Indoor/Outdoor power zones in WKO+

paul.rud

So I get that my outdoor FTP will be 10-20 watts higher than my indoor FTP.  Like a lot of folks, I ride on the trainer during the week and outside only on the weekend.  I am going back and forth inside/outside nearly every workout from March to Sept.

Q1: What do I do with the power zones in WKO+ (Training Peaks) software?

Q2: If my FTP is different In vs Out, then my TSS/Pnorm are going to be jumping around as well.  How would I go about using a 30-day Power Distribution Chart to estimate my FTP later in the season as I get closer to a race?  It seems as though a 42 min Indoor FTP test on a single day is not going to be as accurate as a month's worth of data (15-20 rides).

Thoughts??

Keith Wick

You can manage that two ways.

1. you can change your FTP in WKO for each ride depending on whether it is indoors or outdoors. This will keep your training stress chart accurate and record the proper IF & TSS for your workouts, but makes using the 30 day power distribution chart useless for estimating FTP

2. Or you can create another person in your WKO--ex. mines Keith outdoors--- where you track your outdoor things. If you do this, you may also want to do #1 to make your training stress chart accurate

Joe Matchette

Posted By Paul Rudnicke on 17 Mar 2012 12:45 PM

So I get that my outdoor FTP will be 10-20 watts higher than my indoor FTP.  Like a lot of folks, I ride on the trainer during the week and outside only on the weekend.  I am going back and forth inside/outside nearly every workout from March to Sept.

.......

Thoughts??

@Paul -- or you may find, like I did, that your outdoor FTP is essentially unchanged from your indoor FTP.  In which case, no 'fury-rigging' is required.

I will also add that using the Power Distribution Chart to estimate FTP is really only valid if you go and ride an unstructured, all-out ride.  If you are doing an EN workout --- trying to hit prescribed power zones --- then your PDC will only reflect what you did.

MattAaronson

When I did my first outdoor FTP test last year it was ~17 watts higher than my prior indoor FTP. But of course some of that increase was due to the improvement since the prior test. But how much of that improvement? Well, when I got on the trainer for my first indoor ride I targeted the new "outdoor" zones. And I hit them!! I was working and sweating like never before, but I made it happen. So I decided to leave the "outdoor" zones as my FTP and be done with it.

Thinking about it another way, z4 extends downward to 95% of your FTP. So you can target the lowest end of z4 for indoors and probably be within whatever "margin of difference" you think exists on your FTP. Are your TSS and PMC numbers precisely correct? No, but for most of us we're getting into too fine detail at that point.

paul.rud

Thanks for the feedback fellas.

@Keith:  Good idea about cloning yourself (I guess your outside self would be a more powerful you since you are using "Outside" power zones).  However, using WKO+ I couldn't get any workouts into Outside Paul on my first bumbling attempts.  I did poke around and found the 'Change default user' option.  The workout went in fine after that adjustment.  I assume that I just need to move this default back and forth depending on where the workout took place?? 

Question:  Is there any way to move a workout between users in WKO+?   Or do I need to go find the .tcx file of the workout I want and load it in to the alternate user?

@Joe:  "using the Power Distribution Chart to estimate FTP is really only valid if you go and ride an unstructured, all-out ride"  Hmm.  Other than a 42 min FTP test, is there a more reliable way to determine FTP? over an extended period of time (1 month or so)??

@Matt:  "Are your TSS and PMC numbers precisely correct? No, but for most of us we're getting into too fine detail at that point."  Good point -- we all can get a little too OCD or neurotic.

 

Gordon Cherwoniak

Paul,

There are some alternate methods of determining FTP in the wiki here:

http://members.endurancenation.us/R...mining+FTP

I can't say anything about them I'm pretty much a slave to the 42' test.

Gordon

Joe Matchette

Posted By Paul Rudnicke on 21 Mar 2012 12:37 PM

@Joe:  "using the Power Distribution Chart to estimate FTP is really only valid if you go and ride an unstructured, all-out ride"  Hmm.  Other than a 42 min FTP test, is there a more reliable way to determine FTP? over an extended period of time (1 month or so)?? 

Paul, Take a look at the picture below.  It is from last season's OS, right before I started the VO2 work.  Because I only rode the structured intervals, there is not much you can get from this for the 'drop-off' method.

Additionally, because of my riding the OS rides as written, my PDC mirrored the info you see above.  The 20' max power was right at what I had been riding my FTP intervals.

That is why I say you would have to ride some unstructured outdoors rides in order to extract your FTP from the PDC.  (need more acronyms....) 

paul.rud

@Joe

Thanks for throwing in your PDC from the 1st 8 weeks of your OS.  I bet the 3 peaks are:  recovery, Z3, Z4.  Makes a lot of sense when looking at the graphic. 

What do you do to determine your outdoor FTP as you get in the last 4-8 weeks out from a race?

Thanks for the feedback.

Joe Matchette

I tested a number of time throughout the IM plan last year, so I went with it gave me. I also assumed, right or wrong, that I was not getting weaker (a dropping FTP) since I was consistently working.

Outdoor tests can be their own challenge and it took me a couple of tries at a couple of different 'venues' to get it right.

One thing I did not do was to 'SWAG my FTP' since last year was my first season riding with power. I had/have no basis on which to make those types of determinations.

MattAaronson

Joe, my chart from last year has almost exactly the same shape...I suspect a LOT on EN-ers have a chart that looks similar...VERY similar...