I’ve seen plenty of talk about how it is preferable to do an FTP test in a seated position rather than out of the saddle but I haven’t been able to discover examples of anyone talking about the difference between seated on a flat road vs seated at an incline, say 5-10%. Is this “allowable” for accurate results or is a flat road position really what we should be aiming at.
Every rider is different of course and some find their max power on flat roads but I am definitely a rider who benefits biomechanically when the front wheel comes up a bit. I feel much more comfortable and can put out more power for longer.
I tend to try to stay at 0% incline and only tilt my KiCKR bike up to about 7% or so when I feel like I’m at the edge of blowing up for that extra little relief to get me to the end of an interval but how much do I really need to keep this biomechanical preferece in reserve? Why not lean into my strengths a bit? When route planning outdoors I do tend to gravitate towards climbing routes more in general, I just enjoy it more than flat roads presumably because my body is naturally happy in that position.
I don’t think it really matters as far as your “ftP “goes. Think about it, whether you are riding on the flats, up steep Hills, or rollers your power output is what it is. As far as testing your FTP being that it’s a longer test depending on what your protocol is, how you position your body is only relevant to the terrain. If you’re testing indoors or even outdoors, you’re probably going to be seated for a type of effort. That is a mostly consistent effort. Getting out of the saddle makes sense if it has to do with the terrain or perhaps trying to be comfortable. And as far as testing goes, you just wanna be consistent so if you do it on an incline or on a flat or even a decline as long as you are able to have a baseline, you should be good.
You will get a different result if you change the testing conditions.
Your goals matter and how you intend to train matter, positional changes do affect power production.
If your goals are focused on riding uphill and you normally climb out of the saddle and or with the bike tilted uphill at 7% then testing your FTP with those positional changes is probably a good idea. Conversely if you are training for a flat time trial, do your testing and training in your aero tuck position.
Lastly FTP is a steady state effort, you shouldn’t be standing up to sprint at any point during the test,
Ftp is just a small, one-dimensional picture of your fitness. It helps to guide your workouts around threshold power. The number in itself is somewhat irrelevant.
Thus, I would do the test in similar conditions in which you will do most of your threshold workouts. If you do your workouts on climbs, I’d do the test on a climb. If you prefer flats, do the test on a flat route. Same goes for indoor and outdoor workouts.
And of course, if you want to improve your ability to produce power on flats then you probably want to do at least some portion of your workouts on flats. Then it might be useful to test your ftp on flats somewhat regularly to help track your progress.
I guess, in a sense, flat road FTP, climbing FTP, out-of-the-saddle FTP, etc are all really kind of separate metrics in a way. Best to just stick to one for testing for consistency sake.