Trained on 282 FTP for a month, Ramp Test todays says 275 FTP - what to do?

Training
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I bet you’d happily have accepted a higher FTP value and used that for training.

If you believe the protocol works, you move your FTP target one way or the other.

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24

A lot of things in this topic jump out at my as to why many people fail or have a hard time with their training. (Please nobody get defensive. I’m not responding to any one post.)

  1. They don’t want to test. (What’s the big deal? You ride 8-10-12 hours per week and can’t find an hour for a test every 4 to 8 weeks?)

  2. Reluctance to take a smaller number despite the test results staring you in the face. Pick a solid test protocol an stick to it. Even sticking to the ramp is probably better than constantly guessing and making up numbers unless you are an extreme over-tester.

  3. Thinking that the sweet spot base workouts are too easy. It’s base, sweet spot, and it’s December. It’s supposed to be relatively easy.

I think people don’t realize that 10-20 minute sweet spot interval should feel very doable, if not a piece of cake. Even a 10 minute threshold interval should be easy. Think about it. You are riding at a power that you should be able to maintain for an hour or more. 10 to 20 minutes of that should be easily achievable. If sweet spot workouts are soul crushing then you FTP is over stated by a lot. End of story.

When you are doing aerobic training, it’s way better to hit a lower power and be sure you are under threshold rather than a higher power and getting too much anaerobic contribution. What do you think the adaptation difference is between 85%, 90%, and 95%? Very little difference.

If FTP is set unrealistically or you over test on the ramp, then you are no longer dong sweet spot base but rather Threshold base, or worse VO2max base. One might hit good numbers after six weeks of threshold but then you’ll fall apart later in the season. You might win the group ride in January but then stall out and not progress further.

Testing protocol

I highly recommend the Kolie Moore baseline (35-45 minutes). It’s a slowly ramping test. The first 20-30 minutes are relatively easy. Doing this type of effort actually allows you to feel your threshold. You can kind of surf along just below your threshold and when you pop above it, you’ll feel instantly that it won’t be sustainable and that maybe you have 5 or 10 minutes left. I like this way better than the 20 minute test. 20 minutes at 105% or so, IS soul crushing.

One you have a solid test result and a good feel for your threshold, try some intervals at 100%, 95%, 90%, 85% and learn how it feels. It will not be soul crushing.

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