A Couple (of Dumb ?) Questions ?

I should get my Polar Power system installed this week (I know its not as good etc as the PowerTap etc but at least its a start ) and I've read a lot of the posts in this section of this part of the forum plus CyclingPeaks and I just need a few of the terms clarified into terms that I'm familiar with if that's OK

1. FTP = Functional Threshold Power = Power at lactate threshold ?
2. Best ways to determine FTP (as FTP is what all/most power training levels are based around ?) is (and I'll be doing these on a trainer for repeatability in the future) is either 20:00 max effort average power*0.95 OR 2*20:00 average power across both efforts OR 5:00 max effort average power/1.20 OR 5:00 max effort average power/1.20 followed by 10:00 recovery followed by 20:00 max effort average power*0.95 ?

Any help or advice (except about ditching the Polar ) would be appreciated

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Pinarello Paris FP Carbon

No. LT is generally defined as the work rate that elicits a 1 mmol/L increase over exercise baseline level (i.e., 2.X mmol/L) or the work rate that elicits a fixed lactate of 2.5 mmol/L. These are ~ 10 - 15% less power than FTP or ~1-hr TTpower.

other way of determing training levels is with a MAP test, see http://www.cyclingnews.com/fitness/?id=powerstern. FTP is ~ 72 - 77% of MAP for the vast majority of people.

a 20-min TT * 0.95 is a reasonable proxy, but can be influenced by anaerobic capacity -- that is, if you have a high AWC 0.96 * 20-min TTpower may be too high for FTP.

This may also be the case with a 2 x 20 min TT (that it may be too high to set FTP from).

not sure i understand the last tests (it's not overly clear what you mean).

if you want to know what you can do for FTP -- then get out and do it once a month, it's only an hour! Similarly, people don't always like doing MAP tests (too much pain), it's only for a few minutes...

Ric

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http://www.cyclecoach.com

Sorry, I should have 'defined' my 'lactate threshold' a bit better - what I should have said (or what I meant to say) was threshold at 4 mmol/L (or thereabouts) ie when the 'going gets tough' etc

So if I rephrase, is FTP = Power at 4 mmol/L threshold (anaerobic threshold ?)

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Pinarello Paris FP Carbon

bit short on time at present... but quickly...

FTP is most likely > than 4 mmol/L which is termed OBLA (onset of blood lactate accumulation) not AT (the term is a misnomer).

FTP or 1-hr TTpower are performance metrics (i.e., your best power over about 1 hr). The other measures, e.g., OBLA, LT, MLSS, VT, CP, etc., are physiological measures which are all interelated to each other (i.e., an increase in one, will mean an increase in another) but aren't performance related. Maximal lactate steady state (MLSS) is most likely the closest to FTP, but may still be less than FTP (for e.g., at a power i can just maintain for ~ 1hr my lactate rises from ~2 mmol/L to ~ 8 mmol/L, when measured every 5-mins in the lab). in other words, getting a good performance result (race) doesn't depend on following a protocol designed to measure a specific lactate result.

finally, to clarify, an increase in one of these (physiological) measures will mean that the other measures (including TTpower/FTP) will also increase.

ric

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http://www.cyclecoach.com

Ric - thanks for the info and clarification

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Pinarello Paris FP Carbon

Get it on, get a coach and get a plan. Best thing you can do is get a plan. Pan over load and plan recovery. Remember you dont get faster while training. You get faster when you recover.