I typically take a long time (30-60 minutes) to fully warm up. At that point RPE falls off a cliff and I feel like I’m able to ride with much higher intensity. This is borne out on group rides time and time again where I’m really struggling to keep up for the first 45 minutes then I’m able to keep up or give others some pressure. Can there please be an option to increase the warmup length on Ramp Tests? I can understand how including 30-40 minutes of spinning would likely skew the results, but I’m my case so too does the inadequate warmup.
Do a free ride before the ramp test to warm up. However, for comparison sake going forward, ensure you do this same warm up before every future ramp test. I ride 10 mins in resistance mode to warm up and calibrate my trainer (Kickr Snap), before and separate from the ramp test.
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Thanks for the suggestion. I looked for a “warmup” workout but did not find one. I’ll look into free ride. Cheers
Not sure you want to do one of these before a Ramp, but here is a list of pre-race warm up suggestions:
As mentioned, you can do any warm up that you like. But be consistent and do the same one for all future tests.
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I use Clyde as my go to warmup workout
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I do 20 mins easy in resistance mode on my Kickr snap before loading the Ramp test as well - at 51 I need a go wu before starting - I always do at least 25 mins before a tt as well - unless it is a 50m tt where 10-15 mins suffices as I ease into the effort in the first 5 miles.
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I always do Dan’s before a ramp test. Stop, b-room break, then ramp test. Takes me a while to get going.
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Posted this in another thread related to longer warm-ups before harder workouts, occasionally I’ll do Clyde - something stepped like this might work for you or just free ride at an aerobic pace?
As said above, recommended to make sure it’s repeatable for you each ramp test.
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Did you ever find a good method for this? Like you, it takes me forever to get fully warm (8ish miles outside). I feel like that hurts my ramp tests in a bad way.
I did a ramp test on Tuesday and had a 3 watt increase (195-198) even though I’ve been doing workouts at 105% recently and felt like the increase should be more. So I did another one yesterday, but did a custom 30 minute workout first (a short version of Carillon with tweaked intensity) to warm up first. The result? An additional 5 watt increase (198-203), for a total of 8 watts. That’s closer to what I was thinking my increase would be in the first place.
I’m going to try a 45-minute Carillon warm up before my next ramp test because I think that will really get me where I need to be before hitting it hard.
As an aside, I hate putting hard FTP numbers in posts because of “FTP shaming” and always feel like I have to share my weight alongside those numbers to somehow justify my sub-250 FTP. Trying not to do that and stop caring what assholes think though. Anyone else deal with that?
I’ve been doing Dans before my ramp tests. Takes longer for these old bones to get moving.
This is what I’ve been doing, although I think I’ve been making a mistake but unsure why. I’ve dropped my FTP pre test by 100 this gives me a while longer to spin and work though a high numbers
I followed the advice of others and did Dan’s prior to my last test with good success. Small sample size, but indoors on a trainer with sustained low intensity definitely got me warm. I did a couple snaps to activate higher output energy systems and got a 5% jump in FTP!
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