I can’t see how FTP TTE is really relevant to this. Just keep progressing your Z2 rides longer and longer, especially the weekend long ride, up to the point that fits your goals.
I don’t, really. Most of the time I’m on a TR plan where the workout duration and interval duration doesn’t adjust based on my assessment. When I put together a training block myself last year, I was finding workouts to increase the interval duration from 15 minutes up to about 30 minutes (at or near threshold). A TTE that was 10 minutes longer or shorter wouldn’t have really changed my approach, to be honest.
For me, the bigger use of TTE is to add a little context to the power numbers in the baseline test. If I eke out a few extra watts but quit sooner, that’s less of a “gain” than if I get a few more watts with similar or longer TTE.
None of this is claimed to be “right.” It’s just what I do currently.
I’ve listened to a fair few of his podcasts and he uses the TTE to carve up threshold interval sessions, for example you might start with 4x10 and then progress to 3x15 with a TTE of 38 minutes.
In one of the question and answer podcasts he was asked ‘how much Z2 work do I need to do do progress’? and the answer was ‘more than you are doing now’, which he acknowledged was flippant but maintained was true.
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My first attempt at the test and I think I bodged it? However I hit power pbs across my curve!
So I cracked at 26mins, here’s my list of excuses/observations/coping mechanisms. feedback much appreciated
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As everyone said above, your legs don’t feel as thrashed after the test vs the ramp test.
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I managed to hit 345w for 8 mins just last week vs 26mins at 288w today. Does that mean I have a very under-developed TTE at threshold vs anaerobic capacity?
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I realise that my TTE sub 30mins sucks, does that mean I did the test wrong? or maybe both?
I think you need to pace better and aim for at least 40 minutes. At least you now know your FTP is less than 288w
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It looks like you went straight to progression 3 because you start at or near 100% FTP. This is the end progression because it assumes you have a good target. It’s probably not great to start off with in ERG as you’ll end too quickly if it your target is too high. I think you want to get to 35 mins to feel more confident in using the value to set workouts.
Try again with the baseline format? Make sure you are well rested?
At the very least, you had a good 20 min effort.
Fascat coaching, “We take the average 20 minute power and subtract 5 – 10% to arrive at an athlete’s 60 minute “Functional Threshold Power” or FTP. As a generally rule of thumb we use 5% for slow twitch aerobic athletes and 10% for athletes that have a well developed anaerobic system. We’ll subtract 7.5% if we don’t know about the athlete’s anaerobic capacity.”
will try baseline! thanks!
Unless you’re off the couch and just started cycling this week for the first time ever, or you just did a really hard build block and got a big jump in FTP at the expense of TTE, then you should be looking for a 40+ minute TTE, absolute minimum. In the case of someone brand new or with a serious FTP increase, still 35 minutes or more.
I feel like we need to sticky this fact in this thread somehow…
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Substract 5% from your ftp and try again. Really the aim is to feel when you’re at ftp, and hold it there for as long as you can. For durations of up to 20 mins or so, you will still have a sizeable anaerobic contribution to your power, so you want to go past that duration by quite a bit to make sure you are actually only measuring your aerobic capabilities.
It does take a few goes to get right though! Unless you’re an experienced TTer I guess.
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Think that comes out at 275w.
I had calculated 270 - 275w based on the PDC shown so I think you’ve got that about right.
Personally I would start at 270w see how that feels after 5 minutes, and push it up to the 275w and carry on from there.
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Way more sophisticated than me! I just thought, he basically did a 20min test, so ftp is about 5% less…
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Did 310 watts for 10 minutes then raised to 330 watts based on couple of efforts I did in the end of last block.
Some people seem to think these longer test are extremely brutal and should be done sparingly. Is there physiological reasons or is it mostly mental? I don’t race and train hard only 15% of the time, so I’m not really concerned.
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I think the aversion to 60 min tests is more psychological than physiological. It’s not like you are redlining the engine or tearing muscles. I still find them unpleasant, but it’s worth it since the estimate inspires greater confidence.
Fascat coaching site said they tried having athletes do 60 min tests but it didn’t work out well overall. They find 20 min tests with a different calculation a better solution. I think I saw a post by KM saying his athletes test quarterly usually instead of monthly.
It’s probably analogous to pain (eg eating spicy food), the amplitude of the signal can vary but extended duration above a certain threshold is more unpleasant. Your tongue isn’t actually burning, your nerves are just firing. People may prefer slightly more pain for shorter durations.
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I’m going to have a go at the baseline next week, anyone have any tips other than man up and dig deep haha
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Optimize sleep and cooling, take in carbs before and during the test (I make 2 bottles with 60g carbs and try to sip every 5 mins), play some hype music to reduce RPE.
Make sure the ramp at the end is very long so that you have ZERO chance of making it to the end of the test. If your end ramp ends at 10-15 mins as described in the training peaks article, your final estimate will just confirm your pre-test FTP and won’t give you opportunity to improve if you lowballed your estimate.
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To be fair I used that point as well - 20m, almost equal to 25 minutes slight adjustment 1% (which doesn’t change much) and 8 minutes ish. Wasn’t really anymore sophisticated than looking at 20 min, pretty much the same result, just might tweaked it down a few watts.
I only do these on long climbs. Can’t imagine doing them on the trainer.
reattempted it today with better sleep and more carbs. avg 289 for almost 37mins vs 26 mins at 288 ytd. Guess I can work off this number?
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How did it feel? (e.g. did your legs burn? How was your breathing? What caused you to stop?)
Nice! Makes more sense with the 8 min power you did prior. I like intervals.icu set to 1800s for eFTP, the power curve might tell you your 1hr number is closer 285 but that’s a small difference. Since you did back to back tests, you might even test higher in the near future. The question is whether you want to repeat baseline versus try a progression to lengthen the duration. I think baseline’s SS phase 1 could be helpful in terms of warming up. Progression 3 might need a little more warmup since it gets to 100% really quick.
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