Does FTP matter | Should you be doing FTP tests to improve your cycling?

[@Air1_R1]

hey! Careful when you increase volume + intensity. If you feel really tired and off your common numbers just try 1-2 weeks doing only z2/high z2 easy for the nervous system. Eat well and enough protein, sleep well and eat a lot of natural ferritin (fishes, meat if you eat, nuts, greens). Try walking outside 20-30min per day to relax, take the sun and simply chill a bit. After 2 weeks doing some easy pace and a good rest you should come back to your zwift mindset / competition mindset ready to smash the pedals. Don't wait too much because the more you dig yourself a hole the harder it is to overcome it. Hope you recover well.

[@sigfreed11]

Ever since I started using intervals as my activity data collection website I don’t really ever need to do an FTP test anymore. So long as I am putting out max efforts on my rides (aka Zwift races) Intervals will calculate my FTP very accurately for me. Maybe even more importantly is that intervals is consistent, just like the Zwift ramp test is at least consistent. Using a single type of test is the best way to measure progress - and intervals FTP calculator means I don’t have to spend a day doing a test and I can use that time for more structured training 👍🏻 4:43

[@harrybrooks03]

This guy gets it^^

[@Choccytube]

Great info here, I did a test at the beginning of the year (ramp test) and found I had to adjust the output after the first session. The correlation between watts and HR are important too, I did an endurance ride and my HR was about 5-8bpm up on normal, and the next day Garmin told me my training was "unproductive", and I then realised I was meant to be in my easy week. I took a few days off and training became a lot easier. You are right about the rest days before an FTP test, I treat them as a hard session in my plan.

[@repmortskcab8483]

Not sure what your conclusion was but I totally share your thoughts/doubts/approach. I'm writing from a 100% Zwift racing perspective, sub 40km races, typically in the 20-30km range. Since I am a light rider, I stopped doing TT/TTT, since I will never be able to produce the raw watts like the heavier riders. TT/TTT would only make me interested if it was divided into weight classes, like boxing/wresting/cars. Zwift racing is all about raceIQ and investing the watts at the right moment of the race (assuming you have "enough" wkg for your cathegory) and that largely depends on your phenotype and the route profile. I focus on my 20min and 30min power as my "FTP" Using my ramptest based FTP number as a baseline for my structured Sweetspot and threshold based workouts. As a puncheur/pursuiter phenotype I am relatively stronger stronger at 30 sec - 4 min power vs my 20 min - 60 min capability and for those punchier workout sessions, I find my FTP number being quite useless for me. I use the numbers I can actually produce in races and build my vo2max and interval sessions based on that and a little above, to push myself to higher ground and teach my body and especially my brain to recognize and endorse the pain. This is exactly why I can always produce a little higher result on my second Ramptest vs the first one. First ramptest just set the bar for my brain to recognize the pain level. Second attempt (some 10-20 minutes rest in between) my brain will force my body to endure the pain just a little bit longer. I'm new to cycling, less than 2 years, so I am most likely totally wrong about most everything, but I enjoy it it is my current belief, until I change my mind to something else 🙂 For raiders with big diesel engines, I can 100% totally understand that the FTP chasing is totally right for them. Thanks for interesting videos 🙏

[@NitroNorry]

For FTP, my coach has me do a 30 minute test and then tweaks the result slightly. There are many rabbit holes to go down with FTP, LT etc. but I find it useful to think of FTP as the power you can hold " at a steady state" and then the second component is TTE Time to Exxhaustion i.e. how long can you hold it for. Not many people can hold their "FTP" for an hour - whereas many pros can hold it for more than an hour.

[@crankgreenwatts]

Good video and explained well 👍 I've always been in the camp just to use FTP for setting my training zones; and that value will fluctuate throughout your racing season. Personally I don't use a ramp or 20 min test but instead go for a TT race (plug have a look at one I did) 😉 Keep these coming please as always great to get a different persons perspective 👏

[@ashleyhouse9690]

Interesting video and I do agree, if you are at all interested in your cycling performance and improving through active training, then it is important to know your FTP. I am not a racer but I am a long-time, experienced, recreational cyclist and cover several thousand miles every year. I have done several FTP tests in the past including 20 minutes efforts and ramp tests and much prefer the 20 minute test because I can pace the effort without pushing myself to near heart-attack that the ramp test seems to encourage! I would say though I tend not to do FTP tests these days but rely on my experience of feel for sensing what level I am capable of maintaining during HIIT or VO2max training sessions. Although I've tended to not do FTP tests, I did try to break my AdZ PB while back and for the one hour effort I managed to get within one watt of what I estimated my FTP to be. I can assure you that I wasn't holding anything back at all either for what turned out to effectively be a pukka, unintentional, one hour FTP test.

[@thewattlife]

The AdZ is the ultimate FTP test and I won’t have anyone say otherwise!!!! 😅

[@ashleyhouse9690]

@@thewattlife LOL! I don't recommend it to anyone though!

[@markusseppala6547]

Would be interesting if you shared more info on your training. The amount of volume and workouts. It sometimes feels you only do zwift racing.

[@thewattlife]

I have a new series which goes more into this, coming next week.

[@defaultuser2658]

The ramp test is more a VO2 test with FTP estimated from that. It will almost always overestimate your actual FTP and make subsequent Z4/5/6 workouts incredibly hard. Next time try the 20 minute or go all in and ride an hour and own the results. You are getting better but your watt delivery in race still needs smoothing out, way too many red spikes when you are in the bunch. Ride on!

[@davidcarino6500]

I just started doing these ramp tests! When we get older it takes longer to recover.

[@thewattlife]

Aint that the truth, but i think there are still things you can do to try and stay on top of recovery. Just takes more effort

[@davidcarino6500]

Stretching, massage rest. Etc.

[@greyspaniard]

What volume of training are you targeting across both sports?

[@thewattlife]

At the moment im trying to see whats working for me. Mostly though it will be hopefully 10-12 hours cycling and about 70-90km running in a week. This will probably change after a few weeks depending how the body adapts and whether i see any improvements etc. I have a few videos coming out this week on it

[@ScottVandersluys-tt8db]

How much do you drop/adjust your ftp after a ramp test

[@thewattlife]

My ramp test comes out quite high compared to my 20 min. So I’ll get an FTP of 311 on a ramp and 290 on a 20 min so I split the difference and do workouts at 300

[@davidgeorge9233]

I think you’re looking at it the wrong way by seeing it as a disaster, that was simply the best you could do on that day, our output changes way more than we give credit for, we like to think it stays the same as our previous best test result! I’ve found FTP to be slightly higher than LT2, doing a proper test in a lab gave me an LT2 of 280w and my best 1 hour power of the season (2023) was 299w. Compare those figures to my Zwift ramp test result of 330w ftp! I would say that in the 7 years I’ve been riding I’ve become more hesitant over ramp tests and 20min tests as I think they produce over inflated figures, what’s become more apparent to me is that a scientific test in the lab is well worth investing in as that will give the most accurate data to establish zones from. Interestingly for me I stopped all structured training for 2023 and just concentrated on riding more steady miles and I had my best year ever especially in the Z1 and 2 hr zones where my power was up considerably.

[@NoluckBear]

Mate you are so overtrained and your body is telling you to stop with the intensity right now, so please listen. I get it, Zwift races are your content and all, but you are digging yourself a hole, that’s going deeper and deeper and if you end up digging it too deep, you might not get out of it, without dropping that intensity for half a year or however long it might take..

[@thewattlife]

Also just seen this. The intensity is coming right off for a bit now

[@Karan19880]

Are you using erg mode? Or it is off?

[@thewattlife]

A lot of the time i use erg mode for FTP ramp tests. For the 20 min test there is no erg mode and that is free ride. For workouts i something switch between using erg and not using it. All depends what the session is. But for FTP ramp tests i always use it and i have a Tacx Neo T2

[@Karan19880]

@@thewattlife thanks for replying

[@KerryHall.]

Hi Max. Enjoy your content. Audio quality note...your videos frequently seem to have low or weak volume. Maybe it's just me, but I wonder if others have noticed the same, and if there's a way for you to boost the audio level. Cheers, and keep the content coming!

[@LewLew18]

Audio seems fine this end 👍🏼

[@thewattlife]

No hard in bumping it a bit for next time. No problem @kerryhall