You might be on to something. I’ve been eating enough - but not sure whether I’ve been eating the right stuff. I think I need to dig into the nutrition side of things. I do pop the odd GU Roctane get on the bike to give me a kick, but that’s probably not the same as topping up the glycogen stores in advance.
Very possible. I did Short Power Build and never made it to Specialty Phase as the outdoor season started. But to help maintain fitness during the outdoor season I focused on VO2max workouts…so ignored SS altogether. Thanks for pointing that out.
No… but I hope the guys would acknowledge that the ramp test FTP is a bit of a blunt tool. They’ve tested it thoroughly to get it at a level that’s going to work for most people, but there will be some outliers. And I honestly don’t believe that a single test can guarantee to give you the exact right numbers both for 10+ minute SS/threshold intervals, and 30-60 second anaerobic / vo2 bursts.
They already acknowledged (in the podcast that debuted the Ramp Test) that it is not perfect for everyone. They admitted from the outset that there are and will continue to be outliers. Nothing new to claim or acknowledge.
As with ANY test, they will work for some people better than others. That is the reason they maintain the 1x20 and 2x8 tests in the catalog, so people can substitute and use them as they see fit.
The Ramp is the default for them because it is good for a large number of people and easier to perform in some ways, when compared to the other tests.
TR makes no “guarantee” like that, because it’s simply not possible. There are too many variables to have a single test capture all of that.
That fact is part of the reason they spend time educating about the need to review test in the first place, as well as consider and apply workout intensity adjustments for some workouts (like VO2max and Anaerobic) to suit the particular feel of each rider.
Agreed… my post wasn’t intended in any way as a dig at the TR guys or product. But if you’re a fairly casual user who doesn’t listen to podcasts or spend a lot of time on the forum or reading geeky stuff about training zones, it’s easy to expect the ramp test to work perfectly for every rider in every situation.
I wish more people were capable of manually adjusting their FTP or the workout intensity based on their varying fitness and capabilities - but absent that level of self-knowledge the tests make sense as a proxy.
Frankly - if you die once on a workout that’s fine, try whatever is next for you. But if you are dying on every workout just lower the FTP setting. You don’t need to retest, you have it set too high for you to complete that workout
I’d go a bit further - if you’re failing or feeling particularly stressed and burnt out on workouts with an IF as low as Mount Field you probably need to lower the setting until you get back ahead of the curve
Maybe the TR guys could introduce HR recommendations into workout descriptions. Like Steve tells his riders they shouldn’t go over 83% of HR max on a 3x20min session, it might be useful to have something like “aim for x - y HR range during the intervals”, so if you’re going way over that, you know you’re overcooking it. You’d have to know or estimate your own maxHR, but for those of us who use it, it could be a useful little extra instruction.
Different coaches have different opinions. I’m firmly in the power camp, based on two years of HR intervals followed by three years power-based intervals. I spend a fair bit of time reviewing data and learning what matters for my training. Your mileage may vary.
Yeah, I didn’t get 5 out of 10 on Mount Field yesterday.
I wonder if I might have “overtested” the Ramp Test because I know the break-even time. It provides just that little extra motivation to push further that you don’t have on SS workouts.
The other possibility is that I do my workouts on indoor Stages bikes in the gym. Each has its own power meter…
Rpe is a bit subjective, especially it goes up with duration but most people probably don’t know their true max hr either. Also hr should be thought of as a cap, and not always a target during an evenly paced effort.