While I’ve been happy with the AI FTP detection, it has required some shifts in how I think about training and progress. Obviously, some users are having technical issues with the changes. This post isn’t for them, but for I suspect the majority of us simply trying to come to terms with something new.
Until the update, I’d been using FTP one, as a way to categorize my fitness and two, to compare myself to others.
#1 Fitness: We’ve all heard the advice to test FTP every 4-6 weeks for the number to be relevant. Like most people though, once I tested, that just became my FTP, even if months went by before testing again. The AI detection is a hard stop to the static FTP mindset. If subtle adjustments to a training plan, work travel, family stress, etc can move the projected FTP needle, then I have to accept that FTP is a dynamic and fluid measure of my capabilities. I have no doubt this is how it was intended back when the concept was introduced, but I admit I started treating it like a status symbol. And TBH one of my biggest mental hurdles when setting a new test date was the fear that I wouldn’t be able to match my previous FTP. Which brings me to…
#2 Comparing myself to others (and previous me): FTP was a convenient way to identify riders stronger and weaker than me. And I suspect like most people, I took this as a holistic number that accurately described how “good” they, and I, were. Besides ignoring the elements of fitness that FTP doesn’t measure, this also discounted the wide range of FTP tests people use (ramp, 20min, etc), whether they were super fresh that testing day in a way that doesn’t mirror their daily riding, and the fact that based on motivation alone, I could take the identical FTP test days apart and get different results. With TR AI being pegged to a level 3 threshold, this makes it pointless to compare against a rider who did a 20min Zwift test or the Wahoo Full Monty.
So, where does this change leave me? Now I’m using FTP as a tool to make sure I’m getting high quality workouts that will let me improve over the course of a training plan without feeling so burned out at the end that it saps motivation to hop on the bike but without feeling so undertrained that I’ve left gains on the table. That’s it. FTP is just my training tool and one that probably works best in the walled garden of TR. If I want to compare myself to other riders, I’ll just have to ride with them.
And this brings me back to what I enjoy about the process of structured training. Getting better.