A Graph from a PT on the turbo trainer

CarbonCopy

Mainly aimed at Alex@rst and those with similar knowledge.As mentined above here is a picture of a graph of mine from a ride i did on the TTwhile watch BATMAN THE DARK KNIGHT.
Other than telling me its crap can you help me work my FTP out?

Any more information just ask and i will try to answer
Thanks.

jonmack

Sorry I'm not so much use, but doing a bit of googling gave me this...

Functional threshold power or pace (FTP) is the highest mean average power or pace you can maintain for one hour.

http://www.trainingbible.com/joesblog/2 ... shold.html

This might also help,

http://lwcoaching.com/trainingplans/levelCalcs.htm

http://www.flammerouge.je/content/3_fac ... thresh.htm

I'm sure someone more experienced will be along shortly.

incog24

Its going to be difficult to work out FTP from a 9minute long interval...Was it maximal?
+ asking coaches for specific answers like that is bad form, unless you fancy paying them!

jibberjim

The graph tells no-one anything... It doesn't even have a scale and looks heavily smoothed too.

CarbonCopy

It`s not a 9 minute ride its an 40 minute ride.The vertical line on the graph is giving information at that precise point in the ride..I don`t think it was maximal as i was watching a film, but i was working hard

Anonymous

Impossible, too smoothed and no scale.

What were the averages? What testing protocol were you doing?

CarbonCopy

JIM I can`t spell correctly never mind smooth graphs. thats how it came from PT power agent thing.thats how i rode ? I`m guessing this thread is a fail :oops: oh well

Anonymous

Does the graph have no scale on it? :?

CarbonCopy

NapoleonD wrote:

Impossible, too smoothed and no scale.

What were the averages? What testing protocol were you doing?

I don`t understand stand "smoothed" i can`t alter graphs
What do you mean by scale ?
Averages? 208 watts is that what you mean?
Testing protocol? i was watching a film riding on the turbo trainer?

CarbonCopy

NapoleonD wrote:

Does the graph have no scale on it? :?

Arrgh i see the numbers at the side of the graph yes?
Well when i right clicked on map then saved it to PC`s documents for some reason those number were`nt there? like i`ve priously mentioned tech and grammer isn`t my strong point.

P_Tucker

Christ. Unless it was as hard as you could possibly go, it's worthless for the purposes of determining FTP.

Anonymous

To test for FTP you need to do a specific test, not just get on and ride.

Scale- what do the graphs show? It should have Watts along the left side of the graph and time along the bottom, otherwise the graph is meaningless. Have a look at the attached graph to see what I mean (graph was done to show someone 'cardiac drift'

At the moment, all we can say is that for 40 minutes you can do 208 watts.

CarbonCopy

WHY use the lord`s name in vein just to tell me it`s not going to give me what i need
well you seem highly strung tonight tucker

CarbonCopy

Cheers Nap well those graphs look alot different to power agent ones.So to those that know it may seem a pointless thread but to thse like me that don`t well it`s learn`t us something.
So if i ride hard as for an hour and my average is say 228 would this be my FTP and do i use this as a marker to train with?

Anonymous

Yes.

CarbonCopy

Cracking stuff NAP.I still haven`t got that heart rate monitor thing working on the cycleops yellow unit blooming thing!!!

Anonymous

Have you got it set to display HR?

Did you wet the sensors before putting the HR strap around?

FWIW the FTP test I do consists of warming up for 40 mins then going balls out for 20 mins.
I set FTP as 95% of the average from that 20 mins.

CarbonCopy

Arrgh wetting the sensor may be the proplem :roll:
As for setting display to show heart rate i have tried that yes using mode button to take cursor to bottom line then pressing select until it shows the flashing heart? it does it`s search thing but nothing much else.next ride tommorrow so i`ll try wetting it

fish156

CarbonCopy wrote:

Arrgh wetting the sensor may be the proplem :roll:
As for setting display to show heart rate i have tried that yes using mode button to take cursor to bottom line then pressing select until it shows the flashing heart? it does it`s search thing but nothing much else.next ride tommorrow so i`ll try wetting it

I'd suggest these are separate jobs - sort the technology out tonight, go for a ride tomorrow.

Why not sit on the turbo now with the HR strap on and work through the PT manual, working out how to use it. You don't need to be pedalling hard to have the PT showing your power & heart rate.

Then tomorrow you'll be able to go for a decent ride without the distraction of getting your PT to work.

jonmack

I run my HRM strap under the hot tap before I put it on every time. That way you don't get the horrible cold feeling, and it conducts better straight away.

CarbonCopy

Heart rate is fully functional now thanks for help 8)

Alex_Simmons/RST

Here's a couple of items on testing/estimating functional threshold power:
http://alex-cycle.blogspot.com/2008/05/ ... -sins.html
http://alex-cycle.blogspot.com/2009/07/ ... ftp-2.html

As others have said, to test for your capacities, you'll need to perform maximal efforts of some kind.

If you want to know how much power you can sustain for ~ 60-min (i.e. FTP) then yep, measuring your average power while riding as hard as you can for about 60-min will do it. It will need to be a reasonably well paced effort and not be full of surges and recoveries.

There are of course a number of other ways to reasonably estimate FTP without doing a full 60-min effort (which may not necessarily be practical for everyone). These are highlighted in the links above.

If you are doing this indoors*, then as long as you have good airflow/cooling, I'd probably suggest just doing a 20-min max TT effort, and a 5-min max TT effort (perhaps 3 days apart). You can use the results of both of those tests to gain a very good estimate of FTP with the Critical Power model.

You could try those and report back, we can help you work out an FTP estimate.


* of course your indoor power may be lower than what you can generate outdoors. i address that in the second linked item above.

Here's another item on that specifically, although note that the bit on inertial load is just my speculation based on experience, and is not backed by evidence (IOW the studies on this don't show it to be a big factor):
http://alex-cycle.blogspot.com/2009/01/ ... ining.html

doyler78

CarbonCopy wrote:

Cheers Nap well those graphs look alot different to power agent ones.So to those that know it may seem a pointless thread but to thse like me that don`t well it`s learn`t us something.
So if i ride hard as for an hour and my average is say 228 would this be my FTP and do i use this as a marker to train with?

Drunk Posting - Happy New Year - so may come out a little skewed or I may have missed some of the repsonses but here goes based on that statement:

Not necessarily. Average power is only relevant in 1 hour tests when power is both steady paced and maximal ie you paced it evenly and it was a maximal effort for the hour. If it wasn't then Average power may not be the best indicator of FTP however Dr A Coggan came up with a metric which may allow you to better determine your FTP from 1 hour test which are not steady paced bit was nevertheless as hard as you could go for the hour and it is NP (Normalised Power). This shows the effort that you could have held over 1 hour had you effort been evently paced (FTP - yeah that's why it is so good). It is only accurate to within 5% so care should be exercised but 5% is not alot when intially assessing FTP and you should be looking at other things to confirm so he it's a great start.