Hi all,
I am using TR but have a few questions about the Ramp Test.
First, I have seen some athletes go all out on the Ramp Test, end up with an impressive FTP and then they can’t do the workouts or can barely do them. They then, lower the % during the ride so it’s easier (especially if it is more challenging workouts). It seems to me that it may be worth doing both the Ramp test and say a 20 min TT (perhaps a week later?). Then getting an average of the two test?
Next, does FTP determine speed outdoors? I may be answering my own question here since I suspect it is Power/Weight ratio rather than raw FTP.
Everyone has differentl power profiles. If I kill myself on the ramp test, I can still get through workouts, but just barely. If I do the 20min test (not my best), my workouts don’t feel difficult enough.
TrainerRoad very recent added adaptive training, which will adjust your workouts if you struggle to complete them.
Unless you’re going up the side of a mountain at 5mph for the entirety of your ride, W/CdA determines speed. W/kg is roughly directional but a poor indicator. It just happens to be far easier to measure. Kg doesn’t scale linearly with A and is completely independent of Cd.
Hi all,
I am using TR but have a few questions about the Ramp Test.
First, I have seen some athletes go all out on the Ramp Test, end up with an impressive FTP and then they can’t do the workouts or can barely do them. They then, lower the % during the ride so it’s easier (especially if it is more challenging workouts). It seems to me that it may be worth doing both the Ramp test and say a 20 min TT (perhaps a week later?). Then getting an average of the two test?
Next, does FTP determine speed outdoors? I may be answering my own question here since I suspect it is Power/Weight ratio rather than raw FTP.
Thoughts?
Thanks!
KK
I did the ramp test this morning. It was my first time on the trainer after a 6-weeks break form cycling. If I had been doing VO2 Max workout for the past 6 weeks I would have been able to go all out. As it was I just pacing myself so I could go as long as I could without hurting anything and when I got to the last increase in power I bailed out 15-20 seconds early because I knew there was not way I could make it to another power increase.
Getting off the bike after the test my legs were jello and and my legs buckled on one of the first steps and I almost fell on my face. So…my test was an accurate estimate of where I am currently at. It was 30 Watts lower than my best FTP that I set two years ago but t was 9 watts higher than were I was after my end of the season break last years.
I hate FTP tests. The feeling that I am going to vomit when I am done and nearly falling on my face after the test is bad enough doing it once. There is no way I would ever intentionally plan to do that twice in two weeks. I think physiologically if I knew that I was going to have to do another test in a week that I wouldn’t be able to go as long on the first test. The only thing that gets me through the FPT tests is knowing that it is going to only hurt for a few minutes and then I won’t have to do it again until I have completed a long training mezzo-cycle when I will be better prepared for the test and get to see all my gains.
If you want to use the 20-minute test, or the 5-minute test, or any other test in place of the ramp test you can. You don’t need to do multiple tests. Just choose one and go with its results. If you are lower than you think you should have been, prove it by showing your gains on the next FTP test. If you think you went too high you can always lower the intensity of the workouts if you struggling to get through them. Dialing back won’t hurt your progress.
As your FTP increases, you outdoor speed increases. The more power you can put to the pedal the faster you go.
I generally am a fan of buying into a methodology completely. If you’re going the TR route, do the TR methodology. Don’t mix it up with other stuff. Keep it simple and easy. The more consistently you do something, but more likely you’ll stick with it and see good benefits. Combining Ramp Tests and 20-min tests isn’t something I’d predict as a sustainable practice because it’d be pretty mentally taxing over time.
Per the other poster, use Adaptive Training, and let it adjust for you, so you don’t have to “game the numbers” yourself
I wouldn’t say FTP “determines speed.” Many other important factors combine to determine speed. FTP correlates with speed and race performance. If your FTP increases, you can expect your race speed to increase and your performance to improve (assuming all other factors are equal).
If you give TR a good run, and it’s not working for you, then try another methodology.
Plenty of people do the ramp test and get a number too high for them, and some others get a number too low. You won’t know if you’re going to fall into either camp until you start the workouts. There’ll be some threshold workouts in there and those will tell you. I wouldn’t try to mess with getting an average of two different tests. You can swap the ramp test out for a longer test if you want though, just use the same test every time.
You could do the ramp test and then the 20min test a couple of days later?
Think it was on the TR forum I read one of the better ways to test FTP was do the 20min test, then the very next day do 2x20min at that FTP result with only 1 minute rest, and if you can’t complete it you’ve tested too high.
There is also some argument that you are better off using the test that replicates the type of training you will do, so ramp for vo2 and sprint focus, and 20min for threshold type stuff.
I have a friend who is a decent level crit racer and only does the ramp test. Asked him if he thought he could hold the wattage for an hour and he laughed and said no chance.
Plenty of people do the ramp test and get a number too high for them, and some others get a number too low. You won’t know if you’re going to fall into either camp until you start the workouts. There’ll be some threshold workouts in there and those will tell you. I wouldn’t try to mess with getting an average of two different tests. You can swap the ramp test out for a longer test if you want though, just use the same test every time.
I’m one of those who always test lower on my FTP testing (ramp or 20 minute) than what my actual riding shows. Last time I did a TR ramp test, I think I got 291. Two weeks later, on a century ride, I held 360 for 22 minutes in the middle of the long day (and ended up with a NP of 292 for 4.5 hours), so I believe my ftp is certainly higher than 291.
But, when I’m indoors using TR, I use the 291 as my FTP to help set my parameters. No matter what fan setup I have, I’m just not going to perform as well indoors as I do outdoors. And using this 291 indoor ftp has definitely not had a negative impact on my outdoor performance (ftp). I have bot done another ramp test recently because I’m recovering from surgery, but when I do, I will use that new number for my indoor workouts. I don’t look at it as my true ftp but a way to guide me on my indoor training. I’ll adjust as the workouts get easier, and I perform a new test.
I feel like you’re reading into it a bit to much. The TR FTP tests or any FTP test for that matter is to get you into the workout. It would never be able to account for everyone’s different ability as far as stuff like 5 second power, 5 minute power, under overs and super long endurance. Just because your FTP says you should also be able to achieve a workout in different intensity areas doesn’t mean you’re going to excel in those areas. It also can’t account for daily stresses, sleep, proper nutrition etc. Your ability can change drastically just on those factors alone. They’ve been saying that on the podcast for a few years now and it’s also why they went to the machine learning that ranks all of those skills and gives some more insight of the entire power profile rather than one number. I’m a huge fan of the platform if you couldn’t tell. I suggest going into settings and making sure you have AT enabled and always rate your workouts like it asks. Give it time and it will learn you.
My last 20 minute FTP test was 25 watts higher than the Ramp Test and the workouts at that intensity seem correct. I had done the ramp test a few times and could never improve my FTP. So for me, it seems like the 20 minute test is more accurate.
I’m a loyal TR user and love their platform and content. That being said, what TR is clearly unable to say, because they’ve put all their chips behind it, is that the ramp test is really not a great “FTP” test. It’s “good enough” to track IMPROVEMENTS in most aerobic energy systems that correlate with an increase in “FTP”, but it’s clearly worse at predicting “FTP” than a 20 minute test, which is worse than a 30 minute, which is worse than a 60 minute. The problem with those longer tests are that they are, for most people, much more grueling (so people will do them less), AND they require more experience/skill to really nail them. Most people would horribly under or over-shoot a 60 minute FTP test until they had done it a few times. A ramp test avoids those issues and is pretty much “just go as deep as you can go” and is more repeatable and easier to stomach doing it regularly. TR is a business that wants to retain their users and they have clearly found (surely correctly) that people can put up with the ramp test much better than 20 minute tests. They throw the “FTP” label on it because, well, that’s what people know. I would argue that most people would be better off replacing a ramp test with a 20-minute test (I did this last year), unless you’re someone who would never do a sustained effort like that, in which case maybe the ramp test is a better correlation to what you’re looking to improve.
All that being said, adaptive training sort of makes this less of an issue, because if your ramp test is way off high or low, your levels should adapt pretty quickly. But certainly never assume that the ramp test really indicates what you could hold for an hour (of course for some people it will be spot-on, but there’s way too much variance).
I find the RAMP test and the subsequent workouts to be correct, especially with Adaptive Training.
Treat the RAMP test day as a normal training day. My Ramp tests always fall on Tuesday which is a Masters day, I do not do anything different than any other day. It is a guide to help you through the next block of training, it is not for PRs or bragging.
Also, getting the WKO software and understanding the mFTP (modeled FTP), TTE (time to exhaustion), and FRC (functional reserve capacity) metrics was the first step at targeting my training better for the events I was preparing for.
In short, the 20-minute test isn’t a very good way to estimate FTP and FTP is only part of the picture anyways. TTE and FTP combined help you understand your TT fitness and tailor your training to your target event much better. If your FTP is going up and TTE is going down too much, you’re likely not developing the fitness you need for a 60+ minute Olympic bike leg or longer. You need to increase the time you can hold your FTP to more closely match the duration of the event you’re targeting.
For example, my mFTP will fluctuate by as much as 35W throughout a year as I switch focus from a 20-minute stage race TT effort to a 90-minute mountain hill climb effort. At the same time, my TTE will go from about 30 minutes at that higher mFTP to about 80 minutes at that lower FTP. It basically means my threshold power is dropping, but the duration of time I can hold it for is increasing significantly.
I’ve been curious to try out the testing protocols described in the article. I would imagine it’s eye opening to try and hold your FTP number for time to exhaustion rather than just giving it hell for 20 mins. I may give it a go this coming season.
It kind of baffles me that TR insists on even talking about FTP as a central point still. I get it from a historical point of view, but everything they have done has drifted away from needing to know FTP to set workouts.
As Nate said in the AT Q&A, every workout is an assessment. The best way to know what you can do is to go do it. And AT incrementally builds that into as you go through a plan.
There needs to be an initial guess to training zones. With AT, that initial guess need not be that accurate. TR claims that they are anchoring on FTP. But they are not. They are anchoring on other tests that you can sort of convert to an ok guess of FTP with a decent amount of uncertainty. Enough uncertainty that you can easily be too low or too high in the training zones. After a few rounds of workouts, you zero in on that.
Honestly, no one needs to know FTP. What you need to know is what you can do for certain efforts that you care about. And specificity in training will give that. If by chance you need/want to do an event where you don’t have the luxury of specificity, then those quick and dirty assessments are an OK guess and nothing more.
What you’re describing here is exactly what the WKO software has been doing for years. Using their power duration model (PDM), they establish a mean max power (MMP) curve that will show your actual and modeled maximum power for durations from 1s out to the longest duration rides you’ve done. It just uses your existing rides and workouts to establish this curve.
Instead of doing a 20-minute FTP test or one of the other protocols I shared, you can just look at the PDM chart with error values and do targeted tests in areas where the PDM and MMP curves diverge the most. That will ensure that your PDM curve accurately reflects your fitness levels. The nice thing is, they also have a curve that will show your MMP after exerting a certain number of kJ which is helpful for late race attacks and such.
All of these things are really just the tip of the iceberg of what WKO is capable of. If you use their education materials and have some other base knowledge of training from things like the Training Bible books or having past coaches that educate you along the way, this software makes it very easy to self-coach relatively successfully.
TR claims that they are anchoring on FTP. But they are not. They are anchoring on other tests that you can sort of convert to an ok guess of FTP with a decent amount of uncertainty.
What other tests? The nice thing about a test, from a data perspective, if that you can assume that it’s a maximal effort. That the athlete tried as hard as they could. As Coggan would say, racing is the best testing. From regular TR workouts, they might be prescribed to approach a maximal effort. Or if the athlete fails can’t complete an interval, then you can assume it was a maximal effort for that duration. But when TR says they’re still using Ramp Test results to anchor, I absolutely believe them. Particularly since all the “Level” metrics reset after a Ramp Test. And the historical database of Ramp Tests over a decade or so is just way too valuable a ground truth. If you’re going to evaluate AT vs. what came prior, the Ramp Test performance is a great metric because it’s common between the two. Maybe at some point they’ll move away from it. Doubt it’s anytime soon.
Having done a little work with Golden Cheetah’s open source database of athlete training data, finding “clean” data, even for a single consistent athlete is really hard. Ramp Tests (or any FTP test) are pure gold in that regard.
Pre AT they anchored on these. Post AT they initialize with these. And none of these are precise measures of FTP in general.
The ramp more closely measures maximal aerobic power. They then convert that to an FTP estimate using a knockdown factor based on data. That inherently has uncertainty. Especially when you scale an already scaled number to approximate training zones. Which is one big reason people were failing threshold and VO2 workouts - miss those zones by a few percent and you’re toast.
I understand why they used to try and anchor on an FTP estimate, but they’ve grown past any fundamentally useful purpose for doing that with AT and have a much more precise way of picking workouts and quantifying fitness. If they think deeply about it, anything about FTP in that conversation is descriptive rather than prescriptive - which is a phrase IIRC I’m stealing from Coggan.
“If I go all out on a ramp tests, then subsequent workouts are hard.â€
Lol, they’re supposed to be hard.
I subscribe to the theory that all the workouts they have are not designed to exceed your capabilities. So if you get to 24 minutes on the ramp test, all workouts are a % of that defined FTP, and you “should†be able to complete them. That doesn’t mean they won’t be hard. Basically, they won’t put anything on your plate that you can’t handle. That’s not to say some workouts will “fail.†You might have not slept well, or eaten right, or any number of reasons. But “failing†a workout isn’t the end of the world. At the end of the day, you still got benefit from the workout, even if you weren’t 100% compliant.
Eh…there is some truth to that. But they’ve objectively demonstrated that the jumps in the plans were too big previously and what you said that they wouldn’t give you anything too hard is not accurate pre AT - at least for the general population.
You will reach a point where you can’t do anymore no matter how hard you try. And the plans previously implied you could do them. They said you could do them. Then they did objective analysis and realized the only way folks could often do them was if they understood why and how to adjust the workout intensity. And they also recognized a change in ramp often doesn’t mean a sudden change in ability in a plan.
AT smooths things out and tailors it better so progression is more even. I’ve never gotten too easy of a hard day on it. And I still fail workouts cause I try to push it. But I fail a lot less and improved my fitness past previous power PRs from an 18 month plateau that consisted of taking my self to the limit several times a week and often puking in workouts.
It is counter-productive to have to go all-out or fail workouts regularly. You get something. But not as much as consistently going hard with something left in the tank on most hard days.