In my experience heat and humidity are the most important factor in this efforts. During warmer days, when it was 75-80F in the room (3 fans) I could hold my FTP for 30 minutes and then blowing out (and my TTE is 60 min from KM test)
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I believe you have to make it to the ramp in order for you to take the average of the first two blocks of the interval. You’re FTP is set way too high. Drop it to 315 and make it to the 40min mark of the test before putting it any higher…
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I tried doing one if the KM tests a few days ago…paced it a bit wrong and only made it to 30min. There’s definitively a learning curve involved! Still think it gives me a reasonable FTP value to work with.
Then did a TR ramp test today, and it came in 3W lower than the long test, so pretty much spot on. (Considering my KM test is probably a bit high, because it was too short, and that I’m a bit tired today, because I did quite a few max efforts this week).
Great result! What sort of sessions have you been doing @Captain_Doughnutman? Threshold or Sweet Spot efforts mostly? Are you making your own workouts or using the Sweet Spot and Threshold sessions on TR?
This is one of the questions I had for everyone @paulgrav. Recently I have steered away from an over focus on target watts and have instead switched my focus to RPE and HR as my focus metrics intra-workout.
The question that I have is, is the goal of training not to spend time in different zones, with HR being a great indicator of what energy system you are currently using/have used as well as where you are currently working, instead of relying on target watts? I’ve always been under the impression that the goal of a session, lets say a VO2 session for example, is to put your body into the VO2 training state, and that gauging HR is a great way to see if you are in that ‘zone’? This goes both ways too in that sense that you could also see if you were under training and doing Endurance work instead of say Sweet Spot work etc.
I understand that there are training adaptations and that naturally as you get stronger, you become more efficient and HR will drop when in those zones, but if you constantly perform an FTP test like the KM Progression 1 FTP test mentioned in this thread - every three/four weeks let’s say - then your HR zones will stay fairly constant with the increased load, and thus, the training stimulus in those zones is maintained. Am I on the right path with that?
By the way, this is a great thread. I am definitely going to give the KM Progression 1 test a go in a weeks time when I reach the mid way point of the General Build HV plan. Not only is it a great workout in itself, but I feel that it suits my physiology a lot better than the ramp test does.
I did the ramp test at the start of the program and it just did not feel right at all. Looking forward to giving the KM Progression 1 a go. It also suits my goals toward the end of this year over the Christmas Summer period down the coast and riding at threshold for a longer/extended period of time (I guess this means having to increase my TTE per-say? Something that the ramp test doesn’t give me.) Having the TTE metric is something that I want to improve on so I feel like it gives me something other than FTP to have as a goal as well.
I know that the test set up by @alexgold123 has been created so that it can be done in ERG mode and after 20min of the test (10min @ 98% + 10min @ 102% FTP) you should see a slight increase in FTP however, the test should be a minimum of 25min long to get a reliable estimate if I have read all of the above correctly. With that in mind, if you last 25min as your TTE, you should see an increase in FTP. I think.
The consensus though seems to be to do the KM Progression 1 in Resistance Mode instead of ERG. Will the KM Progression 1 test in the Team Gold still be fine to do in Resistance Mode even though it has been set up for ERG mode? Is Resistance Mode the mode whereby you can control everything and can spin at higher or lower watts depending on gearing - just like outside?
The protocol really isn’t so complicated that you need a planned workout. If you want to do it on TR I would just pick a 120 min free ride. Do whatever your standard threshold workout warmup is. Rest 5-10 minutes. Hold sweet spot level effort for 10 minutes. Slow ramp until your breathing starts getting off. Surf that effort level until you pop.
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2019 was mostly a bust for me, i.e. no intensity training, so I basically started 2020 as a fresh newbie.
To start with I did one block of each zone – Endurance, Tempo. Sweet Spot, Threshold – 2 weeks on/1 week off; all TR workouts (but not TR plans). Then I did a couple weeks of chasing KOMs. After that I did 2 months of 80:20/Polarized training. It wasn’t perfect in either compliance or structure but fun to experiment. Just finished 6 weeks of SS (with a bit of Thresh); again, all TR workouts (but not TR plans). I’m now doing ~3 weeks of anaerobic work. After that…I dunno! Probably some rest and then a big block of Z3/Z4 for the Oct/Nov/Dec. Might do a 2-week VO2max booster before that.
It all depends on how much time the pandemic giveth or taketh away from me.
Um…no. FTP and below, yes, very much use power and target watts as your main metric. Unfortunately, HR is not a “great indicator” as so much effects it. Work done over FTP should be more personalized, esp the further away from FTP you get. There are a couple of specific “zones” where HR is perhaps most useful (although breath is an even more precise metric): 1) VT1, kinda at the top of your Z2 zone; if you want to go out for a long endurance ride without starting at your numbers all day, breath through your nose and you’ll be fine; and 2) VO2max; please refer to the other KM threads for all that info (or his podcast!). Everything else, power.
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What you describe sounds similar to what I’ve been doing. I don’t know if that’s the right path for you, I barely know what I’m doing.
VO2 is tricky. At that intensity it’s hard to look at numbers to moderate effort level. I don’t think 120% of something works for me; it can easily be too hard or too easy. I found outdoor efforts were effective. 6 x 3min, and go as hard as you can. Riding your bike outdoors is nowhere near as mentally taxing as being pinned to a specific number of watts whilst counting down the seconds of sufferance.
Breathing is another important cue to whether I’m in the right zone. Sweetspot is a bit above the point where talking starts to become difficult whilst endurance is where I can talk comfortably.
I’m trying to keep my workouts to be a sub-set of what TR prescribes so that I can better compare performance over time. My hope is that I will see more watts for the same number of beats. E.g, Truuli is always the first workout I do following a vacation. Not only is it a good workout for preparing my body prior to a block of training but it gives me a great indication of whether I’ve detrained or if I’ve had some positive adaptations or if I’ve recovered from the travel. Likewise, Wright Peak -2 is a sweetspot workout I do on a regular basis. My HR should be around 150 for each of the efforts so that I can compare avg. watts. All this means I don’t need to rely exclusively on an assessment to determine progress.
RestingHR can sometimes explain poor performance or elevated RPE. I monitor my restingHR on a daily basis and will update my training notes if I see anything unexpected.
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I’ve been doing a zone 2 block after finishing up Century Specialty build early summer. I have seen my power increase 15 watts for the same pulse. One other thing that I’ve noted is that my pulse goes higher before I reach VT1 subjectively. Currently doing 3 x 2 hr isopower workouts/week with one group ride which is the usual hammerfest. I often tack on another hr of zone 2 after the group ride.
Care to share a short synpsis of the podcast @mcneese.chad?
Dying in VO2 workout (at HIGH rpm 
) so it could be a while. Besides, I have about the worst grasp on these topics and would probably screw it up 
Hoping one of the smart guys can do it better than I could dream.
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Synopsis: start low & ramp slow. And no ERG.
Now go listen. 
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Binary search for the win 
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And no ERG.
I always disagree with that advice, it assumes that the power target is locked in. You can easily fine tune the target wattage based on feel as you go, and I’d say you can fine tune more effectively than if you are jumping up and down gears.
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Rather Progression 3 from the KM tests for the riders that exactly know where their FTP is. If you do not know from training where you FTP is - the progression 1 is fine.
If you use WKO and your PDC od properly filled - go hard for 30 minutes and it will be enough.
Something tells me that @Captain_Doughnutman can be eager to try the ERG mode approach
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As much as I am a fan of ERG, I like KM’s reasons behind using Resistance for his tests.
As far as subtle tweaks go, you can use TR to make fine changes via the Resistance percentage setting. I did this all the time when I did the 20m FTP test. You can really dial in the Resistance level and even avoid shifting altogether, if that is preferable.
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Mist admit I didn’t really get much out of that latest podcast, nothing real actionable anyway. I don’t have smart trainer soe e.g irrelevant for me anyway!
I did like that episode, especially Kyle’s annoyance at people applying models to data without understanding under which conditions they can be used. As another physisict, that is one thing I find myself explaining to people a lot!
Don’t know if this is a good place to ask @empiricalcycling but I’d like to understand something better regarding MLSS. If this is a ‘steady state’, why does it have a limit (TTE)? What actually happens when we reach that limit, ie, what is it we are actually training when pushing that limit out?
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I don’t have a full answer but when riding at MLSS, just because your lactate has reached a steady state doesn’t mean that other things have. You are still burning through carbohydrate and I’m sure other ‘fatigue markers’ are still rising. And don’t forget that your RPE will be rising also. Just because your body is at a steady state doesn’t mean that your pain tolerance and mental focus can remain the same thorughout the interval.
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Yeah ok, I get that you have a limit of supply to create lactate, steady state or not. But I don’t think you reach TTE when you’ve burned through your energy reserves, or you could ride at FTP until you bonked. And I’d still like to understand what the other fatigue markers are.
Maybe the question is related to this debate we had on here somewhere about the aerobic process having no fatiguing byproducts.