a final push at 47mins on 93% maxHR
So it was rising throughout, but steadily. I think I’d be hard pressed to hold my HR at an absolute level plateau without the power declining.
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Interesting! So if your HR in this case increases slowly to V02 max levels. How does one identify the inflection point and approx. where the FTP lies? To me those numbers looks like a tough ride that got progressively tougher, but you managed to hold on?
On my attempt. I reached 100% of LTHR after the first 10 min, at the end of the 10min 96% of FTP segment. Then it stayed there for another 10 min in the 102% of FTP segment before slowly climbing upwards. I pulled the plug at 93% of HR max (103% LTHR) 5 min later
Couple of posts above, regarding how to find the inflection point.
That looks like the inflection point in a power model? Not sure how it relates to finding your FTP from the progression test?
I am having trouble with understanding how one is supposed to “feel” the FTP. Both my attempt (invalid TTE 25min) and martinheadon’s test seem to get progressively harder for every minute for the subject (HR constantly rising).
Just quoting what Kolie Moore said how to interpret it, it’s his idea…