This bothered me about the test when it first came out, but I’ve learned to live with it (and that in all practicality it doesn’t matter). I just wanted a constant ramp rate for repeatability. Not sure why they made it a % of FTP. Maybe to accommodate a large range of tester experience/fitness, or maybe to avoid being overly similar to existing ramp test protocols to seem innovative. More likely because it fits nicely in the TR software which scales all workouts as percentages of FTP.
Max 1MMP for a ramp test is dependent on the test protocol, specifically the ramp rate. The higher the rate, the higher the expected max 1MMP.
Examples are 30w/3min steps (British cycling) vs 25w/min (Ric Stern/ Alex Simmons, not sure if they came up with it or where they got it). You will get very different max 1 min powers for the two, but that’s fine as long as you know how to interpret the result (i.e. you wouldn’t take .75 of the 30w/3min max minute for FTP). For example, Ric/Alex suggest that FTP is typically around .72-.77 of the 25w/min rate. Sound familiar?
I used to do the ric stern ramp protocol to test MAP, and get a 20-30W higher result than the TR test, which is roughy 13w/min rate at my FTP. So yes, starting FTP impacts the results because it impacts the ramp rate. But if your starting FTP is close (I’d say even within 50%), your test result will be close (as everyone above has observed). Part of that is the 6% scale is so low that it allows a good amount of starting FTP variation while maintaining similar ramp rates.
Interesting take on the Ramp test. I’d love to hear @chad’s thoughts on this.
Starting every Ramp test at a predetermined power could make sense from a pure testing standpoint. With performance gains a rider then “should” be able to last longer and longer as their FTP increases … of course a longer and longer FTP test is probably not ideal for most.
My thoughts exactly. I had only experienced tests with a fixed increment, say +30W each step no matter what, and this percentual step size favors going up in your resulting FTP regardless of training, simply by gettting quicker to the higher efforts. Of course it’s more and more accurate with time until eventually this effect becomes a non-issue.
However, particularly at first, the only way to truly determine the real progress attributable to training, would be to settle on a starting point and step size, and keep those constant thoughout a year or training calendar so the measure is done exactly the same way for all that period of time, instead of doing it in an increasingly favorable way.
I guess it’s a bit of harmless marketing or psychological reinforcement (you feel you are improving) and for sure @chad and the team are aware of this positive effect. It just does bother me that changing the test parameters for each test is not the most scientific way to attribute improvements to only training.