You should never base such arguments around a sample size of N = 1. There are many measurable quantities which correlate with FTP, no matter how you define FTP. There are always statistical variations based on your abilities and your definitions of FTP.
TR’s decision a few years ago to fix FTP (which ≠ “hour power”) at 75 % of MAP was a limitation they were aware of. Ultimately, ramp tests are used in plenty of scientific studies to determine fitness, because they are simple and thus, reliable.
Those studies using a 1 min ramp to measure vo2 max have the individual strapped to a cart. Which i do agree, the ramp is a good proxy for vo2max.
I never said ftp was 1 hour power specifically, but 1 hour is a better approximation. Ftp is a functionally derived estimate of mlss which can be held for a variable time depending on the individual. In my own case i was testing with lactate at 10 minute intervals at my ramp tested ftp.
I’m not sure you actually read what i wrote, my anecdotal story was just something that caused me to dig deeper in to the ramp. That it is estimating 84% fractional utilization when real world data shows that average is closer to 80, and so your mlss could be overestimated by what looks like 1 sd. Being able to complete a workout with relatively short intervals is a poor metric to validate ftp like some do with lamarck.
MAP strongly correlates with FTP, so you can infer FTP from that.
I’m not so sure, and if you follow the proper testing protocol, very hard and time consuming. So hard that IMHO it is impractical. And I would say “hour power” is not a better indicator of FTP than MAP, not least because a 1 hour all-out effort is more of a test of your mental than your physical capabilities. People who are good at harder, shorter efforts could seriously underperform here.
I am not sure where you have that data from. FTP correlates with MAP, and for most people is 72–77 % of FTP.
Lamarck and its iterations like Gray are to improve your mental fortitude, not to test whether your FTP has been set correctly.
That would be really well trained.
This is how I ended to determinate LT1 (and I also regularly measure lactates…)
I use 30min HR and 1h+ drift and I want to have max 5% of a drift.
You didn’t notice your typo, that said 60 hour for lt2.
Yeah, you said 60 hour power…
I didn’t mean to say that they’re wasn’t a correlation between vo2max and mlss, just that tr’s calculation of 75% of ppo is higher than anything I’ve seen in a published study. That link you provided is anecdotal at best, but then goes on to instruct individuals to validate their ramp estimate with a longer test to calibrate.
This study in well-trained cyclists using a 3 min/step protocol showed mlss avg roughly 72% of ppo in males, and 69% in the females. Average vo2max of almost 70. And they were light too, average weight of 58 kg, so def not sprinters. But the two were highly correlated, .96 for this study.
No, it is not anecdotal. I’ve linked to this article by Ric Stern. He’s the inventor of the ramp test and according to his blog post, 97 % of the athletes whose data he has had access to had their FTP fall within 72 and 77 % of MAP. Perhaps there is newer research out there, but that’s where I got my numbers from. He wrote that he was contacted by TR and they asked him, and back then he (in his own words) lazily replied 75 % (which is roughly in the middle of 72 % and 77 %). He now recommends a slightly different approach for inexperienced people using a ramp test alone, namely that they start at the low end.
Sure it is, later in the exact same paragraph that you quote, Stern writes:
I didn’t say that 75 % is the right figure to compute your FTP from your MAP, I was just explaining why (according to Stern) 75 % stuck.
@Nate_Pearson said on the Adaptive Training episode of TR’s main podcast that going for 75 % was a deliberate decision on their part, they were well aware that it was a range rather than a fixed number. If you mistook my previous post as saying that this is why TR uses 75 %, then I misspoke. But going for the middle of the distribution makes sense in the context of TR’s first approach (and still current, unless you are on the private beta) — you are meant to adjust your FTP yourself if you are closer to the edges of the distribution.
Photoshop.
Thanks for the morning laugh - I nearly spit out my coffee from laughing at the irony.
Ric Stern wrote this:
”over 97% of the people I tested or whose data I had access too, was that their best ~1 hour power was always in the region of 72 - 77%.”
72-77% of best ~1 hour power
context of his coaching work at the time:
” I was interested in how hard athletes could ride for 1 hour (I was mainly interested and helping with the World Hour Record, and also interested in the critical power concept). I noted that riders could maintain about 70ish percent of their MAP for 1 hour.”
This was back in the 90s, before power meters were widely available. So not most people.
and in the article he concludes with
”I strongly suggest that for anyone who races, that they complete both a 20-minute TT test (or a 60ish-minute one) and a MAP test. Seeing where you lay on the % scale can provide valuable insight into what sort of training may be required for you”
Keep in mind the % can change depending on training - a lot of sweet spot will drive the % up and a lot of vo2max will drive it down - even if MAP is basically constant. So trying to use % MAP for FTP estimation is a moving target.
Anyways if you like the ramp test use it but realize it provides a fuzzy estimate of FTP. I wouldn’t rely on ramp FTP for pacing long hard efforts like a TT or climb. Heck I wouldn’t rely on it to pace sweet spot workouts, but thats just me.
Like FTP, using MAP (ramp test) as a measuring stick comes with positives and negatives.
Not to sound too critical, but incremental tests were around before Stern, as he says in the original article linked from 2001, and the ramp used by TR is not the same as his protocol either. While still in beta testing, the TR folks did try a range, but settled on 75% based on workout compliance rate. The podcast guys were the ones suggesting to use specific workouts to validate FTP, not to test mental toughness. As even if you have a TTE of 40 minutes, 4x10 minutes should feel relatively easy
So did Rick actually post up the results to validate his statement? or is it just a statement that is oft repeated? I didn’t see a link to data. That is what makes it difficult to use as a source, when other published and peer reviewed data sets suggest that MLSS is lower than a mean of 75% of PPO from a graded exercise test, more like 72%. That slight difference doesn’t seem like much, but as Ric mentioned in his article, the slight overestimation of FTP by even 10 watts was detrimental to his own training.
another published study shows MLSS closer to 72% but this time lightly trained individuals.
and another, in elites, it was 73%
Also, this gem I found, just to throw some mud in the waters… 1 hour power and FTP… After all, IF and thus TSS are all centered around 60 minutes, so trying to change the definition of FTP, when it was originally “1 hour power” doesn’t make it so unless you also then change pacing and training metrics to account for that change. From a Coggan blog 11 years ago.
No need to be acerbic.
I missed that. And the point about the group of athletes being more highly trained is also a good one. Which is why I asked for clarification.
Sure, and simple thing like sleep and daily form can easily nudge the test a few percentage points, too. In my experience, that variation is larger than the slow shift of FTP-as-percentage-of-MAP (N = 1, so take that with a grain of salt).
That‘s true of any test that does not directly measure FTP and only correlates, which is the vast, vast majority of FTP tests.
Do you know who is credited for inventing the ramp test?
I don‘t think the difference in testing protocol is such a big deal. It just means that Stern‘s ramp test results are not directly comparable to TR‘s and Zwift‘s.
I‘m not sure most people know their time-to-exhaustion. I don‘t. (Although I have done hill climb TTs, so I reckon it is larger than 60 minutes.)
That‘s clear, and this indeed complicates discussions, although zone boundaries are often defined in terms of lactate thresholds (e. g. the 3-zone model, but also Coggan‘s 7-zone model since the boundary between Zones 4 and 5 is where efforts become anaerobic). To my knowledge Coggan is also self-critical. Originally, he proposed to subtract 5 % from a 20-minute steady state all-out test. Now the recommendation is AFAIK 15 %, unless you are experienced and know that your FTP is higher relative to 85 % of the 20-minute effort.
Some publications I have seen use FTP_20 and FTP_60 (20 and 60 are typeset as subscripts) even though “FTP_20” is in my understanding (as a non-expert) considered to be an FTP by no-one, it is just the result of specific test. Other publications use MAP directly (which is smart), because it circumvents the whole inferring FTP issue.
But if you want to train, to my knowledge most people do not test “FTP” directly (either defined as ~1-hour effort or lactate threshold 2). Even the recommended TTE test protocol I have seen bandied about on this forum first uses a ramp test to estimate TTE power.
Hey I’ve done the same and didn’t completely read or understand something I posted to support a talking point. Just trying to be fun, and, well having read that one repeatedly I really did LOL and almost spit out some coffee.
Peace and no offense meant, I’ve done it too 
Oh, regarding ramp tests try search “graded exercise test” and you probably need to toss in stationary bike or something.
I actually did read the entire post a few months ago as part of one of the polarized training discussions (not sure which thread). It’s just that I didn’t re-read completely it to remind myself of the subtleties. I should have remember that Stein used Coggan’s old 1-hour power definition of FTP rather than LT2, that’s my bad.
Ok this is a nit, but this work was:
He also looked at other racing data which I’ll assume was for hard races longer than an hour (assumption). Not many power meters in those days.
It’s easy to get sucked into the boundary must be this, or it must be that. Then someone to argue that it’s not.
I don’t think anyone is going to argue (well they probably will 
) that accumulate lots of time at a pace where the difficulty / fatigue arrives with duration not intensity. Then also accumulate some time around that 90% max of HR region.
Indoor trainers and erg mode has perhaps lead to this must hit a certain percentage or power number etc. I find pick a hill outdoors that is about 4-6 mins to reach the crest or an obvious landmark and go as hard as you can puts you in vo2 max territory. Repeat as much as you desire. Then ride at conversational pace till your legs fatigue then go a little longer is good for low intensity efforts. Outdoor efforts can be done on RPE. Look at your GPS and power / HR data later.
Will lead to improvements without getting bogged down staring at numbers during a ride.
Structured training doesn’t have to be indoors nor does it have be about precise percentages of HR or power numbers. Get the workouts in the ball park. It’s good enough for the vast majority of us.
