FTP Testing queries

disgruntledgoat

So, after starting training with my SRM at the end of January, I retested my FTP today and found that over 6 weeks, it had increased by a storming 2%! Now, I've no idea what sort of gains I should be expecting so let me give some background information and let the BR coaches pick me to pieces:

Been training reasonably seriously for 12 years now, stopped road racing 3 years ago but still ride TTs, Hill Climbs and ride cyclos a lot since I moved to Belgium (The Belgian approach to Sportives is like the second half of a reliability ride in the UK, but with added shoulders!)

I decided that I wasn't going to alter the training plan i'd written for myself when I started with the power meter as, by that point, I'd been training for the Ronde cyclo, LBL cyclo and a few other 200km+ cyclos over here for 4 months. I was merely going to use the power levels instead of HR levels.

Training week is about 12-15 hours a week with 3 hour long turbo sessions, one for speed work, one for threshold/ftp style stuff and one for recovery. Two longer rides at weekends which mix up hill intervals, speed intervals and TH work. A hard week's Bikescore in cheetah is about 600-700, weight has remained constant throughout.

The last few weeks i've been taking it easier due to upcoming events and ridden 2 150km cyclos with Bikescores of over 500 (the last one being sunday), i've been aiming for a positive or as near to 0 as possible TSB for these, to give you an idea of the difference

TSB score before tonight's test was about -20 improving from -50 on sunday. My legs felt ok though, which is why I went ahead with the test.

Testing protocol was the old warm up, 1x5 min all out, 10 min recovery then 20 minute TT for the test.

So, should I be getting more out of my training? Or as an experienced and decently fit rider who's been doing progressive training for the season since October, will I only exoect to see very incremental gains? Was I too fatigued to test accurately? What other insights can you all offer?

ta!

amaferanga

Hopefully you'll get a reply from someone more knowledgeable than me, but until then I'll ask a couple of questions:

1) What starting LTS/STS did you use in Golden Cheetah? If you started from 0 at the end of January then the TSB will still be fairly meaningless.

2) A Bikescore of 500 for a 150km ride seems a bit high so are you sure your CP/FTP is set correctly in GC? I'd guess 150km is ~5 hour ride for you so there's obviously something up there if you're accruing a Bikescore of nearly 100 an hour for 5 hours straight.

3) Are you FTP testing on the turbo or road? It's not unusual for power to be well down on the turbo compared to the road so it may be that you're under-estimating FTP. Do these FTP tests make sense in the context of your riding? In other words, ignoring the numbers from the tests, do your rides/intervals suggest an increase in FTP (and power for other durations) or do they suggest a stagnating FTP?

4) Your training 'plan' sounds a bit like just riding doing roughly the same week after week.

disgruntledgoat

1 it was at 0, so I assume I'm better still working on "feel" and not worrying too much about that for a couple of months

2. Typo, or my poor recollection probably, I'll check GC again tonight

3. On a turbo, yes. But the numbers do seem to tally with how I would
percieve the various levels of effort. I had found over the course of the last 6 weeks that I'd be bumping against the top end of TH for a prolonged period in my intervals and not feeling it was especially taxing. I had a top 10 placing in the OHN cyclo a few weeks ago as well that would suggest I'm doing something right this year.

4. My plan is a little more than you describe, I just didn't want to bore you all with details of my riding. The problem I think I do have is that I've been doing the same type of workouts, obviously including progression into the cycle, for the last 5 years or so. So whilst I can see progression in the numbers on the power meter, its possible that mentally I "know" how hard each interval is so I stick to how I've always ridden it, but I've no data to prove or disprove that. I do plan to start working differently in late May when my current phase is over and I've had a couple of weeks to rest off.

I'm not here saying "I'm a much better rider than these numbers", I just genuinely don't know what a rising FTP looks like at this point as I've only been using the widget for 6 weeks!

jgsi

Just a couple of quick thoughts..
carry on collecting the data .. the more you have stored over a season , the more rational decisions you can start to make.
I was informed that a TSB of minus 20 was a sign of accumulated hard work and an easing off might be in order.
Are you rides / trainings showing Intensity Factors over .95 into the 1's+ ?
If they are and they 'feel' ok to do, then thats a sign that threshold number is set too low.
The tables for 'standards' are set out in Allen and Coggans Training with Power book.
Worth getting if not already got.
As an aside is there prize money to be had for these Cyclos?
Finally... periodisation... also good to understand and possibly integrate into your training schedule.
Trainer Road and now it has some excellent training plans built in for the subscription . I find really good value.

All this is opinion, not fact ;-) I am not a coach even in real life

BeaconRuth

disgruntledgoat wrote:

I decided that I wasn't going to alter the training plan i'd written for myself when I started with the power meter as, by that point, I'd been training .....for 4 months.

So:
- You are an experienced racing cyclist with 12 years of training and racing behind you
- You had been training consistently for 16 weeks already..
- Then you started measuring your FTP and working with power
- 6 weeks later your FTP has gone up by 2%

So, all other things being equal, and assuming consistent progress, you had previously spent 16 weeks making progress at the rate of 2% every 6 weeks.... So from the start of training up until now you could reasonably expect to have added 7-8% to your FTP.

Sounds perfectly plausible to me. Of course it depends how unfit you were when you started training and to what extent you personally respond to training.

So, should I be getting more out of my training? Or as an experienced and decently fit rider who's been doing progressive training for the season since October, will I only exoect to see very incremental gains?

Bear in mind that 2% over 6 weeks, when scaled up for a whole winter's work, is not an insignificant improvement. I'd say an experienced and already decently-fit ride should not be unhappy with that.

Was I too fatigued to test accurately?

Probably not. Usually if someone feels they have been able to give a test a good effort, then they're not too tired for it. If you have a decent amount of training experience you can usually trust what your body tells you - if you didn't feel too tired to complete the test then you probably weren't.

What other insights can you all offer?

If you had a top-10 placing in an event recently which was a good result for you, then I would take that and be happy with it. You'll have to spend time building up a picture to understand what expectations you can have for your power in training and racing but I suggest not getting too obsessed with numbers like TSBs and Bikescores. Yes, they can be of interest but your experience of how you feel, whether you achieve good placings and how much your legs are hurting are still relevant and important pieces of information. Don't disregard all that now just because you have a powermeter and lots of numbers in front of you.

Ruth

pan280

disgruntledgoat wrote:

What other insights can you all offer?

According to what i've read SRM has a claimed accuracy: +/- 1.5% – 2.5% (crank dependent).
So your 20 min power may have changed by +/-4.5%!

disgruntledgoat

Thanks everyone, especially Ruth for reminding me that feel still has a place!

As I said, I have no idea what a normal profile of improvement looks like and as a guy who is about process rather than results, is very self critical and gets bogged down stats (professionally and in cycling!) I have a feeling all this data could be an equal blessing and a curse

Barbarossa

pan280 wrote:

According to what i've read SRM has a claimed accuracy: +/- 1.5% – 2.5% (crank dependent).
So your 20 min power may have changed by +/-4.5%!

There is a big difference between accuracy and repeatability. I would expect repeatability is much better than +/-1%.

colinsmith123

disgruntledgoat wrote:

Thanks everyone, especially Ruth for reminding me that feel still has a place!

(Edit) As a guy who is about process rather than results, is very self critical and gets bogged down stats (professionally and in cycling!) I have a feeling all this data could be an equal blessing and a curse

To the OP.

Yep, that's me too,always wanting to understand the numbers game, as though somehow that is going to make faster/ fitter or any other gain I can dream up.

A bit like you I tend to see only small gains; 2% on an FTP test since the last test. Ruth views bigger improvements, which is reassuring to both you and me

Incidently, I was watching Alex Dowsett racing on the track last Monday, lapping the field in the points race on pain, alone. (88" gear to the majority on 92+) And he was suffering, like I don't know how to. For me, this was great reminder it is not about numbers as Ruth has so succinctly stated. And it is this that got me through my last effort on the turbo last night, just scraping above 110%.

AD LVV 1hr end of 04/05.