Proper climber right here. That’s Nairo-levels of weight
My FTP test synopsis.
I head out for my ride, legs feel empty. I do a conservative warmup to ride the legs in to form, RPE feels high and HR higher than it should be for the watts. 10 mins to go until I start my 20 minute time trial through hell and I tear open a gel hoping it might make this a little less sucky. It starts, and we’re hurting early. Farkkk this it’s hot and I want to quit 5 minutes in and averaging at 275 watts {current FTP}. 10 mins in and we’re at 285 and struggling, surely no way I could increase power anymore right? 2 minutes to go and everything is starting to go into tunnel vision, and then Thunderstruck starts playing through my earphones, I don’t even like AC/DC but this is what we needed, as the song progresses the watts are flowing and we’re crushing the final minute at 400 and above. It’s over and I collapsed over my bike finding any bit of oxygen I can. I look down and I averaged 299 watts and consequently new 20 min PB!
And that folks, is how AC/DC added 10 watts to my FTP.
Damn you’re a good story teller, I got was into that lol
But can you spell AC/DC ? 
The final minute at 400W will inflate your ftp. I would not consider the test to be successful because you did not pace it correctly.
My two cents.
Not so sure about this. Yes, it will rise the avg number couple of watts but if you have power left in your tank that also can be indication that you have paced it a little low. 20 min should be really all out so what 400 watts at the end is the same like 2 watts added to your pacing power. Especially as your FTP is avg not np power.
I’m doing something wrong.
2020/05/13 - 234
2020/06/17 - 245
2020/09/17 - 246
2020/12/02 - 245
42yo male. Riding for 8yrs now. LV (base/build) plans + outside riding, averaging ~7hrs and 4-600TSS per week.
Ok. If there’s still gas in the tank, it wasn’t paced correctly. Whether the number is too high, or too low.
I was not on a good legs day and throughout the whole test it felt like I literally could not go any harder but the final 2 minutes was like ok the end is in sight, let’s kill ourselves. I have done lots of 20 min tests before and am normally just holding onto the power rather than kicking. Yesterday was an exception.
| Date | FTP | W/kg | |
|---|---|---|---|
| June 2020 | First Ramp Test | 166 | 2.3 |
| July 2020 | End Zwift FTP Builder | 197 | 2.9 |
| September 2020 | End of TR Oly Tri Base MV | 218 | 3.2 |
| October 2020 | End of TR Oly Tri Build MV | 231 | 3.4 |
| December 2020 | TR Oly Tri Base MV + 2 Week Break | 221 | 3.3 |
Another ramp test, first decline in FTP since I started structured training. But I was already expecting it. I stopped training completely for two weeks due to personal and professional commitments combined with stress and low motivation for training. But now I’m back and motivated to get back to keep improving.
According to my previous plan I should be going to Tri Build now, but I’m just going to repeat base, and only then go to build, and shorten the specialty phase.
Now I need some advice: do you think I should accept the lower FTP and the new training zones, or is it acceptable to keep the previous number? I thing I’ll get back to the previous number fairly quickly. I’m thinking of either keeping the old FTP or maybe retest in 2-3 weeks to adjust.
What do you think?
Reset and rebuild would be my suggestion
Accept the lower FTP. You can always bump it up as you go, or reassess in a few weeks.
An FTP set slightly too low will still get you almost all the desired training effect, you won’t lose much if anything.
On the other hand you risk digging yourself into a hole if your FTP is set too high.
How hard do the workouts seem? Have you failed any?
How hard is the ramp test?
If you make your profile public for a bit and share a link the folks here can probably tell you exactly what you may be doing wrong.
Today i finsihed my ssb hv 1 and started 2nd phase.
298w when i started ssbhv 1
310w today starting ssbhv2.
I hope i can improve it again in the second phase. And also want to loose 3-4 kgs too (now 79.3 kg with 1.88 cm height).
I’ve made my profile public:
- I feel like I’m going properly deep on the ramp test: gasping for air and hitting ~97% HRmax.
- I like to ride outdoors, so I’ve tried doing outdoor workouts this past summer
- sometimes life and/or other riding plans get in the way and I end up pushing a week out; however, I usually try to complete/attempt all workouts in a given plan
- poor discipline on recovery/rest weeks. Often end up riding outdoors at higher than ideal intensity.
- struggle on longer intervals; usually OK on short intervals
- last 2 wks of SSBLV2 is usually pretty hard
- 2nd half of SuPBLV was hard; preferred to do them outdoors because I seem to be able to hold power a bit better outdoors
- indoor cooling is decent I think…cool garage with a couple fans blowing directly on me. Still sweat buckets
- try to fuel longer (>1hr) workouts with some sort of small snack/drink
- could always use more sleep; but sleep pattern has not changed over this time period
- ramped up volume this year
- 2019: 320h/8233km
- 2020: 359h/10122km (so far)
Since the end of 2019 summer, I believe I’ve done
- SSBLV1
- SSBLV2
- GBLV
- SSBLV1
- SSBLV2
- SuPBLV
- SSBLV1
- SSBLV2
- and now starting GBLV
FTP history with 2 different bikes. Both power2max. Bike2 consistently reads lower. Looks like small improvement since last year, but pretty stagnant (especially over this summer).
Bike 1
Dec 2, 2020 245
Sep 17, 2020 246
Jun 17, 2020 245
May 13, 2020 234
Bike2
May 6, 2020 222
Jan 22, 2020 218
Dec 23, 2019 207
Dec 21, 2019 207
Nov 20, 2019 202
Bike1
Sep 24, 2019 237
Jul 31, 2019 229
It appears that the only time I was able to make any gains this year was between May and Jun where I strung together 3 successive weeks of 600+TSS. Perhaps this is the key…
I dont know shit about shit so take my response with a grain of sand and let more experienced folks dig into the weeds. The one thing that jumped out at my though is you were seeing 1-5% jumps in ftp when you were consistent with structured training. Then in July you took 6 weeks with almost all unstructured work. The next 3 months you had structure every other week, or 2 weeks on 2 weeks off.
Thing is, a lot of those unstructured weeks you have lots of high IF work. Its not like you were phoning it in or doing all Z2 or something so I am surprised you didn’t see some improvement.
It appears that some of my outdoor workouts did not show up as TR rides, so there was a bit more structure in the summer than how it appears on my career page. That said, I think you’re right; the shuffling/pushing of workouts in the summer is probably the reason for the plateau. It was enough to maintain fitness, but did not provide the progressive stimulus to drive improvement.
Conditions are pretty ugly where I live now… So maybe this will force me to more strictly adhere to the plans.
Thank you for taking the time to have a look.
Joined Trainerroad in October. My results so far are below:
Ramp FTP = 289 Watts (3.89w/kg)
Speciality Triathlon MV - Had a rescheduled race, so focused on fine tuning.
Ramp FTP = 299 Watts (4.01w/kg)
Sweet Spot Base 1 MV - Followed the plan, with 2 runs per week, no outdoor rides.
Ramp FTP = 312 Watts (4.15w/kg)
Still trying decide what next, more base or a short power build.