Getting my 1st FTP # ?

Hey everyone,
I am trying to get my FTP figure, and I've read about the 20 min test. All I have is the KK computer, which gives me watts, rpm, and heart rate (along with basics). What I can't figure out is at what intensity should I be going. Is it as hard as I can? Do I have to hold a certain power? or can I be going up and down in wattage within those 20 min? Basically, I just would like to know what and how I should be riding within that 20min test. (All of this I am doing on my trainer, which I believe is a different FTP than on the road, I think).

Thank you for any help with this, I know I'm a pain

-Greg

Ride it like a time trial, don't kill yourself at the beginning and fade but try to hold the highest steady pace you can sustain for the duration and yes it should be as hard as you can sustain but not so hard that you blow up or have to back way down before the time is up.

ok cool, can I fluctuate any power at all? maybe from 250-220W?

thanks Dave

What should be the allowable/biggest drop within that 20 min ? Let's say I start out in the 275W range, what should be the lowest allowable W at the end?

No drop. Start easy enough that the last 5 min will be your fastest. So if you expect to average around 275 W, Start at 260-265 and get it up to 275 W in 5-10 min, then see if you can push it past 280 for the last 5 min. Psychologically, it's better to finish strong than to overcook it initially and have to recover or worse yet give up. Trust me, you don't want your head telling you "I can't push any harder" with 3/4 way still to go.

Once you have a few of those efforts under your belt, you'll get a much better feel for them and will learn to pace them more evenly.

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You have to expect that there will be some trial and error involved here. Your first effort will, most likely, not be your best. Experience will teach you what teh appropriate pacing will be for you and go from there.

Straying slightly OT... Nailing one's FTP to the nearest watt shouldn't be an expectation anyway. Given the accuracy of PM's and normal changes/fluctuations in physiology. Myself, I don't bother updating FTP unless I'm sure that there's at least a 5 watt change.

Dave

i think everyone is different in degree, but i think accepted wisdom is to start out at some wattage below what you expect to average at and then raise power to some wattage above what you expect to average by the end..

e.g. i start our about 15-20 Watts below the average i'm going for and end up about 20-30 Watts above.. last couple mins can be more than 40 Watts above the average.. i think i'm more extreme than most though..

if you do as you describe what happens is that your red zone right away (after about 5-10mins) and after a certain point power drops off markedly, if you can even complete the interval and average power ends up being very low.. you will get a higher ave. power if you start out slowly and build. first third should feel easy, second third should feel a good sort of hurt and last third should start to hurt in a bad way.. i know for myself, i've tried it every which way and building as describe below always ends up with the higher average power. if i start out at my 20min power i always end up with an ave. lower than my 20min power...

i'll just add that it's better to be conservative in your tests and then raise the bar up..

also.. FTP is also approx. what you typically can do for a 20min effort in training and the adaptation one would get from a record 20min effort is only slightly more than a typical one, but the record will be a whole lot more painful.. so no need to go chasing records every day.. better to just get your training in and go home... every now and then you may get the feeling that you're on a good day and you may want to try to see what you can do but.. mentally and physically you don't want to be chasing records every time at bat..

also, also.. i don't know anyone that actually does 1hr FTP tests.. it's almost always extrapolated from 20min tests so i just dispatch with the *(.95) and just track 20min power directly...

Thank you very much guys for all of your help. I will give it a bunch of trial & errors, and feel everything out.
I always feel like I'm asking too many questions, but I'm sure I'll have some more as I'm training and studying .

Thanks again,
-Greg

Now you do.

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The same great advice to starting below your power and building during a 20 min interval applies to real-world events as well. At least for me, moderating the efforts early on a long climb or club ride/century is the way to go. It's hard to let people pass you in the first minutes or hours of a century event, but it's even more fun to pass them with 10 miles to go and have enough left to keep it down all the way to the finish.

Yeah but I would add that doing 1 hr test are just not necessary and don' t fit comfortably into many people training schedule and won't change in any meaning way almost anyone's training it's really a waste of time and disruptive to their training. I'm all about being practical and doing one hour test is not going to change anything in my training or racing so I don't see a need to do
it.

l've always tracked FTP with 30min efforts, don't like 20min tests there too short for my liking and 60min is too long and loose I motivation. 30min is purrrfect!

but i don't get why people find it so necessary to track "FTP".. i know you need a number to put into Cycling Peaks but with the potential error and assumptions built into the performance manager how accurate does that number really need to be?

so you take your 30 min number an do whatever you do with it to turn it into an FTP... what value other than the above plus maybe a number to put into the FTP thread is there to it? is that number going to affect how hard you ride your intervals during training? it doesn't for me. i simply ride my intervals as hard as i can or as is reasonable given training load/fatigue etc.. my "FTP" doesn't dictate squat in my training. honestly even my max 20min number doesn't dictate squat either. in season i routinely do about 240W.. 250W if i'm on a good day and i want to hurt myself.. after the season is over and i take my two weeks off and then maybe my second week back on the bike, all rested up and motivated i usually start popping 20min at 260-275W (~5W/kg).. so even knowing what i can do maximally for 20mins doesn't inform me of what intensity to do during regular season training.. and the same would go probably doubly for 1hr power since it's REALLY, REALLY hard to get up and motivated for a ride like that in, in season training.. i really see this fascination with FTP to be a real time waster... all you really need to know is what length intervals you need to do and then do them.. after a couple workouts you'll figure out how fast you can do them.. just take the number that you typically do in training an plug that in as your FTP in cycling peaks (that's good enough).. and like i said for most including the OP FTP is calculated from 20min-30min power so why not just dispense with the calculation and just track progress from the 20-30min number directly.. that's the number you're tracking daily anyway.. as long as you are making sure you are getting in your longer endurance inducing workouts you're fine.. if you're suffering during longer races (3-4hr+) then you know it's time to up the longer rides.. i don't get it people thing there is some magical quality to FTP/1hr power when there really isn't it's just a single point on the critical power curve

sorry for the rant..

The value in knowing what your FTP is comes in periodization. Once you're good enough at cycling that you can't go hard all the time without burning out in overtraining, you have to cycle your load. You can't always go as hard as possible, but you don't want to go so light that you get no benefit out of the exercise. Knowing where your quantifiable max is let's you set a quantifiable target below that max, rather than just relying on your perceptions of what is and isn't possible for you.

Havn't you had this discussion before

FWIT I am with you and see no need to nail down a specific number, l find 30min intervals give me the best form of training and perhaps l should of said in my previous post "I track progress with 30min intervals" as l NEVER do a formal FTP test, my training is my testing and l'm rearly fresh enough to say that my last 30min interval was as good as it gets but if that 30min number rises in training then l can assume my ft..... er aerobic power has increased
I only contributed to the FTP thread this year for the first time and my estimation of my FTP came from not a 20 or 30 or 60min test but an entire 6wk block of training leading up an A race where everything came together and nothing stood out for those durations during said race but my avg power for 2-3hrs was a little freakish although understandable as it is extremly hard and pointless for me at least to go all out in training for 2 or 3hrs but with a chasing group in a big race where l'm fit and fresh there's the motivation right there.
And "yes" I posted my "estimated" FTP on the FTP thread because l felt left out not being part of the pissing contest and nothing more, after all it's just another thread on another forum