Routine method of estimating FT.

Ummm... hello? Routine output over 2-3 x 20 minute intervals. 😉

I use best 20 minute effort during a rest week. 1:1. Especially indoors on the trainer in the winter. Outside 20 minutes I might use the 1.02 factor. But if I overstate FT with the athletes I coach, we work the bottom of the resultant zones anyways.

I cant seem to get highly motivated on the trainer. What seems like a killer effort in the garage, is pretty easy out on the road. And unfortunately, around here the terrain is all hills so any sort of steady-state output is nearly impossible. So I've been looking at the breakdowns in rides where I've really been trying (20 min, 30min, 1hr), assessing my perceived effort during those times, noting my PE at power levels around where I think my LT is, waving a magic wand and declaring my FT. Not too scientific really but I suppose it doesnt really matter if I'm off by 10W or so. Except for bragging rights of course.🙂

frenchyge said:

Ummm... hello? Routine output over 2-3 x 20 minute intervals. 😉

This is my primary method. However, I've been training on an ergometer for so many years now that I pretty much know where I stand at any given time, even if I'm not doing any level 4 efforts.

If I notice through a routine workout, 2x20 or something else, that my FT might have gone up, then I'll do a 40 minute continuous interval as one of my next FTP workouts. If I ride that steadily (not all out, no push at the end) and the average power for the interval confirms the new FTP, then I reset my FTP in CyclingPeaks and create new zones.

This assumes that I'd be able to go an extra twenty minutes at that power if I were rested and were going all out. I think that's close enough for routine use.

I'm going to try using an actual one hour TT two or three times a year as well. Since that would be very hard to manage outdoors due to traffic and road conditions where I currently live, I'll have to see if an hour indoors correlates with what I think is my FTP. If not, I may consider Critical Power testing.

Ironically, the most popular method (at the moment, anyway) is one that I wouldn't necessarily recommend...

acoggan said:

Ironically, the most popular method (at the moment, anyway) is one that I wouldn't necessarily recommend...

It seems like they could have used some additional options in the poll.

5 min all out. 10 minutes rest. 20 minute all out *.95

JohnMeyers said:

5 min all out. 10 minutes rest. 20 minute all out *.95

I know that's the protocol from the book but one thing I never understood was the reason for doing the 5 mins all-out and then also take 95% of 20 min power.

If the 5 mins was to exhaust AWC then why take 95% of 20 min power? Sure, AWC will recharge somewhat during the 10 mins rest but why not just skip it and take 95% of 20 min?

acoggan said:

Ironically, the most popular method (at the moment, anyway) is one that I wouldn't necessarily recommend...

Is that because they are less reliable?

Do people doing tests do them "blind" - I mean not able to view powermeter readings, or are they pacing themselves based on the PM? Must admit I use it for pacing a lot but with less than a year of PM, I am still learning PE vs PM, especially early in the effort!

Confession - I've been "slack" and not been testing frequently enough over last few months🙁 . I've been relying on tracking MMPs of various durations across 4 week blocks based on actual training and racing. Mind you, I have done "race simulation" efforts (as well as race) as part of training so consider they are good guides. I do check to see which days these MMPs happen as well so I know if it was after recovery, race motivated, a training interval etc.

frenchyge said:

Ummm... hello? Routine output over 2-3 x 20 minute intervals. 😉

Same here: I'd note 2x20 AP increases until we start our local ~30min TT's. Then I estimate from those taking a historical factor of 0.96.

I think I've used most of the listed methods except 5MP/1.2. That'd highly overestimate my FT.

rick

rmur17 said:

I think I've used most of the listed methods except 5MP/1.2. That'd highly overestimate my FT.

rick

Isn't this stuff fascinating? 5MP/1.2 underestimates my FT by 30W. or 10%.(I'm highly upward sloping in power profile).

My 5MP:FT would be 1.085 FWIW.

Spunout said:

Isn't this stuff fascinating? 5MP/1.2 underestimates my FT by 30W. or 10%.(I'm highly upward sloping in power profile).

My 5MP:FT would be 1.085 FWIW.

It goes to show you how your abilities at various levels vary among individuals. Any one road test is not the most accurate way to measure improvements in all areas of ability unless you only care about being good at that test or an event that is just like the test.

Why do subsequent tests? What can they tell you that your ability during various training and racing intervals does not? Especially for abilities away from threshold like ability for tempo, anaerobic capacity, or VO2max? You train at the limits of what you can do, and improvements follow. Because of those improvements you can train harder, or longer, or more reps, etc. No need to wait for your next test to tell you this, especially if that test is not the most accurate way to assess your improvements.

Do your VO2max intervals at x effort this week. 1-3 weeks from now you do them at a higher effort in terms of power, speed, and/or volume. You don't need a test to tell you how hard to do them- especially some test that's not precisely measuring your ability at VO2max.

In the end, races will tell you where your strengths and weaknesses are, and what needs to be improved.

Alex Simmons said:

Is that because they are less reliable?

As I see it, the problem with using the "95% of 20 min power" rule is that, due to intraindividual differences in anaerobic capacity, it isn't any more accurate than other methods that don't require formal testing...in which case, why bother doing a formal test?

Alex Simmons said:

Confession - I've been "slack" and not been testing frequently enough over last few months🙁 . I've been relying on tracking MMPs of various durations across 4 week blocks based on actual training and racing. Mind you, I have done "race simulation" efforts (as well as race) as part of training so consider they are good guides. I do check to see which days these MMPs happen as well so I know if it was after recovery, race motivated, a training interval etc.

Sounds to me like you have been testing ("training is testing, testing is training"😉.

Squint said:

I know that's the protocol from the book but one thing I never understood was the reason for doing the 5 mins all-out and then also take 95% of 20 min power.

If the 5 mins was to exhaust AWC then why take 95% of 20 min power? Sure, AWC will recharge somewhat during the 10 mins rest but why not just skip it and take 95% of 20 min?

I believe that Hunter's reason for recommending the 5 min "all out" effort isn't to try to deplete anaerobic capacity, but to simply make certain that the individual is adequately warmed up for a short, intense TT.

What I suspect is that the vast majority of people don't really go "all out" for those 5 min, in large part because they don't really know what it feels like to push themselves that hard...

Spunout said:

5MP/1.2 underestimates my FT by 30W. or 10%.(I'm highly upward sloping in power profile).

I suspect that you're underestimating your 5 min power.

I just picked up the Coggan/Allen book last week will not do any formal testing until this coming Monday. However, in the interim, I used normalized power from a 19 min 48 section of a group ride, and multiplied by .95.

I believe this is fairly accurate for the following reasons:

1. I had 45 min of easy riding to meet the group, so I was adequately warmed-up.
2. One rider started the group ride with a flyer (literally from the parking lot...[censored]), and I did the bulk of the work in the work in the chase. So for me, it was close to all-out from the start.
3. I was shelled out of the lead group at 19:48 after taking 2 very hard ~2-minute pulls. At the end of the 2nd pull, there was an attack at the front. I was at the back of a 25 rider line, and guttered in a x-wind. The group splintered into 3 groups, and I was stuck in the 3rd needing 1-2 minutes to recover before I could help work again.

So it seems the 19:48 before I was dropped was very close to maximal. My average power for that time was 259 and normalized power was 287, resulting in estimated FTP of 272. After the test this Monday, I will see how accurate my method is.

20 minutes all out * 0.95? That seems strange to me. I thought the half hour equivilant was 30 minutes all out * 0.93 which would give much lower results?

Eldrack said:

20 minutes all out * 0.95? That seems strange to me. I thought the half hour equivilant was 30 minutes all out * 0.93 which would give much lower results?

You're probably thinking of this study:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=8814512&query_hl=13&itool=pubmed_DocSum

However, the subjects in this study appear to have had an unusually large anaerobic capacity, which would explain the discrepancy.