Another VO2 question

Watoni said:

Pardon my general ignorance since I tend to ride doubles (when I ride events) and therefore do little VO2 work (for better or for worse).

I did three repeats this weekend (up the steeper section of Coleman Valley Road from the coast) with average watts of 310-320 and an FTP of 284 (I think my Powertap is a bit high, but it's consistent to itself). Anyway, does that indicate my FTP is understated? I have tested recently but just wondering ...

I think that depends on how long those efforts were (most of us here have never ridden the steeper section of Coleman Valley Road) and then your particular power profile.

Piotr said:

I think that depends on how long those efforts were (most of us here have never ridden the steeper section of Coleman Valley Road) and then your particular power profile.

Ooops ... sorry

It is about 1.45 miles at a little over 11% average. The efforts were about 11.5 minutes each. I don't know my power profile in VO2 since I rarely train or test it.

BTW, Coleman Valley is one of the most awesome roads to ride in Norcal. Not the longest or steepest sustained climb, but one of the most beautiful ...

Watoni said:

Ooops ... sorry

It is about 1.45 miles at a little over 11% average. The efforts were about 11.5 minutes each. I don't know my power profile in VO2 since I rarely train or test it.

BTW, Coleman Valley is one of the most awesome roads to ride in Norcal. Not the longest or steepest sustained climb, but one of the most beautiful ...

I guess what I should also have noted that an FTP of 284 W looks just too darn accurate. 😉 Most people will usually not bother updating in less than 5 W or even 10 W increments.

Assuming that those 11 min effort were not all out, it looks reasonable to me that your FTP might be higher. It's a good time of year to test, so I would suggest you plan on it so you have a more accurate (not 3 decimal points kind of accurate though 🙂) figure before you start your off-season training. If you're anything like me (above average anaerobic capacity), you'll want to do a full 1 hr test, since a 20 min power x .95 formula tends to overestimate my FTP to some degree.

Depends.

11 min. efforts at that power are definitely not incompatible with a FTP of 284w.

Also, I think most people would consider 11 minutes a bit long for a VO2max effort. A bit farther down the coast, try Franklin School Rd (~7min at that power,) the inland side of Marshall Wall (~9min,) or Wilson Hill (~6 min at that power.)

One other thing to consider is that on a steep climb like Coleman Valley, you may have been out of the saddle for a good bit - using your upper body on efforts and then trying to compare the results with a more purely aerobic effort like FTP duration has its problems.

peterpen said:

Depends.

11 min. efforts at that power are definitely not incompatible with a FTP of 284w.

Also, I think most people would consider 11 minutes a bit long for a VO2max effort. A bit farther down the coast, try Franklin School Rd (~7min at that power,) the inland side of Marshall Wall (~9min,) or Wilson Hill (~6 min at that power.)

One other thing to consider is that on a steep climb like Coleman Valley, you may have been out of the saddle for a good bit - using your upper body on efforts and then trying to compare the results with a more purely aerobic effort like FTP duration has its problems.

Thank you.

I rode these repeats since I was waiting for the family to get to the beach, and just love that climb.

I did make sure to stay seated as much as possible (as much as I do on less steep climbs). I will in future do more 3-8 minute intervals when I am specifically targeting VO2, but it is good to know I am in the correct range.

And yes, standing can skew the results! I did intervals the day after alternating seated/standing (2 minutes seated/1 minute standing) yesterday and the power was higher than I would expect for an effort of almost 20 minutes

Piotr said:

I guess what I should also have noted that an FTP of 284 W looks just too darn accurate. 😉 Most people will usually not bother updating in less than 5 W or even 10 W increments.

Assuming that those 11 min effort were not all out, it looks reasonable to me that your FTP might be higher. It's a good time of year to test, so I would suggest you plan on it so you have a more accurate (not 3 decimal points kind of accurate though 🙂) figure before you start your off-season training. If you're anything like me (above average anaerobic capacity), you'll want to do a full 1 hr test, since a 20 min power x .95 formula tends to overestimate my FTP to some degree.

Hi Piotr... i'm going to disagree with you a little bit.. and say that knowing your FTP is not really important in setting your intensities for your zones for training sessions... at least for anyone that is isn't just starting out and just has no clue whatsoever as to how hard to ride for the various durations... using the percentage (rough estimates really) of zones is WAY inferior to just riding those durations and figuring out how hard to ride them.. and it's self correcting as well.. if you ride them too hard you won't be able to complete the session... if you ride them not hard enough the session will be too easy... the other thing is that as you yourself observe... everyones power profile is different so if you go by the estimates you could be killing yourself unnecessarily or not riding hard enough given your particular power profile and the zone that you are working...

watoni.. i'd say that if you are just starting out then for sure use the estimated values of intensities for each zone that are based on FTP (20min power x .95 is plenty accurate enough and you don't have to go through the bother of using up a workout to test it)... then after you've done a few intervals at each intensity and you have an idea of how hard you can actually ride for different durations adjust your zones to suit your particular power profile... i.e. ride at the intensities YOU can ride at... not the very rough estimates of what people typically ride at... after a while you will know how hard you can ride for 20min, 5min, 1min, 30sec etc.. much better to let your own power profile guide your workouts rather than a rough estimate most some fictitious typical rider... you don't want to be killing your self unnecessarily, or limiting yourself unnecessarily... you may want to test FTP to test performance at 1hr, but imho using FTP to set your zones is much less than ideal for anyone other than those just starting out... especially when it so easy to just ride the duration and test what your actual zone is...

also remember that adaptations occur a over a fairly wide power range so you don't have to be so precise as to the power you need to ride at to illicit an adaptation.. if you take it a little easy one day at the lower end of the zone one day or just kill it the next day the adaptation is going to be about the same... no need to try to knock it out of the park every day WAY more important to finish the workout anywhere in the zone than to ride too hard and not be able to complete a workout...

what i'm saying is that the importance of determining FTP is WAY overblown... if you want to enter the pissing contest over on the FTP thread then by all means... but to determine your training zones... not important.