Why I failed at TrainerRoad (I think)

[DaveWh]

@patrickhill

I think that TR should lower it to somewhere between 70% and 75%

I trust that the TR crew has the data to support that on average, a good measure of FTP is 75% of MAP.

So no need to change something that on average is right. But this does not mean the average is right for everyone (and it isn’t).

@patrickhill

I am at about a 3% to 4% reduction from my tested level

I reduce the ramp test result by 5%. I’m a fast twitcher with a lot of anaerobic contribution. Even that 5% may not be enough, as it would be a stretch for me to ride at that level for 60 minutes (I’ve never tried, maybe I should!).

But it works for setting VO2max workouts, and sweet spot, and endurance… I don’t do threshold workouts, as they are too taxing and take me too long to recover from.

[Macy]

I was defending the ramp test/ TrainerRoad! I consider myself an outlier rather than it being a problem with the test protocol. I trust the TR coaches and their access to data.

Yes, I use other methods of establishing my zones.

[tropicalcycling]

Lots of great info in this post already but I’m going to throw in my “no science to back this up” opinion anyway.

The ramp test, if done in erg mode comes down to a balance of spin and strength. I personally, almost always have to do ramp tests twice to get the “right” number. Why? Because I spin to fast and I’ll hit max heart rate WAY before my legs are ready to give out. I’ll hit the point of no return, can’t hold the spin anymore and BAM, spiral of death till I stop. I can do 400 watts at 85 RPM, but can’t at 65. I have to spin at 85 consistently to get the “correct” result.

To me, this spin/strength balance is where the trouble lies is almost every “ramp test failure” post. The goal is BOTH systems should be “done” at the same time. So, while the TR guys say you don’t have to worry about pacing with the ramp like you would with a 20 min test, I disagree. You still have to keep spin and strength in check with each other the whole way through.

To bring this back to the OP specifically, if you’re good with quick bursts but not with long endurance, then it makes sense you’d get a value that’s too high. You’re probably able to spin up as the load increases to take some of the pressure away from the strength side. Even one or two rpm could make a huge difference so this could be something you’re doing that isn’t even noticeable.

Like everyone else has said, FTP is just a number. I like to do an over/under workout as the first thing after an FTP test. Those are the ones that really tell me if my number is right or not. I want to feel a really light burn on the overs and feel it clear on the unders. If that happens, FTP is good enough for a block.

Lastly…fatigue and ramp tests do not go well together. I will ALWAYS have a better test after a few days of TOTAL rest than I will if I follow the “recovery” week workout.

[Stewallen]

@Brennus

TR has no way to deal with those riders who have sub ~70% FTP.

Reduce the workout intensity by X%?

I too find build bordering impossible unless I reduce intensity by 3%, meaning exactly what you are saying generally. But that is why they have that feature. TR know this and make this clear in my opinion.

And I would add that almost all of the interval rides in Build start low on the power and you are asked if this feels repeatable, stay, if you can do more, nudge up, or not, then nudge down. So the TR has no way to deal is misleading. They in fact inform you the whole way of this.

[dby2222]

You might have tried this, but why not flip your smart trainer from Erg mode to resistance mode so that you can avoid the spiral of death?

[Craig_G]

@patrickhill

I know that for some people, 75% works just fine, but I think that TR should lower it to somewhere between 70% and 75%. You might be saying, well, it’s working just fine for me… just wait until your FTP starts to plateau.

I am thinking that you (and me) are outliers and the 75% value is close enough for the majority of people but doesn’t work for us as individuals, however I am in the other direction from you. My FTP is about 82% of MAP, so 75% is a significant underestimation of my FTP and 70% would be even lower. I can routinely do 20min @87-88% MAP during 10.5-11 mile Zwift TTs and had a breakthrough TT earlier this year with 20min @92% MAP. There is a flip side to that though…

Given your relatively larger anaerobic contribution (sounds that way to me) I suspect the longer the test the more accurate it would be for you as it gives plenty of time to burn through the anaerobic ‘boost’ you’d get. Pacing is a lot more difficult though as the test duration increases.

Maybe TR has a skunk works project to identify which individuals are outliers and not well served by ramp testing based on their power profile. I would imagine it could be determined by looking at sprint, 1m, 5min, 20min powers compared to the rest of the population and flagging us for being outliers.

[Brennus]

@Craig_G

Maybe TR has a skunk works project to identify which individuals are outliers and not well served by ramp testing based on their power profile. I would imagine it could be determined by looking at sprint, 1m, 5min, 20min powers compared to the rest of the population and flagging us for being outliers.

I’m sure they’ve discussed the issue quite a bit. The ramp test can serve those riders who have FTP <70% of MAP very well, for sure. The problem is how do you identify those riders and let them know? Right now the way those riders find out is through a few demoralizing weeks of quasi gas lighting…or more likely they never really understand and just go somewhere else.

Not good for customer retention, I bet! If I was the biz mgr @ TR I’d look at that 108 rider data set & say, ‘Hey, there’s about 8% of this revenue that we probably won’t be getting next quarter. How do I keep those riders in the fold?’ I’m not some super sharp biz dude, so if I see that I’m sure TR see the same.

[bbarrera]

Here’s a guy I’ve ridden with a few times, he is pretty bad ass and his 20 something son is even more of a bad ass. The kid has used TR for years.

That didn’t look so good but there is no private messaging on Strava and I didn’t comment.

After that was Monitor and Antelope, those sweet spot workouts look pretty rough for him and he was dialing down intensity. Looks a bit like over testing on ramp, but maybe his fitness is simply down after a break. Dude can put down some watts for long intervals, I’ve ridden into strong headwinds with him.

[old_but_not_dead_yet]

@Craig_G

Maybe TR has a skunk works project to identify which individuals are outliers and not well served by ramp testing based on their power profile.

Unless they want to reinvent the wheel, no such “skunk works” project is required. Morton worked out the relationship between ramp test performance and CP and W’ over 25 years ago.

Critical power test for ramp exercise - PubMed

[HLaB]

I think the fact that he was to press on for 6 or 7mins after missing the ERG target shows how strong he is

[tropicalcycling]

@dby2222 won’t matter. The ramp test will always end in a spiral of death. At some point, you just can’t turn over the cranks, right? For me, it’s not Erg vs non-Erg, it’s making sure I my spin speed (HR) stays in check with my max strength (watts) so one isn’t cooked before the other.

[tropicalcycling]

@bbarrera that sure looks to me like a sensor malfunction. Almost like he stopped reporting cadence so the trainer didn’t keep increasing the watts. I had a test that looked almost exactly like that when I had a Stages SmartBike. The bike reported cadence completely different than what the pedals were saying. That screwed with erg mode in a way that made the test completely worthless.

In reality, there’s no way the test would have gone on. That smoothness on the way up really looks like he’s in erg…if so, erg would have forced the power and not allowed for the drifting that far below it.

tl;dr - Something went wrong here, it’s no indication of how strong a rider this is.

[bbarrera]

Check out that cadence - its like a “ground and pound” move in an MMA fight

[HLaB]

Nice steady cadence too I ploughed on in my first ramp test too but my pound, pound, pounds were nowhere near as consistent and my power remained nowhere as near consistent either

[bbarrera]

@HLaB

pound, pound, pounds were nowhere near as consistent

Just pretend you are on a 12-18% grade

[dby2222]

This might be true to some extent, but I would hope that whoever TR has working on their data is factoring in these potential outliers and looking at datasets that exclude new users, especially those who list their training experience under a certain level. If it’s an obvious enough source of error for us to see it (I’m definitely not a data scientist), then I would like to think that a professional would be accounting for this as well.

[simplejj]

I’m male, 41, 65kg, and nearing the end of year 2 of my TR experience. I’ve never had a high level of base aerobic fitness to build on, and I think that’s been the limiter that I ignored for too long.

In year 1, I did a low volume program to try to get back into shape for cyclocross season. Sweet Spot Base 1 and 2 seemed “too easy” (except Spencer +2) and I skipped a lot of endurance workouts because they were so far under the FTP line that I didn’t think they’d do anything (bad decision).

I attempted 2 Short Power Builds last year (not back-to-back, my decision making isn’t that bad), and completely fell apart both times. I couldn’t handle the simultaneous increase in both intensity and volume and got sick and lost at least a week of training during both Build blocks.

During cyclocross season, I was amazing for the first 90 seconds of the race. I could sprint past riders and move up multiple rows and be in the top 5 going into the first bottleneck. Sadly, my races continued for another 30-45 minutes after the start, and I could only muster average power in the endurance/low sweet spot range for most of that time.

For year 2, I moved up to mid-volume plans and my compliance has been a lot higher (I even do all the endurance workouts). I made it through Short Power Build back in April/May without getting sick, but my FTP went down a couple watts after the first part of build, and then recovered to where it started at the end.

I was pretty bummed. I could complete the workouts, but often felt really flat coming into the ramp tests and felt like I was stopping too soon and not seeing the improvement in my “FTP” that I thought I should be getting (where’s my 17 watt increase after the first half of build?").

Even though I wasn’t getting the vanity numbers I want to see, I felt like my fitness was getting deeper in ways that weren’t showing up in a ramp test. I thought about what area of focus would yield the most improvements to my cx lap times and decided to shift my focus to being able to pedal “hard” for longer.

Since guys like Wout and Mathieu are pretty good time trialists, and I’m very much not. I did another round of sweet spot base this summer, then followed with Sustained Power Build and now, Century Specialty.

SSB II and the first block of the build phase got somewhat messy due to wildfire smoke and the October tax extension deadline (busy season at work). I had to skip workouts and reduce intensity to survive. I also had to dial down the intensity of “long” (more than 2.5 minute intervals) VO2 workouts by about 3-5% to be able to complete them.

I didn’t get a huge FTP bump after build (yet again), but it did increase by a couple percent. I have been setting a lot of TR personal power records during Century specialty, and I’m coming into the last couple workouts of week 3 with a lot of confidence (McAdie +1 is a semi-nemisis, like riding 6 laps “hard” in a crit, 4 times. We’ll see how it goes.).

My TR Personal Records page shows that I’m putting out about 20 watts more power over 45 minutes to an hour this season compared to last season. Based on feel, and some recent successfully-completed 15 minute threshold intervals, my guess is that I could translate that into increasing my average cx-race power by at least 50 watts with some more conservative pacing. Even though my “FTP” might not be growing like crazy, my ability to put out threshold power for longer durations is coming along nicely.

All that to say that my gut instinct is that TR “works” a lot better for people who have some sort of aerobic foundation to build on, and that they’re much better prepared to cope with/recover from the really intense efforts required in the short power build and criterium/cx specialty plans.

My game plan going forward is to keep a bit more focus on bringing up my sustained power over the first half of next year (I’d like to take another swing at the first half of Sustained Power Build), and then re-evaluate where things stand.

[HMG]

@simplejj

All that to say that my gut instinct is that TR “works” a lot better for people who have some sort of aerobic foundation to build on

I’m not convinced of this, although I do think there is an over-emphasis on intensity in TR plans generally. But I think there is a crossover point for nearly everyone who tries to transition to Mid Volume or higher where a lackluster aerobic engine begins to be a bigger and bigger limiter. At low volume, though, the plans work shockingly well. At higher volumes, there should be less frequency of high-intensity and more volume by way of endurance rides.

Everyone’s physiology is different though, and what works for me or you might be the opposite of “smart” for someone else.

[old_but_not_dead_yet]

@old_but_not_dead_yet

@Brennus

Your idea is that as years of training increases LT as a percent of MAP will increase? I think that’s an interesting hypothesis.

That’s a given, no?

(Rhetorical question. This has been accepted since at least the 1970s.)

I have been looking for the original version of this figure, but to no avail. So, here is a textbook version.

[chidlow]

Very cool graph. I wonder how the time-scale varies by component for different mixes of volume and intensity.