I agree. I love how CP can be scaled up and down as needed to match the time constraints of different events. I find CP to be, on average, 5-9% greater than FTP. The two measurements diverge more or less as a function of time. If you are down to run a few tests together looking at lactate and a few other metrics I would love to do that. Great learning experience.

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Antonio Squillante
Ph.D (s) CSCS*D RSCC SENr
Clinical Exercise Research Center (CERC)
University of Southern California

Sorry, but no, FTP is not the power you can hold for an hour, or even about what you can hold for an hour. An earlier post had a link to Kolie Moore's Empirical Cycling Podcast, and coincidentally in his most recent episode he was interviewing A Coggan himself about all things FTP, to include the longstanding misconceptions re: FTP. Hour Power is one of those misconceptions.

Can you elaborate on this? I'm aware of a single definition and general protocol for determining critical power. I'm not aware of how time constraints of different events would scale it up or down.

Well I have a book next to me called Training and Racing with Power Meter, co-authored by Andrew Coggan himself, that states, "FTP is the highest power that a rider can maintain in a quasi-steady state for approximately one hour without fatiguing." On the next page it lists, "One-Hour Time Trial" as one of the 5 recommended methods of determining FTP. Further stating, "Since, by definition, the best measure of performance is performance itself, the most direct estimate of your FTP will be obtained by simply doing a one-hour time trial." Perhaps Andrew Coggan himself has contributed to that misconception by co-authoring the book with these statements haha.

Anyways, how would you answer the question regarding comparing power in an Olympic distance triathlon to "FTP?"

My position is that typically someone will be able to hold 85-95% of their "FTP" in an overall well-paced Olympic distance triathlon. Where "FTP" is 95% of their 20 minute power from the Training and Racing with a Power Meter FTP test protocol (which includes the 5 minute all out prior).

I'm sure there are people out side of this range. As the TrianingPeaks article someone linked above pointed out, some people have TTE of 40 minutes at FTP, some have TTE of 75 minutes, where FTP is derived from the FTP test by a software algorithm that accounts for various other factors, not by the standard 95%. So one of those people would need to ride quite a bit further below FTP for an Olympic distance triathlon whereas the other could probably ride at about FTP.

Seeing as those are extreme examples picked out by the article, I think it is fair to say that the majority of people will have a TTE at FTP close to their Olympic distance triathlon split and therefore probably can't ride the bike portion at FTP or very near it (>95%). Again, some probably can, but it won't be the majority.

I know what it says, and I know how Coggan has repeatedly pointed out that that passage is attributable to his co-authors, and how he doesn't now nor has he ever defined FTP as hour power. Listen to the podcast I mentioned, it clears up a lot.

I will listen to the podcast because I'm interested in the weeds on this kinda stuff.

However, while it may be interesting to know Coggan's thoughts on FTP, the industry has largely adopted the definition from the book. Training software and their tests are based on that (kinda haha). That's how most people talk about FTP, right or wrong. I think it is important to add specific details when possible (like what protocol was used to determine FTP) when talking about things like "what %FTP should one target for an Olympic distance triathlon" but beyond that, arguing about Coggan's FTP theory is kinda irrelevant to the question at hand.

If you like getting into the weeds, you'll want to listen to lots of Kolie's podcasts. As for the most recent one with Coggan, they spend a fair bit of time lamenting the fact that the industry has, as you say, adopted the one hour thing, as it wasn't his intention and frankly, it's wrong (his words, not mine).

Training zones lined up. E.g. LT1 was pretty much exactly at the top of my zone 2 calculated using coggins power zones from a 20min test.

There are some huge misconceptions in this thread!
I was hoping for this to get intresting but it seems people would rather quote one or two lines from Training and racing with a Power Meter.
The 5 minutes all out makes me laugh!
Anyone who has ever competed in a Pursuit is laughing with me!

Would you like to contribute something useful to the thread to try to make it more interesting?

OP has largely avoided answering anyone's questions about exactly what he's getting at with this thread.

I quoted a few lines from a book as it was relevant to the conversation (granted it was a side-topic not directly related to the original topic). This led to some decent discussion about the reality of cycling training culture today among the masses.

What makes you laugh about the 5 minutes all out?

Yes, I tried other tests with better results. 4DP from Wahoo Systm/Sufferfest is a good one. I also rely heavily on field testing and benchmark sessions, including 2x20' best average set.

Roughly 90% of FTP calculations to set the training zones did not align with metabolic/gasometry testing results. RPE does way better job here. However I would be very careful with validating power output with lactate considering this is an American forum. USA has very unhealthy population with about 40% of the citizens having metabolic syndrom, hence lactate testing requires very unorthodox approach. Looking for set La values - ie aerobic threshold around 2mmols won't work well.

FTP is a very simple metric and I feel it is a big reason why it's popular. I totally agree that most people overestimate their real FTP.

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coaching via trinergy.pl
TP Training Plans
IG @kowalski.coach

 

Would you like to contribute something useful to the thread to try to make it more interesting?

I already have! A post linking to alternatives to the 20 minute test and advice to listen to some of Kolie Moores podcasts.
The recent one with Andrew Coggan is very interesting and there are quite a few on the subject of FTP.




What makes you laugh about the 5 minutes all out?

As I said anyone who’s competed in a Pursuit would know. I doubt I could even get my leg over the bike for anything more than a spin on the rollers after 5 minutes all out!
Coggan would agree with this!
The 20 minute test is Hunter Allens Test and at best will give a rough estimate.

Ah, sorry, I skimmed for another post from you and missed it. Thanks for the article and podcast recommendation. I read the article and am now subscribed to his podcast after listening to the Coggan interview.

Regarding the 5 minutes, I've used it in the protocol every time. Perhaps I'm not truly going all out but I'm usually about 20% higher power on the 5 minutes versus the 20 minute. There is a 10 minute easy interval between it and the 20 minute portion and my legs manage to regain function. I think the addition of that interval even not absolutely all out still helps towards the purpose of reducing the anaerobic contribution to the 20 minute test.

Alright, I just finished listening to the Coggan interview. Good stuff. I was expecting a much stronger dispelling of the "FTP is 60 minute power" myth though based on what you've written in this tread.

I gathered that he would strongly disagree with someone declaring that FTP is, and only is, exactly the power one can maintain for exactly 60 minutes. But beyond that, he was just lamenting a bit that some people don't understand that FTP is intended to be a broad overarching concept rather than some exact number determined from a specific test.

There were many mentions relating FTP to 40k TT power, TTE at MLSS power, and how they were generally in the range of 40-70 minutes. He mentioned his power proverb "squiggly 1 hour power is to FTP as s is to sigma." So a pretty far cry from, "Sorry, but no. FTP is not the power you can hold for an hour, or even about what you can hold for an hour." in my opinion.

Towards the end when he was prompted to clear up any misconceptions with this work, he touched on the 60 minutes thing but concluded that it probably didn't actually matter much in terms of the actual application of the FTP concept, just that he didn't like that it showed that people don't really totally understand the concept.

What I thought was most interesting was that he really views FTP as a broad overarching concept. Almost to the point where I'm surprised he doesn't advocate for it to be a range rather than one number. Seems like he'd be happy with it being a 95% confidence interval or something like that. He's clearly on the conceptual end of FTP and seems to struggle with the fact that athletes, coaches, software creators want it to be a concrete thing that is calculated and used to calculate other things like workout prescriptions. Even when he talks about his involvement in WKO, he is careful to say that it is modeling an estimate of FTP based on the data it is given, not calculating it exactly. That's all fine, and I get it.

He describes FTP as representing a blurry line. He describes it as an umbrella covering critical power, MLSS, maximal metabolic steady state, ventilatory threshold, etc. He says FTP is CP, FTP is MLSS, while also acknowledging that when really pinned down, CP and MLSS power tend to be different numbers.

My ultimate takeaway is that FTP is a range of power values. This certainly makes creating workouts and race plans based on FTP a little more difficult though!