Learned My Lesson Finally for Ramp Tests

Well, wish me luck…doing a ramp test in the morning for the start of short power build. Interested to see how this goes. The last several weeks I’ve changed my diet significantly. Eating much healthier than I had been previously (not that I was eating poorly before…). Last month have been living off of oatmeal, brown rice, chicken breast, veggies. A lot of it… Lost a couple pounds as well, but I have to imagine with the drastically reduced beer intake, I’ve probably netted higher useful calories. We’ll see. Would like to have a nice bump in the FTP.

Going to follow my normal workout protocol. Wake up, grab a couple pieces of toast with jelly, have a big cup of coffee while watching the tour, then hop on the bike.

Well, yay for me :slight_smile:

17 watt gain to 270, two pound drop on the scale to 187. Had a tentaitve goal of trying to hit 3.5watt/kg before cross season (totally arbitrary number…). Looks like I’ve got a shot at getting close now.

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I think you are onto something. I’m about 1 1/2 years into using TR and I also had to learn this for myself. I have never done good on the ramp tests–I’ve come in below my current FTP each time–but I also ignored the results a couple of times and cumulatively have bumped my FTP up by 10% over the past year. The first 5% bump was a solid gain and I had no issues completing the workouts (they were tough but doable). But that second 5% bump, in hindsight, really did me in at times. I was absolutely wrecked after some of the SPBMV workouts.

Now that I’m entering CX Specialty and with races on the very near horizon, I took my FTP down by 5% so that I don’t completely destroy myself and sabotage my race performance. There are weekdays where I want to do a hard VO2 Max workout but then have a race the next night, for example.

So far this approach seems like it will work.