Hi all, just bought TR, setup my account and jumped straight into the ramp test. Tl;DR my question is at the bottom in bold.
Stats:
Sex: M
Height: 180cm
Weight: 90kg
Zwift FTP: 240w
Max HR: 184bpm
What I didn’t realise is that after what I think is the ‘initial questionnaire’ where it asks training status etc. it estimates your FTP.
It estimated my FTP at 180w, when in reality it’s ~240w. I’ve been riding zwift daily since March so am confident in that, plus my last zwift ramp test that’s what I got.
As a result, the steps only went up at ~10w a time, and my ramp test went forever - 26+ minutes.
My legs felt good, but my heart blew up - I set new HR record of 196bpm. The ramp test calibrated me at 225w.
My question: if the ramps were more aggressive, I think I might have saved my heart a bit and used my legs more, perhaps able to eek out another ramp or so. Should I put off my training plan for another week and resit the ramptest with my new calibrated 225w? Or given it’s 15w, just get straight into the training plan, but I fear I won’t be using my time as efficiently given it’s 15w under.
I doubt it made a massive difference. It may be that your TR FTP is slightly less due to the testing method. Just remember it’s not so much what the number is so much as providing the right training zones.
I’d suggest start your plan as scheduled and use the TR generated FTP of 225. If it’s way too easy you’ll know reasonably early. You can then retest or manually bump back up to 240.
My first ramp test was pretty similar, way under estimated it and went way passed the 19:30 you need to break even. I tested 3 days later and it went up 12 watts. Might have helped I knew what to expect after the first test.
I sometimes think initial gains have more to do with learning how to do the ramp test better than actual fitness improvements.
I don’t think it is necessary to re-test right away, try two weeks or so. If workouts feel easy, bump up the intensity by a percentage point or two or five and see how that feels. If you are acing all workouts, you can manually raise the FTP. Especially for a beginner, the temptation is to raise it very quickly to the value you have in your mind, but the actual success of the training is to keep at it. If you are always teetering on the brink of failure, I’d say your FTP is too high.
Interesting. My first ramp test on here went on for 23 1/2 minutes, and gave me an FTP of 251. About 6 weeks earlier, I did the wahoo test (5 minutes, recover, 20m) outdoors on a long, flat-ish stretch of road and got a result of 269. I haven’t found the 251 to be obviously too easy for indoor workouts, so I’m sticking with it until the next test.
Or just do another test.
It’s only 20 minutes. There’s no rule that you cant take onw whenever you want.
I once did two in a row because I thought the first test was under my FTP. I waited for 30 minutes to recover then did it again. I tested about 10w higher and then used that number for the training.