They are quite hard for me that’s why shorter times - I have basically no short power and had very poor repetability that improved a lot with this type of workout. NP usually falls around 98% of threshold so it is still a good workout. I can do 120min@90% in one go with steady state power, so as you have mentioned pretty big difference.
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At the moment, I’m trying to ramp up volume, so not too many bursts (and also doing them from z2/3 rides which is different) It’s just a general observation. Usually do stuff like 1min every 4-5 min, maybe at 120-130%. Or 30s spin ups at high cadence (which also increases power to maybe 150% ?). I do all my indoor workouts on rollers and am too scared for 200% or more accelarations, lol.
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Rollers sounds scary! 
If you do the test outside there are usually minor variations in power and even no power for turn etc. This test was probably developed with outdoors in mind not a trainer so it makes no difference.
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Here’s my first attempt to follow an FTP test that is a close approximation to the protocol.
Interval depicts average over full duration of Baseline Test.
Interval depicts highest average over 1 hour during test (I understand its an arbitrary cut off…but its so ingrained it hard not to look at it)
Interval shows average power, beginning when the test bumps up to 100% the target FTP.
First thing to note is that I understand the FTP result according to the baseline test and its progression is to take the average over the total test (and then verify via WKO5), but due to potentially mis-selecting my target FTP and not having WKO5 I’m going to blunder my way through a process I can’t pretend to have a nuanced understanding of.
After finishing the test, and looking at the results, it seems I most likely lowballed my Target FTP. I’m coming off of SSBMV after a 3 week neck/back injury that limited me to only short, low intensity rides. I believed (perhaps incorrectly) that the ramp test had overestimated my FTP, and that this protocol would help me get a more accurate picture of where I stood. Long story short, I believe I made a bad guess at my Target FTP, which causes the majority of the uncertainty in this post. It could easily be that the ramp test had overestimated me, but I made recovery gains during the base block and more than surpassed the result it had given six weeks earlier.
To quickly go over the test. If I lowballed the number, then perhaps my TTE isn’t 65 minutes at 331, but a lower period of time at a marginally higher power. It was mentioned above that this sometimes occurs when pacing is incorrect. Here are some intervals and numbers I can pull out: a 58 minute interval for 334 watts, a 55 minute interval for 335 watts , a 50 minute interval for 336 watts, and a 40 minute interval for 337 watts. From this, at the very least I know doing a progression where I started at a higher target FTP would have been interesting.
I think if I were to go by the “feel” of where threshold is, as has been discussed here, I would place it around 335/336. My last 20 minutes of the test, as I realized I was running out of workout, I pushed the pace. Last 5 minutes of test was at 344, last 20 at 340. These efforts felt like what I thought was higher than a long term sustainable pace, and at the end I felt as if I had emptied the tank by gunning it out as opposed to a controlled spiral to exhaustion.
So! Out of caution (but still an overabundance of pride), I’ve set my FTP at 333 (the hour power time, as arbitrary as that cutoff may be), and am planning to monitor upcoming workouts. I figure this is an unskilled judgement call to try to correct underestimating the target FTP, and a conservative correction is better than an over zealous one.
I’m not claiming 333 is 100% accurate, but I believe the test shows I’m somewhere between 331 and 336 most likely. I also think it’s possible one could argue it’s 340 with a lower TTE (maybe 40 minutes or something), but I think I am happy to take 333 and go from there. And next time maybe I’ll choose a more effective target FTP!
A note about my heart rate: I was averaging 15-20 beats higher than normal during the warm up – which I’m attributing in part to a morning espresso and test anxiety. My max heart rate is 190ish, so to see it so high…was alarming. But I felt fine, unlike when it spikes due to poor sleep or exhaustion. It also quickly rose to 175 and plateaued, then when I reached the “target” ftp interval to 178 and plateaued, before increasing slowly over the last 20 minutes to 182, and then in the last five spiking to 184-186. I’m content to accept HR data as highly variable and move on.
Besides my fumbles when attempting this protocol without a better foundational knowledge concerning accurately determining FTP, I think this protocol is incredible because it shows what you can do. For many cyclists who often race, or have hard group rides, this may not be as big a deal. But as someone who started cycling last summer and hasn’t raced at all, all of my numbers are based on structured workouts I’ve done. I did not have an all out effort to exhaustion (and perhaps i don’t have a genuine one still). This effort bolsters my mental strength tremendously because now I know what I can do for long stretches. Kaweah looked very tough before, but now it seems completely manageable.
I’m still curious what the Ramp Test would say. I have a feeling it would put me in the 340s, due to a conviction (whether founded or unfounded) that I test to a higher number via the ramp test… but I won’t know unless I try. Which I don’t really feel like doing right now…
Edit: After typing this up, I feel the need to say I also get that the difference between 331 and 333 and maybe 336 is basically irrelevant for the impact of workouts in the next block, but I was super excited after finishing the workout and needed to tell an audience that was more receptive to bike ramblings than my partner or cat.
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Why not do a ramp test as another data point?
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That’s a fair point, and I probably should. I’m excited to get lost in the weeds of the next block, but maybe I’ll throw it in next Monday as I come off a rest day. Would definitely be a useful data point!
If you’re going to do that to assess MAP, which is the only reason I can think of, it’d be better to use a standard, fixed step size protocol, rather than the TR one.
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Interesting. Will be fun to do my own deep dive to learn more about the implications of proper ramp protocols in relation to MAP testing, and what the proportion of my FTP to MAP implies (or why assessing MAP is useful). Thanks for pointing me down that path!
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Did the Baseline Test for the first time and averaged 315w for 41’. That makes it 90.5% of my 20min power, so I’m actually happy to see that it was worth it to do the test.
Having only ever done VO2max work before and never really any consistent FTP block, I was curious about you guys and how you progressed by doing a standard FTP block like I plan to do.
My plan is to do 3 100% FTP workouts a week while slowly creeping up the TiZ. So my first week would be : 2x22’ ; 4x12’ and 3x17’.
2nd week : 2x25’ ; 4x13’ and 3x19’ etc.
What are your thoughts ? Am I increasing too slowly or too quickly ?
How did you improve by doing such a block ?
I would suggest lowering the target to 97-98% - you will get the same adaptations but you will work little more aerobicaly without the power surges over FTP and recovery will be easier.
Your progression makes me mad as the interval lengths are not multiplication of 5 and I hate this 
4x12 will be easier than 2x22. I would go: 4x10, 3x15, 2x20, 4x15, 3x20, 2x30 in terms of TiZ.
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Thanks for the tips ! I feel like I naturally lean towards 97-98%, during the first 2x22’, I “felt” FTP just a couple watts lower than 315.
I hate it as well but I’m afraid that adding 5’ each workout is going to be a bit too much so that’s why I chose those awful numbers, sorry about that…
Hopefully I’ll feel good enough to round them up.
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Did the kolie moore test last night, and made it all the way through with an average power of 286.
Question: do I use this as my ftp going forward, or do I need to bump it up since I was able to make it the whole 40 minutes?
Edit: I did not realize that that you are supposed to go till failure. The workout file I uploaded had the main portion of the test lasting approximately 40 minutes. That was almost the limit anyway. I might have made it another couple of minutes.
That being said, would 285 be a safe bet moving forward into my threshold block?
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There isn’t an ‘end’ to the protocol other than when you quit. Your FTP is likely ~285 but you only know that your TTE is > 30 minutes.
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There is no ‘whole 40 minutes’ you keep going as long as you can, after a certain point increasing the power each minute or so.
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Yes.
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What I understand for the KM test ramping format is, it makes more obvious to find out where the target power and your actual power curve crosses. If one choose target FTP correctly, once he enter the ramping stage, he will experience gradual increase in anaerobic intervention in his legs. Becomes much more harder to keep things steady and cadence fluctuate.
Once you cross over the your theoretical power curve during the test, you should not be able to sustain increasing target power and I think that’s why KM’s format has ramping format. Find TTE in more obvious way by making some point of failure.
Need to fix that bad data at 1 second.
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I completed the TR ramp test yesterday followed by Kolie Moore’s baseline test today. The baseline test consisted of the first 20 minutes of “Hour Record” for warm-up followed by the test protocol with a ramp-up to 108% for the final 15-minute block.
The tests were preceded by the 2nd block of the Sustained Power Build mid volume plan and a rest week.
The ramp test resulted in a FTP of 291W (3.8W/kg), the baseline test 293W (3,8W/kg) with a TTE of 38:04 minutes. So, the results are almost identical for my physiology. I would classify them as equally challenging. The ramp test is harder for shorter, the baseline test is still hard for a bit longer. However, the latter is more strenuous on the body.
Moving forward I will still use the ramp test as my go-to test protocol because it’s quicker and easier to recover from. But occasionally supplementing this test protocol as test-confirmation/tte-determination/workout hybrid.
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hey Forum,
question on training once you know your TTE, how do you go about using this number for your aerobic base training. I understand from the Tim Cusik seminar that we generally work towards extending the TTE or 200% of TTE with sweetspot work.
however, is TTE relevant for say zone 2 training/fatigue resistance? if so how do you go about using TTE for this type of training.