I contemplated doing the Progression 1 test earlier in the year but never did. I think I even created a workout for it. It’s weird as I was only thinking about it again today. I might move my future ramp tests back to Saturday and then use the number from the ramp test to perform the progression test on the Tuesday. 
Which test do you do and have you created a TR workout for it? Do you do it in ERG mode?
Progression 1. You can create a TR workout for it, or you can just do a free-ride for 90 minutes with a warmup and it will be fine. I have a long climb outside that I do mine on: Shell to Top of Mt Wilson | Strava Ride Segment in La Cañada Flintridge, CA
It’s better to not do it in ERG. Do it either in resistance mode or any other mode that doesn’t control the power.
You can do the ramp test if you want, but I’d recommend just starting safely below threshold for 10 minutes. 5w below your current FTP should be fine if you think you’ve gained some watts.
After 10 minutes, find the wave and surf it for as long you can.
Thanks @stevemz !
Has anyone done the Baseline or Progressive 1 test protocol and are willing to share their power file / experience and share their FTP from the test vs what that expected and/or it compared with mFTP? How did it feel at various points and overall?
They seem more similar to British Cyclings 30 Test than the tradition 2x 8M or 20M but I could be wrong.
I would love this too. Also, what was people’s experience regarding the differences to say the ramp test? How did you decide on your first target ftp? I realize all of this is highly individual but let’s collect some data (and by that I mean fun anecdotes).
I’ll post mine from last year later today. I’ll just have to find them and make them unprivate.
Regarding Kolie’s tests, what is a ‘gradual power increase’ ?
The baseline test is: 10 minutes at 92-95% estimated FTP, 10 minutes at FTP, and then 10-15 minutes of gradual increase.
To actual get the estimated FTP to be the average of the whole session, it looks like the gradual increase would need to get you up to about 110% of estimated FTP in order for the whole test average to work out. This puts the rate of increase at about 1%/minute. Is this about what people have been doing, or maybe just by feel?
15 minutes at FTP then the gradual increase which as you point out is going to have to average 105%+ if you do the first 10 minutes at 95% so given the first increases are around 101 - 105% I’m guessing you are correct you’ll need a linear progressing ending somewhere around 110% over 10 minutes, each second after that is going to be an improvement in FTP (unless the target FTP for the test already includes an increase FTP over previous test)
Empirical Cycling FTP Tests
BASELINE TEST, 35-45 MINUTES OR TTE
- 10 minutes at 92-95 percent of target FTP
- Increase to 100 percent of target FTP for 15 minutes
- 10-15 minutes gradual power increase until exhaustion
PROGRESSION 1, 40-50 MINUTES OR TTE + 10 MINUTES
- 10 minutes at 95 percent of target FTP
- 20-30 minutes at 100 percent of target FTP
- 10 minutes gradual power increase, if possible, until exhaustion
One thing I wonder is what constitutes a bad test. It’s pretty easy with the ramp test or the 2x8 or 1x20 tests to see that if you don’t make it through the longer test you probably overestimated and need to retest. But what about the progression 1? If you can’t step it up to 110% is that a fail or is the avg power still good?
I guessing it is less likely to get a bad test as the beginning is easier than the 2x 8M or 1x 20M and the test is progressive. However never having tried it that is a guess, hence why I’d love to hear from people that have experience of completing these tests.
Also I believe majority of people have an over estimated FTP so I would not be surprised if doing these protocols resulted in a lower FTP. I know I test about 5 - 10 watts higher on the 2x 8M Test and the 20M test has me about 5 watts higher than the WKO mFTP. My suspicion is that these tests would be closer to WKO’s mFTP.
That makes sense since they’re based around the same “inflection point” in your power curve that WKO’s modeling is based on. At least I remember Kolie saying something like that on his podcast.
That’s actually the appeal for me. Lots of my riding isn’t at threshold and most of my workouts are not long enough for ftp/critical power models to be all that useful (I only know GC’s numbers), so I’m mostly interested in these “tests” as repeatable long rides to feed data to the modeling. But if I can get rid of the ramp test which is hard to do in repeatable conditions with my specific trainer, all the better.
I totally disregard the ramp test, can’t get my head around it and it doesn’t work for me (ends up being a random number generator, lol.)
I just want a repeatable (TEST) that results in 6 month plus training in the relevant zones without burning myself out. If FTP is lower and I’m training in the correct physiological zones then I’m more than okay with that. I don’t care about all the masculine mine is bigger than yours nonsense.
Link is not working for me.
Ah. Maybe you can’t share workouts created with a private profile. Never mind.
[withdrawn]
do a one hour test! worst case scenario, you learn awesome TT skills, pacing skills, and how much work you can do for extended periods of time
Report Back:
So I tried the progression 1 test today, and think I am going to have to try again tomorrow. A couple of things that combined with my coming-off-end-of-season-break hubris and produced a failure about 20 minutes in:
I am going to try this again with 10w less and see where I end up tomorrow.
Hi David, finally gave intervals.icu a try and its a nice looking web app. However my estimated FTP (240W) was low in a certain season, so I pulled up an hour of power ride (275W estimated FTP) and saw this:
I’ve added raw power to the chart, and that same ride in Strava has 556W max power (no spikes), and 245W average for the 2 hours. Changing Power Spikes from 52% to 53% is the tipping point, which will bump estimated FTP up to 298W (too high). Here is the raw data from Edge 520:
at spike = 52%, intervals.icu power spike algorithm detects a spike at 01:54 and the rest of the 2 hour ride is shown as 207W. Dropping to 20% and the ride is 0W until 1:43:08. In summary, using default power spike % gives results that underestimate ftp, and changing to a value that includes more/all of the raw power data results in overestimating ftp. By the way, there are other rides with bad “intervals.icu processed” power data.
Tx for this. The power spike detection is relative to what you have entered as your FTP for the ride so maybe that is off? I have to go out now but I will be able to have a proper look see on Wed evening (GMT+2).
got your email and sent info. Thx.
