Another approach:
Nope, because training isnât going out everyday doing max efforts. Almost every day I train I could do more.
Also, weâre on the TrainerRoad forum. Most are not using their full power duration curve. They are using one number.
IMO, If you arenât able to complete Darwin 3x12 the day after your ramp test, then your FTP is too high.
Who said anything about doing maximal efforts?
Also, it doesnât matter what forum weâre on, the logic still applies.
Yeah. Maybe not right afterâŚbut next day or 48 hours later. Do a little thing that answers, âWhat is my max hr today?â And then ride at your new FTP for 20 or 30 minutes. How much of your HR reserve did that 20 minute interval consume? If youâre at 95% by the end thatâs probably not your FTP. Adjust downward.
That would have the added advantage of also catching those riders who might have an UNDERestimated FTP.
What % of max HR corresponds to FTP? How much does it vary between individuals?
According to this study, trained cyclists can maintain anywhere between 78 and 95% of VO2max for an hour. Wouldnât the % of max HR be just as variable?
Thanks, I donât remember reading this one.
Yep. Somewhere in the past on the forum I proposed the same idea. A workout to validate FTP for SS/threshold workouts. And a workout to validate VO2max for above threshold stuff. That would help people avoid the trap I fell into with FTP too high from ramp. And the likes of Lamarck being absolutely brutal.
I wonder if you would be able to share an example workout/progression for âVO2â workouts that are based off MAP?
Very true.
Iâve almost given up trying to get an accurate FTP. Itâs like trying to hit a bullseye on a dart board, on a ship, in a storm. Itâs far more variable than I originally thought.
Personally, I dramatically over test on ramp tests. The first time I did one I nearly had a party the number was so high. Iâve since learned Iâm basically just one anaerobic system wrapped in skin.
Whatâs normal for Wâ, FRC, something around 18kJ?
Depending on training mine seems to be north of 30kJ, maybe as high as 36kJ when fully trained.
It would certainly be useful to know your FRC, even loosely, before ramp testing. That could help inform what percentage to use.
I currently just take 90% of a 20min effort, even thatâs probably too high 
Ramp test, donât even bother anymore, even though I far prefer it. Based on that, Iâd be World TourâŚ
I think thatâs only the case if the anaerobic work in both grows the same way. Since the anaerobic contribution increases for each step over FTP on the ramp test that isnât the case. Correct my if Iâm wrong, but my understanding is that anaerobic capacity is the amount of work a rider can do over FTP.
For a fixed step rate (e.g. 20W/min) the time to complete the ramp test grows linearly with FTP. The time over FTP can be calculated as roughly: (FTP / 0.75 - FTP) / WattsPerStep * SecondsPerStep. So the bigger the FTP the more time over FTP. Because the anaerobic contribution is increased with each step the anaerobic work doesnât grow linearly with FTP but quadratically.
Assuming perfect pacing the time spent over FTP will always be 20 minutes for the 20 minute test. Thus the anaerobic work in the 20 minute test scales linearly with FTP because of the 0.95 factor.
So while the anaerobic work required for lower FTPs in the ramp test might not be as great as for the 20 minute test at some FTP it will be more demanding as the anaerobic work needed for each test will intersect because it grows much faster for the ramp test.
After a reasonable amount of testing, investigation and experience with structured training I think this is the right thing to do.
Testing gives a value that may or may not be accurate to the precision we would wishâŚbut it is good enough. We then apply alterations to workouts as we feel at the time.
Precisely.
If Iâm climbing some hill and Iâm supposed to be able to do it at X watts, what happens when I canât? Do I try harder, do I ease up?
No, we go on feel. Itâs a thing people did before they invented FTP.
Feel. Itâs a thing.
What it needs is a fancy new acronym. People would be all over it.
PTE⌠Personal Threshold Estimation
Whatâs your PTE? 500W bro, whatâs your measured PTE, ah⌠150W.
Can somebody explain to me how itâs even possible that all these different RAMP test protocols are supposed to arrive at one value (MAP). I see Ric Stern has at least 3 protocols with steps of 25, 20, or 15 depending on your elite level and gender, TR uses a percentage of a guestimate of your FTP, and Zwift uses 20 (I think).
I thought that most models of what a person can do above threshold power {TP) assume an expenditure of close to a fixed amount of kJ, before you have to recover under TP. Now assuming somebody has an FTP of 300 watt. When the steps are 25 watt, and the person has done 325, 350, ⌠400 watt he has expended 15 kJ in the 4 minutes above FTP. If that was his limit, than if we change the watts per step, a smaller watts increase per step would make him quit earlier, and not reach the same one-minute power. For example with 12.5 watt steps: completing the 400 watt step means he has done 27 kJ in 8 minutes above his FTP. Or put otherwise: if 15kJ was his limit, he would not even have reached the full 6 minutes, and his one minute power would have been a little under 375 instead of 400 watt.
So whether you do the TR protocol, the Zwift protocol, or whether Ric Stern categorizes you as elite or amateur, all have quite a big impact on the actual âMAPâ you can possibly reach, and hence the FTP that is calculated from that?
Coach I worked with for several years baked validations into his testing protocol. We would test twice a season. Once going into base and another coming out of build. Rest of the time could easily tell what was going on with workout and race data. Actually, all the time but testing felt like a reasonable thing to do as a check.
TL;DR Itâs a good idea.
I did set out a âvalidation weekâ of workouts like Lamarck, Spencer and so on but for various reasons never got round to using it. Almost like a week long 4DP test. Would be a simple thing to be added to the Enthusiast section of Speciality.
Itâd be good if in account settings you could set what percentage of MAP you think your FTP is. Or have it auto adjust based on how often a user adjust intensity during a workout.
In 2018 I took part in a lung function study. Part of that was gas exchange ramp test etc. My LT2 came out at 81.1% of VO2 max.
Iâm on the other side of the curve and 75% is too low for me. So I just generally change the FTP to 80% of the ramp test highest one minute power and that works just right.
It works almost exactly as I described. Thatâs why you can estimate CP just as well using a series of ramp tests at different ramp rates as you can using several constant load tests to failure. (The ramp rate and Wâ I assumed are implied by the difference between the ramp and 20 minute powers I used in my example.)
If you match the correction factor - for example, TRâs 75% - to the ramp rate you can be correct on average. IOW, accurate, but not necessarily precise. If you mix-and-match correction factors, youâll be neither.
One way of looking at it is that Sternâs 72-77% range is partially due to the different ramp rates British Cycling used back in the day. OTOH, itâs possible that the range would be even wider with a constant ramp rate, since the ratio of anaerobic capacity to FTP could systematically vary between women, amateur, and elite cyclists.
Yes, that looks it, thanks for the info.