Measuring Progression - Indoor/Outdoor FTPs different - Is ATL/CTL skewed?

Hi - thanks in advance for any replies. 41/m, 204lbs, ~238 FTP, about 1.5yr into TR and structured training, ~6k miles per year

My indoor and outdoor FTP are pretty different. My KICKR Bike runs quite a bit lower. My FTP was actually 239 on a Kickr Core / Real Bike setup in Oct 22. I got a KICKR bike (standalone unit) and started failing workouts and dropped FTP manually to about 216. Over the past year, I raised to 246 in Sep '23.

My question is more about measuring progress rather than matching power. Using intervals.icu, outdoor rides bump up my ATL considerably more than indoor rides. On 12/26 through 12/30 all indoors, I did 6.5hrs (2hr Z2, 2hr Z2, 1hr interval, 1.5hr Z2) and I’m still in the gray zone. Part of this is definitely that my area is hilly and I’ll spike watts a little on outdoor rides - which will impact my normalized power. And part of this is that my power readings are just higher outdoors.

Should I just ignore intervals.icu?
Should I just focus on improving PLs in TR?

I would like to be training close to optimally, but after 6.5hrs in the past 4 days, my legs are sore and I’m still in the gray zone. To get into the green while riding indoors, I’d have to do stuff I can’t easily recover from. I’m really struggling on how to make sure I’m progressing!

Thanks!

Under settings in intervals.icu you can enter an indoor FTP that’s different from outside.

I don’t know if you have to manually check what was an indoor ride or outdoor ride, or it does it automatically…i would think the latter.

You can also go to the activities page (easier on desktop and not phone) and change the FTP for every ride that you’ve done inside in the past.

I wouldn’t focus on staying in the ‘green zone’ though, especially trying to accumulate fatigue just to get there. Follow the TR plan and put in the work, and use intervals.icu to keep an eye on your fatigue and CTL and use the tools there to try to understand your training and body more.

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