Absolutely shocking results, I tell you...shocking.


Thanks for posting!

TLDR, so is it dead, or not?

Come on...4DP is where its at, baby!

...er, do I really need to say....pink?

Thanks for posting. I find it hard to believe that after reading so many (heated) arguments about FTP that this paper has generated so few comments.
I'll have to do more study though to understand their last 2 sentences of the second last paragraph as to why they don't suggest basing training zones on a 5% reduction of the power of a 20min TT but suggest using the raw number.

I guess mainly because that adds complexity to the study. Your 20min power, 60min power and even IAT, is what it is, but may reflect other levels which are related (FTP has a strong relationship with everything from a 2000m pursuit to a 181km Ironman leg), but there will be individual differences.

Hence I base 4000m pursuit efforts off 4min power, 16km time trial efforts off 20min efforts, 40km time trial efforts off 45min power and so forth and roadies have to do a mix of everything to be prepared for whatever race day challenges present.

So in WKO4 I look at power at all levels from PMAX, to FTP and the associated times to exhaustion at each level to keep a gauge on where a rider sits in relation to their goal events.

Time Trial events are relatively easy to prepare for. Tim Cusick has suggested that if a ~30min time trial then train to 30min power. Sort of expect that sort of common sense from someone coaching World Time Trial Champions.

Hamish

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Hamish Ferguson: Cycling Coach

Agree. All sensible stuff. Its just that unless I missed something those last sentences weren't addressed in the paper?

I think in terms of the research looking for relationships between the different measures of the same physiological occurrence that 5% just really doesn't make that much difference.

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Hamish Ferguson: Cycling Coach

People like Liversedge are probably hoping that if they ignore this thread, it will go away.


I actually find it more odd that the authors still express some skepticism about the concept of FTP.

Let's think about what they did/found:

1. Performance power during maximal 20 min or 60 min efforts was significantly correlated with the blood lactate response to exercise, and with each other;

2. This correlation was higher for 60 min power, with closer limit of agreement than for 95% of 20 min power;

3. Time to fatigue at 95% of 20 min power averaged 51 min, but with a fairly wide range.

All of these results are entirely predictable based on long-standing literature, with #s 2 and 3 being partially the result of individual variability in supra-threshold fatigue resistance (anaerobic capacity, W', or FRC, depending upon which you prefer.

At least some of the remaining variability is due to reliance on blood lactate data from an incremental exercise test as the "gold standard", versus directly measuring MLSS. (A limitation that the authors admit.)

I can't speak for Liversedge but I found the study rather interesting.

Here are a few quotes from the study.

https://docs.google.com/...EBdjI&authuser=0

""
It is difficult to accept FTP as a thoroughly valid concept.

These results challenge the validity of the FTP concept.

we feel the exact meaning of FTP as a performance variable has not been established yet.

interindividual variability was higher than typically found at MLSS

We propose the mean PO in a 20 min TT ( without the 5% reduction ) is used for training intensity prescription and regular monitoring, as previous research has already
ascertained it's robustness as a performance test. """

As I've been saying for years, why use estimates of estimates when you can use the raw data.

The study also shows a 7% decline in power from 20 minutes to 60 minutes. That is steep for an area claimed to be rather flat.

All you have really proven by quoting the authors is that you can't think for yourself. (I also can't really say that I am all that impressed by their reasoning. They seem not to recognize that the best predictor of performance is, and always will be, performance itself. Instead, they seem to consider an estimate of MLSS based on measurement of blood lactate during an incremental exercise test to be the ultimate gold standard, and have interpreted their data accordingly. Simply put, that's bass-ackwards.)

As for the 7% decrease in power between 20 and 60 min, that is partially because 20 min is too short, i.e., non-sustainable reserves still make a not-insignificant contribution. That's why I have never been a fan of Hunter's 95% of 20 min power estimate, something that the authors' suggestion of just using 20 min power without any correction fails to address.

This is also at least partially why the authors observed a fairly wide range in time-to-fatigue, as that was measured at 95% of 20 min power, not 60 min power (a better estimate of FTP) or MLSS (not determined in this study).

You are the one who was always claiming FTP is power at MLSS or 'threshold' so now when you don't like the conclusions in this study you claim FTP is the gold standard and there is something wrong with MLSS, or how they tested for it.

In my opinion your mistake was claiming FTP was anything more than a measure of performance over approximately 60 minutes. If performance is what matters most, which is my opinion, why did you try to tie it to MLSS which is a questionable measure anyway?
Lactate rises as power increases exponentially and any so called threshold is just the result of too few measurements. Even the definition of MLSS allows for a 1mmol.L rise over the last 20 minutes of a 30 minute test, which is a huge rise given the average is 4mmol.L.

I like the *data* in the study just fine, as it supports anything and everything I have ever said.

Of course, that is not a surprise, as there really isn't anything significantly new about their findings. That is, all of the results were completely predictable a priori, based on studies going back to the 1980s.

PPP: The best predictor of performance is performance itself.

I'm struggling to see what any of the paper has to do with FTP, the term for which no rigorous definition exists. It says:

"FTP was identified as the mean PO during the 60-min TT (FTP60) and 95 % of the mean PO during the 20-min TT (FTP20)"

The letters FTP seem to be irrelevant to this. They measured 60 minute power and 20 minute power, and looked at those figures in various ways, e.g. correlation with IAT.

They say "To our knowledge, this is the first study to investigate the validity of FTP20 to predict FTP60 and IAT in trained cyclists.". They could just as easily and validly have said "To our knowledge, this is the first study to investigate the validity of 20 minute power to predict 60 minute power and IAT in trained cyclists."

The entire paper would basically be unchanged if they removed all mention of FTP and instead just talked about 20 minute and 60 minute power.

For pros or us mere mortals?

In my pitiful little TT efforts the mental game is something I feel an amateur or novice is way down on vs a gifted TT elite rider.

I mean, how many for fun TT riders make downright disturbing deals in their mind with their body or the devil to get through it?

Sorry, side note. Just sayin...

Would say both. Just adjust the times accordingly. For the Pro's I coach the aim is for a sub 20min 10 mile time trial. For me it's anywhere between 25-30min depending on what bike I am using and where I am at with my riding.

Hamish

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Hamish Ferguson: Cycling Coach

1 mmol would never be described as a huge rise.
Have you ever tested anybody? Yourself?
Lactate only increases exponentially once you are above anaerobic threshold.
Below threshold it stays quite constant.
Heartrate tracks pretty much linearly too until you go over anaerobic threshold.
It plots a straight line against power, so there is no differing efficiencies in power production below anaerobic threshold apart from varying at the lower aerobic threshold.

Resting lactate is approx 1mmol.L. to 1.5mmol.L. When you reach the so called lactate threshold, which is disputed as it isn't there if you take enough measurements, it is claimed to be 4 mmol.L, and it continues to increase exponentially. So an increase of 1mmol.L over the last 20 minutes of a 30 minute MLSS test is on average 25%. To call an allowed increase of 25% in lactate ' steady state ' is a joke.

Never send a theologian to do an exercise physiologist's job.

Resting *blood* lactate is generally under 1 mmol/L. Only if your subjects are stressed, you measure plasma instead of blood, or your analyzer or sampling technique are biased will you routinely obtain a higher value.

A blood lactate concentration of 4 mmol/L would be OBLA, not lactate threshold.

Although a 1 mmol/L increase over time might seem large, it needs to be interpreted in the context of not only the starting value, but also sample-to-sample variation (which isn't insignificant, because unlike, e.g., glucose, lactate levels aren't regulated). More importantly, it needs to be recognized that that although lactate might drift up or down by that much over time during exercise exactly at MLSS, *the rate of increase is much greater at only a slightly higher intensity*.

IOW, that rate-of-change should be compared to what happens at slightly lower or higher intensities, not the static resting concentration. (you actually recognize this yourself, in alluding to exponential increases).

Regardless of the details above, the limitations of blood lactate testing, or any other physiological measurement, are why since my grad school days I have been pointing out to people that:

The best predictor of performance is performance itself.

As you know, sports scientists are often confused by what ' threshold' means. They seem to keep changing what they mean, or can't agree with each other what they mean by threshold. I've just checked a few papers and text books and it seems blood lactate at MLSS is between 2 to 8 mmol.L. But many sports scientists seem to have taken 4 mmol.L to mean ' threshold'.

The article below sums up this confusion.

https://www.trainingpeaks.com/...d-lactate-threshold/
""Many authors and coaches have been trying to answer these questions for a very long time. The first description of a blood lactate threshold dates back from 1930 and it was named by W Harding Owles, the “Owles Point”. In 1964 Waserman and Mcilroy proposed the term “anaerobic threshold” based on the belief that lactate accumulation was due to a lack of muscle oxygen availability and therefore anaerobic muscle metabolism was necessary for the continuation of muscle contraction. Mader and co-workers determined in 1976 that “anaerobic threshold” was reached at the blood lactate concentration of 4 mmol/L (milimol per liter) which was in 1981 named by Sjödin and Jacobs “Onset of Blood Lactate Accumulation” (OBLA) occurring at the blood lactate concentration of 4 mmol/L as well. Farrel and co-workers proposed in 1979 the term Onset of Plasma Lactate Accumulation (OPLA) which was the exercise intensity that elicited a blood lactate concentration of 1 mmol/L greater than baseline. Another term proposed in 1981 by LaFontaine and co-workers was the “Maximal Steady State” which in theory happens at a blood lactate concentration of 2.2 mmol/L. In 1983 Coyle and co-workers proposed the term “Lactate Threshold” which was a non-linear increase in blood lactate of at least 1 mmol/L. Another term, “Maximal Steady-State Workload” (MSSW) was proposed by Borch and co-workers in 1993 and was established at the fixed [La-] of 3 mmol/L. Veronique Billat in 2003 proposed the term Maximal Lactate Steady State (MLSS) as the exercise intensity at the one blood lactate can be sustainable.""

As to resting blood lactate. Many people are stressed all the time even at rest. Seeing as you are such an expert perhaps you should inform Wikipedia they are wrong in stating 0.8 mmol.L to 1.5mmol.L. as resting lactate.

Whichever way you look at it, MLSS is not a true steady state, Christ knows why sports scientists named it Maximal Lactate Steady State because a rise of up to 1mmol.L is a large percentage of any level between 2mmol.L and 8mmol.L. If you take the lower 2mmol.L it's 50% and at 8mmol.L it's still a rise of 12.5%.

Personally I think blood lactate testing is a waste of time when you have the ability to test power over set durations. Perhaps it had a use giving people heart rate zones back in the heart rate monitor fad days.

Andrew, as you are so keen to claim approximately an hour means anything from 40 minutes to 70 minutes, I could claim approximately 1mmol.L to 1.5mmol.L covers anything from 0.25 mmol.L to 2 mmol.L. See my post in which I used the word approximately.

You're preaching to the choir, Reverend.

PPP: The best predictor of performance is performance itself.

Now you are making the same mistake as always, i.e., thinking in one direction when you need to be thinking in the other.

Here is an example of how very small differences in *power* result in much larger/more rapid changes in lactate. Up to 310 W, and this cyclist (2nd in the Texas state TT and 3rd in the road race in 1984... I will let you guess who won both races) was able to maintain a physiological steady state. Increase the power by only 15 W, or by <5%, and blood lactate concentration increases quite rapidly, i.e., at a rate of 0.4 mmol/L/min. That is 10x the slight drift you keep whinging on about.

To state it another way: in this individual, the difference between an intensity at which blood lactate rose 1 mmol/L in 20 min and a slightly lower intensity where it was dead-constant would amount to only ~1.5 W

What was mmol.L at 310 watts at the point of fatigue at 58 minutes? That graph shows only the first 10 minutes.