I did a couple of VO2max tests many years ago. That’s exactly how they ended and I was wrecked for the rest of the day.
And apply the same 95%, I assume?
Why?
Definitely cheating.
According to the WADA rulebook:
Thou shalt not conduct FTP test by targeting current ftp and adding 2.99% to 3.01%.
I’m not sure why it’s written in a biblical tone, but it sounds you’re right in the middle of the forbidden range.
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Fortunately it was a tad below 30 mins (but pretty much as all out as a 30-min Zwift race can be). If I take 95% of the best 20-min average, this would call for a 1-2% increase in FTP (ok), if I take the average of the whole enchilada as-is, it would indicate a 7% increase (ouch!). Recent threshold and o/u workouts (Lamark, Leconte) tell me my FTP is in the right range. So 7% up is not quite realistic. 1-2%, maybe, who knows - and that sort of difference is well within the resolution of any of the methods, be it ramp test, 8 or 20 min test, or whatever else.
The podcast has covered this a few times. The common knock against timed FTP tests (i.e. both 8 & 20 minute tests) is that in order to pace properly you really need to know your target, but you can’t know your target until you take the test and see what your FTP is. It’s a catch-22. Many (most?) don’t pace properly, usually going out too hard, and therefore fail to get a good assessment of FTP. That’s why the ramp test was developed.
In my opinion the way to get around the catch-22 is to do exactly what you’ve done - identify your expected fitness gain and work backward to the power you need to hold for those 20 minutes. If you can’t hold that power for the 20 minutes then your new FTP can split the difference and maybe during the next training block you bump it up little by little if the workouts are feeling just a bit too easy. If you can hold that power and at the end you feel like maybe you could have held a little more then take your target and add a few watts.
I’ve always approached my FTP assessments this way and I’ve seen steady gains for the last several years up to 4.5 watts/kg now on high volume plans. In my opinion the key is consistency and slow, steady progression. Big FTP bumps are likely to wreck your next training block. Small bumps might leave some fitness on the table, but you can always add a watt or two or three during a training block (which I’ve done a number of times) and you won’t dig yourself into a pit of fatigue.
Lastly, I believe there’s a typo in your math. 254 / .95 is 267 not 241. I think you meant 241 / .95 = 254 (which is correct).
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Yeah, this being a Zwift race, that’s a pretty good assumption 
My highest 20-min segment is the last 20 mins, predictably, as the pressure goes up getting closer to the finish (and my pacing being such that I didn’t blow up, don’t ask me how). And that’s the 95%-of-20-mins = 1-2% increase of FTP I had above.
Well, that’s close enough, and thanks for the feedback.
This is how I have pretty much always done my 20 minute tests… Your training leading up to the test should give you a pretty good idea of a target you think you could hold for 20 minutes and not explode. Especially if you are coming off something like SSB.
For example my last one I thought I could hold 325-330 for 20 minutes I came in right at 326. It might have been a little lower then what was possible. But it was a good increase and my training now feels harder and more impactful.
The “sprint”, if you can call it that, was so awfully weak that it does not have much of an impact… It was mostly an absence of fading away.
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Its a painful way to do it if you’ve over-estimated the target. Aim 10-15W under your target for the first 5 minutes, right at it for the next 5m, a tiny bit over for the next 5 if you feel good at that point, then full beans for the last 5.
If you’ve properly done the full gas 5 minutes beforehand then you’ll have a really horrid time trying to hold a power that’s too high.
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not cheating. first 5 minutes I target somewhere around my current ftp and slowly ramp up from there trying not to make any huge leaps in watts.
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I think I cheated my ramp test this morning.
I looked at the numbers I hit on my last test and had it in my head that I would beat that number and go for at least another minute - it worked.
Still not cheating. As long as you didn’t do a massive anaerobic spike at the end (which TR punishes anyway,) you still did it. If you quit last time when you truly couldn’t go any longer, and you quit this time when you truly couldn’t go any longer, and #2 > #1, you improved (or you quit prematurely last time.)
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