How to survive a ftp testing?

ecamp

I did my ftp testing a month ago with trainer road and it came out at 208w. I have my first ftp testing with EN tomorrow. What is the proper way to do it? Go all out or hang around in x watts? Trainer road was only 2x8mins and en is 20mins. Dont know how to survive that.

Peter Greagg

Jason, after the wu and the 5 mins all-out part, I just do the 10 mins as easy as I want (don't feel the need to target 65% of estimated FTP), then I start — I split the 20 mins into 5 min blocks, and try and negative split the 20 mins. Also keep in mind that your FTP is the power you should be able to hold for 60 mins, and that your 20 min power should be around 5% higher than your FTP.
!st block I just settle in at what I think my FTP actually is (say 200 watts).
5 to 10 mins I build to what I think the 20 min average will be, based on my estimated FTP (say 210 watts) — if it seems doable, I build to 210 early in the block, if harder, later in this block.
10 to 15 min block, I push up if I think I can hold it to , say 215 watts, then
15 to 20 mins, I just do what I can, hopefully, say 220 watts.
That would give me an average 20 min power of around 210 watts and an FTP of around 200 watts.
For me, the successful FTP tests have started low and built across the 20 mins — and by breaking the 20 mins into 5 min blocks means that I am only concentrating on a 5 min block at a time and that the hardest parts of the test are closer to the end of the 20 min than the start — for me, mentally that really helps a lot.
Oh, and btw, you do get better at testing with more practice.
Let us know how you go?

ecamp

Posted By Peter Greagg on 01 Jul 2013 07:32 PM
Jason, after the wu and the 5 mins all-out part, I just do the 10 mins as easy as I want (don't feel the need to target 65% of estimated FTP), then I start — I split the 20 mins into 5 min blocks, and try and negative split the 20 mins. Also keep in mind that your FTP is the power you should be able to hold for 60 mins, and that your 20 min power should be around 5% higher than your FTP.
!st block I just settle in at what I think my FTP actually is (say 200 watts).
5 to 10 mins I build to what I think the 20 min average will be, based on my estimated FTP (say 210 watts) — if it seems doable, I build to 210 early in the block, if harder, later in this block.
10 to 15 min block, I push up if I think I can hold it to , say 215 watts, then
15 to 20 mins, I just do what I can, hopefully, say 220 watts.
That would give me an average 20 min power of around 210 watts and an FTP of around 200 watts.
For me, the successful FTP tests have started low and built across the 20 mins — and by breaking the 20 mins into 5 min blocks means that I am only concentrating on a 5 min block at a time and that the hardest parts of the test are closer to the end of the 20 min than the start — for me, mentally that really helps a lot.
Oh, and btw, you do get better at testing with more practice.
Let us know how you go?

Thats actually a good idea with 5mins block! Thanks peter!
This may sound a lil dummy but do you only press start on your head unit when your doing the 20mins test? I figure if your head unit is running the whole time it would calculate the 5mins+10mins break + 20mins ms?

Peter Greagg

I display Lap time, Lap AP, Lap NP, 3 sec watts, etc and press lap to start the test — so after lap time shows 20 mins I press lap again and cool down. The 95% of NP of the 20 min block is your FTP.
Make sense?

Sheila Leard

To You Veteran Members -

Do pay attention to cadence when doing your FTP? I aim for 85-90 rpm's. I know watts can change a lot with lower cadence but that won't  simulate race strategy.

Thanks!

ecamp

make sense!

thank you peter!

Joe Matchette

Posted By Sheila Leard on 01 Jul 2013 10:36 PM

To You Veteran Members -

Do pay attention to cadence when doing your FTP? I aim for 85-90 rpm's. I know watts can change a lot with lower cadence but that won't  simulate race strategy.

@Sheila - no, not really.  I think you will find that you can generate more power with a lower cadence for the short term.  But to hold that for 20min is something else entirely.  It is my experience that your most efficient cadence to generate the highest continuous power will just sort itself out during the longest twenty minutes of your life. 

The goal for the FTP test is not to simulate race-day riding.  It is to generate a benchmark against which you will train.  The Race Rehearsals are when you will dial in your race day power to see if that is a level that you can hold for 112 miles and then still be able to have a quality run.

Sheila Leard

Joe - that helps - thank you.

I'm still experimenting on IF and climbing.

 

John Withrow

@Sheila- I also pay very little attention to cadence while testing. I generally try to keep it in my sweet spot, but if I'm starting to fade for any reason, I'll downshift to a lower gear to give myself a little burst or change for 30 seconds or so to get back at it. My goal for a test is highest possible power for the 20 minute segment with absolutely nothing left I. The tank when it's over.

@Jayson- I follow a similar approach to Peter. The only caveat is that once I get to the last 5 mins, or maybe 3 minutes, I mentally tell myself that I need to repeat the VO2 segment that I originally started the test with. Of course you won't see the same number as then, but I really want it to feel like a VO2 segment near the end because I want to squeeze every single watt out of my legs. If you are not seeing stars with a bit of tunnel vision and then laying on the ground panting afterwards, you probably didn't go hard enough...

cgres123

@ Jayson, As for me I don't like pushing out the last 3 -5 min very hard as that , In my world, means I could have amped up that last burst of power spread it out over the course of my test. It is like running the last 100 yrds to the finish of a race. If you had that much left over you could have pushed harder during the race and most likely had a better over all time for your race.

Hard and steady.

Swanie

I just tested Saturday so this is still fresh in my mind (and my legs). The warm up is close to an hour ABP ride to get to my testing roads, the first test is VO2 for 5 min and that's an All Out, Snot Bubbles kind of ride. Then ride easy for 5-10 minutes then the 20 min test. I start out for the first 2 minutes at my current FTP, the next 15 minutes I am pushing as hard as I can go for that period of time, the last 3 min is like what JW suggested, a VO2 like sprint to the end. I usually see an increase of 5 watts in my NP those last 3 min.

Rumpole

Posted By Jayson Campos on 01 Jul 2013 07:09 PM


I did my ftp testing a month ago with trainer road and it came out at 208w. I have my first ftp testing with EN tomorrow. What is the proper way to do it? Go all out or hang around in x watts? Trainer road was only 2x8mins and en is 20mins. Dont know how to survive that.

Trainer road uses the Chris Carmichael protocol (or a variation of it); the reason being that it's easier to push all out for 8 than it is for 20.  It does take practice.  The key questions are how much you've been doing in the last month.  If you've been riding a lot, I might start @ 225 for the first five minutes, and then hit the gas from there.  The last 2-3 minutes should be OMG I SEE [insert deity here].

I might get flamed for this, but after you do this for a while, you'll find that FTP is self-correcting.  Too hard and you can't hold the power for both 20 min intervals, for example.  Too easy and you'll know.  It's important to dial in a number to measure progress, but training is testing and you test by training.  If it's a good hard effort and repeatable then fine.  Use it.  You'll figure it out.  And even if you're low--90 percent of FTP is NOT a waste of time.  It's not as good as 95, but darn close.

Aerodynamics is rocket science.  This ain't.

rmiller

Posted By Chris Mohr on 02 Jul 2013 09:53 AM

I might get flamed for this, but after you do this for a while, you'll find that FTP is self-correcting.  Too hard and you can't hold the power for both 20 min intervals, for example.  Too easy and you'll know.  It's important to dial in a number to measure progress, but training is testing and you test by training.  If it's a good hard effort and repeatable then fine.  Use it.  You'll figure it out.  And even if you're low--90 percent of FTP is NOT a waste of time.  It's not as good as 95, but darn close.

Aerodynamics is rocket science.  This ain't

Agree 100%.  After a few tests, you'll figure it out.  In the meantime, don't sweat the small stuff.  In the end, being off by 5-10W because you are still figuring out how to execute a test optimally isn't going to make a big difference in your gains - instead of being at 95-100%, you'll be at 93-97%.  Small potatoes.

ecamp

Hey guys thanks for all of your reply!
I did the test and all I can say is I really need more work in executing this stuff. In summary I thought I could hold the 250w but r3ality kicked in at 5mins. I tried to maintain from 7-16mins and work my way up from 16-19:30 and squeezed the watts out of my legs the last 30secs.

Ave power 223
NP 223
IF 1.074
TSS 37.6

Sony know if those numbers say a lot but at the end I was literally hanging on my aerobars. It was painful!!!!

ecamp

Hey guys thanks for all of your reply!
I did the test and all I can say is I really need more work in executing this stuff. In summary I thought I could hold the 250w but r3ality kicked in at 5mins. I tried to maintain from 7-16mins and work my way up from 16-19:30 and squeezed the watts out of my legs the last 30secs.

Ave power 223
NP 223
IF 1.074
TSS 37.6

Sony know if those numbers say a lot but at the end I was literally hanging on my aerobars. It was painful!!!!

ecamp

Sony- I don't know. Autocorrect*

ecamp

Sony- I don't know. Autocorrect*

Swanie

Excellent! You are supposed to be barely hanging on at the end. Sounds like a successful test. Welcome to the team!

cgres123

Good job so now you know!