My Proposed 20min FTP Protocol

Hurricane151

I have now received my powertap and I intend to complete the 20min test to determine my FTP. I realise that doing the full hour would be the miost accurate way of doing this but would prefer to do this.

This is my proposed "protocol" for the test and I would appreciate any thoughts as to whether this is suitable from a warm up / pre effort perspective.



Cheers

Craig

jgsi

Now you have lashed out the dosh+ on the PT, do yourself a favour and shell out a bit more for:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Training-Racing ... 626&sr=8-1
It has the full FTP testing protocol inside.

amaferanga

Provided you're properly warmed up before the 20min test and you do the same warm up each time you test then I can't see any issue with your proposed protocol. I'd probably have at least one solid block of 5mins though at or around your FTP. The protocol from the book linked to by JGSI recommends a 5min VO2max effort before the 20min test.

Of course your actual (turbo tested) FTP could be anywhere from ~92-96% of your 20min power no matter what protocol you follow.....

mattshrops

Although you havent stated at what level your short intervals are, I would probably have a longer rest interval between the last short int and the 20 min int.Say 5-10 mins.

Alex_Simmons/RST

The protocol is fine.

Few things to consider:

- whether will you experience a difference in ability to generate power on the trainer versus outdoors on the roads (and hence whether indoor tests for estimating FTP are valid for your training)

- what percentage of your 20-minute power you use to estimate FTP (it's usually quite a range, and for most 95% is an over estimate). You may want to consider adding additional test data to help with that, for example in the same week, perform a 5-min power test, and use the critical power model, with CP ~= FTP.

- the first time you do such a test is a learning experience, and you may not pace it as well as you might. You will get better at it with practice.

Hurricane151

Alex_Simmons/RST wrote:

The protocol is fine.

- whether will you experience a difference in ability to generate power on the trainer versus outdoors on the roads (and hence whether indoor tests for estimating FTP are valid for your training)

- what percentage of your 20-minute power you use to estimate FTP (it's usually quite a range, and for most 95% is an over estimate). You may want to consider adding additional test data to help with that, for example in the same week, perform a 5-min power test, and use the critical power model, with CP ~= FTP.

Thanks for the response, I do appreciate your perspective on these things. My thoughts were to complete the test on the turbo as it's a more controlled and repeatable evironment and I don't really have an adequate section of road, traffic light free etc, that i can use for the test.

I was then doing to use 95% for the calculation so that it might be a slight overestimation for the turbo but might fit closer to out on the road power (that might not make sense to you but it does in my head)

I will consider the 5 min test also a couple of days after to see what effect that has on the numbers. I have purchased the book mentioned in earlier in the thread so I might adjust the protocol slightly depending on it's recommendation.

Craig