Powermeter training question

Yellahmann

This is probably a stupid/pointless question but going to ask anyway.

Recently got a bike with powermeter and turbo trainer. I haven't done an FTP test yet, only started doing training sessions in January so felt it would be like doing an exam without any study, (have one scheduled for March).

I've been doing Turbo trainer sessions every evening since the 5km limit has been in place. I do mostly 10 and 20 minute efforts at what must be above my FTP because there is no way I could maintain the effort for 1 hour.

I do 3X20 minute efforts one day and and 3X10 minutes the next. I'm finding that I can't reach the same power in the second third intervals unless I use a much bigger gear and low cadence.

It's like I lose the ability to turn the pedals quickly after my first interval.

Does this happen to everyone after the first interval or is it just a result of lack of aerobic fitness that would resolve if I could get outside and do long Zone 2 sessions?

benneca1

Do an FTP test it forms the basis of your intervals. It is like trying to cycle at 90% intensity not knowing what 100% is Regarding dropping cadence thats fatigue once you know your FTP you can set a doable programme

Yellahmann

Yeah you're right I'll need to do the FTP test, which I'll do in March. I'm just following the advice in the training and racing with a power meter book, he suggests just riding for a bit and get used to what different efforts feel like, and what numbers you get doing different efforts etc, before worrying about doing an FTP test.

I can't see any mention in the book about what I described, say I try to do average 220W for 20 minutes at 95 cadence and the RPE is 7, I'll try to do the second one at 215W but I blow up after about 5 minutes and can't get past 200W unless a start to push a big gear at about 70 rpm then I can get power up to 215W average by the end of the interval.

dahat

The 220 watts then is too high, try 2 x 210.

Yellahmann

Okay so better to do two or three at same power and cadence than one really hard at high cadence and two a little easier but in a big gear.

Yeah I thought the big gear was a bit of a cheat , but couldn't understand why it allows me to push more watts.

I'll try them at 210 them and keep higher cadence.

nilhg

Two suggestions, and a comment

Ride your bike outside as well, do as the book suggests out there, on the turbo you don't get the little micro rests you get outside, crossroads, over the top of little rollers for example.

Continuously, doing hard intervals inside will only tire you out and eventually put you off, add some variety or recovery days.

My opinion is that all of us have a natural cadence we are most comfortable at,for me that's high 70's, I'd run a much higher HR trying to produce the same watts for any length of time at 95 compared to 75, stands to reason, you are moving the weight of your legs much more.

nilhg

Also, check out intervals.icu for some free analysis tools if you don't have that facility as yet.

It'll estimate your FTP quite well from a few maximal efforts longer than 3 mins

dahat

Intervals.icu is great,I’ll second that.

Also at this early stage I would do my efforts at your natural cadence to find your ftp & subsequent zones.

Yellahmann

Thanks for the link I'll check it out. Totally would like to get outside, was hoping to this weekend but the wind was crazy.

Yeah the intervals is very much a short term thing, it's just to try get some basic fitness quickly so I can cycle up hills without my legs burning.

lissard

If you try doing the simple ramp test you'll get a good idea of your FTP. Only takes around 20-30 minutes. At least then your interval training will be accurate.

FinnC

You should probably throw in some(by some I mean a lot) of easy days dude.
The way you are going with constant hard days you are gonna burn yourself out.

Yellahmann

That ramp test looks interesting, I'll have to look into doing that tomorrow. Seems a lot more manageable than going top speed for 20 minutes.

Can I do that with a basic fluid turbo trainer ? Or does it need to be a computer controlled one ?

Like I'm fairly sure my FTP is around 210-215W my best ever 20 minutes was 230W and did another 2 after that at around 220W but had to use a big gear.

But yeah I take everyone point regarding doing a test, and I'll do one this week instead of guessing.

harringtonp

Yellahmann wrote: »

This is probably a stupid/pointless question but going to ask anyway.

Recently got a bike with powermeter and turbo trainer. I haven't done an FTP test yet, only started doing training sessions in January so felt it would be like doing an exam without any study, (have one scheduled for March).

I've been doing Turbo trainer sessions every evening since the 5km limit has been in place. I do mostly 10 and 20 minute efforts at what must be above my FTP because there is no way I could maintain the effort for 1 hour.

I do 3X20 minute efforts one day and and 3X10 minutes the next. I'm finding that I can't reach the same power in the second third intervals unless I use a much bigger gear and low cadence.

It's like I lose the ability to turn the pedals quickly after my first interval.

Does this happen to everyone after the first interval or is it just a result of lack of aerobic fitness that would resolve if I could get outside and do long Zone 2 sessions?

By reducing cadence you're switching the weakest point from lungs to legs. As your aerobic fitness improves this shift will be less pronounced

G1032

Yellahmann wrote: »

Okay so better to do two or three at same power and cadence than one really hard at high cadence and two a little easier but in a big gear.

Yeah I thought the big gear was a bit of a cheat , but couldn't understand why it allows me to push more watts.

I'll try them at 210 them and keep higher cadence.

A sure fire way to push out more watts is to ride a higher gear.

You've got to start with an FTP test before you can do anything really worthwhile.
But in saying that, an FTP test in itself doesn't tell the whole story. It's just part of an overall picture. It tells you what power you can sustain for an hour. Nothing more, nothing less. But it gives a great basis for calculating your training zones.

What an FTP test won't tell you....it won't necessarily tell you where you're weak/strong. It won't tell you where you need most work, e.g. low power aerobic work. A ramp test is better in my opinion. Gives a much clearer overall picture of where you are fitness wise and what needs work.

To get the best out of yourself and your training you really need to develop a strong aerobic base and work from there. This will most likely mean riding around every weekend at low power low speed as you develop a base but if you're serious about gaining fitness and getting stronger on the bike then you've got to do it! Riding around at 25 or 26 km/hr initially might not sound like fun but you'll reap the rewards if you develop a good base.

Anyway, we could get into too much detail here. Do your test. Find your zones. Find a plan to develop your base fitness and stick to it. Stick to the zones. Don't be tempted to ride harder than a days plan says you should. There is always the next session to consider and the weeks to come also.

Consistency is key too. Keep doing a bit, all the time.

And don't be doing big hard efforts all the time. That's insane and a sure fire way to getting tired, injured or sick. You keep going to the bank, pretty soon you're going to run out of money ;-)

Recovery is hugely important also. You have to factor in recovery days.

Before your test........ take a day or two off. Then the day before do 45 minutes easy.

Daroxtar

Personally I prefer a ramp test to the 20 minute ftp. I just can't properly pace the 20 minute test. I feel good, I push hard and then blow up after 15. If I don't blow then I know I've gone too easy. At least with the ramp I know to keep going until I blow.
Also, I read a good article a while back that says the 20 minute test is good for well trained athletes but for the less elite among us the drop off in power is often more than the 95% estimated and sometimes it can be down to 85% or even less.
I know what my best full hour on the turbo is (well, was a few months ago before I was forced to eat loads of cake ...) so I try to stick with that.
One other thing about doing threshold efforts, if that's all you are doing it can leave you very flat. You'll have a great diesel engine to go all day at the same pace but if someone shoots off up the road and you go into the red trying to catch them you'll have a hell of a time trying to recover. On different days try intervals with sprints, under/overs and Vo2 sessions.

Yellahmann

harringtonp wrote: »

By reducing cadence you're switching the weakest point from lungs to legs. As your aerobic fitness improves this shift will be less pronounced

Yeah I was thinking it must be something along those lines, so normal enough if not well trained.

Anyway, thanks everyone for the links and suggestions. I'll do the FTP this week instead of March, may as well get it out of the way.

Once I can get on the road I'll cut back on the intervals to the recommended 3 or 4 days a week, and get some proper variety for the other days.

Yellahmann

Daroxtar wrote: »

One other thing about doing threshold efforts, if that's all you are doing it can leave you very flat. You'll have a great diesel engine to go all day at the same pace but if someone shoots off up the road and you go into the red trying to catch them you'll have a hell of a time trying to recover. On different days try intervals with sprints, under/overs and Vo2 sessions.

Yeah ive got no sprint, legs go dead with the burning after about 4 seconds, and tried a couple of 4 minute efforts and had to get off the bike. So definitely need to train everything not just medium hard efforts

G1032

Yellahmann wrote: »

Yeah ive got no sprint lega go dead with the burning after about 4 seconds, and tried a couple of 4 minute efforts and had to get off the bike. So definitely need to train everything not just medium hard efforts

You need to start with your aerobic base. There's no real getting away from that. The sooner you accept that, the better your training will be! A lot of endurance and some tempo. No need to be doing big hard threshold efforts yet.

Yellahmann

G1032 wrote: »

You need to start with your aerobic base. There's no real getting away from that. The sooner you accept that, the better your training will be!.

I'd much rather be out doing 2 or 3 hours at Z2/Z3 than sweating on a turbo trainer, but I can't imagine myself being able to tolerate 3 hours on a turbo trainer at 150W.

So until I can go beyond 5km I'm stuck in turbo land doing different intervals.

nilhg

Yellahmann wrote: »

I'd much rather be out doing 2 or 3 hours at Z2/Z3 than sweating on a turbo trainer, but I can't imagine myself being able to tolerate 3 hours on a turbo trainer at 150W.

So until I can go beyond 5km I'm stuck in turbo land doing different intervals.

Essentially he's covering your situation here, even if you're not on TR, you seem to be following a similar schedule to one of their SS plans which he so objects to.

68 lost souls

Yellahmann wrote: »

I'd much rather be out doing 2 or 3 hours at Z2/Z3 than sweating on a turbo trainer, but I can't imagine myself being able to tolerate 3 hours on a turbo trainer at 150W.

So until I can go beyond 5km I'm stuck in turbo land doing different intervals.

Even at this it should not be Zone 2/3 it should eb ZOne 1/2, If you want to get better you need to do it. I did 1:40 yesterday on the turbo while watching Netflix. Get it done.

Also I would question where you think your Zones are, if you can do 3x20 minutes at or near your threshold then its not your threshold. You should be able to do 1x20 minutes and be dead, then take 95% of that.

ED E

Yellahmann wrote: »

I'd much rather be out doing 2 or 3 hours at Z2/Z3 than sweating on a turbo trainer, but I can't imagine myself being able to tolerate 3 hours on a turbo trainer at 150W.

So until I can go beyond 5km I'm stuck in turbo land doing different intervals.

80 mins is easy with two episodes of a good tv show.

dahat

Yellahmann wrote: »

I'd much rather be out doing 2 or 3 hours at Z2/Z3 than sweating on a turbo trainer, but I can't imagine myself being able to tolerate 3 hours on a turbo trainer at 150W.

So until I can go beyond 5km I'm stuck in turbo land doing different intervals.

Focus on the zone not the watt value.

If you want to improve you will get it done by road or turbo. I've knocked out many hours at low zomes on the trainer as weather & covid means long endurance spins aren't possible for now.

Get it done is the basic message here.

Yellahmann

68 lost souls wrote: »

Even at this it should not be Zone 2/3 it should eb ZOne 1/2, If you want to get better you need to do it. I did 1:40 yesterday on the turbo while watching Netflix. Get it done.

Also I would question where you think your Zones are, if you can do 3x20 minutes at or near your threshold then its not your threshold. You should be able to do 1x20 minutes and be dead, then take 95% of that.

You are right regarding the FTP number, I made a mistake in an earlier post. I typed that I had done 20min at 235W, this is incorrect. When I looked at my workout records last night, I only did 10 minutes at 235W followed by 2 more 10 minutes at 220W. Big difference between 10 and 20 minutes I know, but simple mistake.

My best 2X 20minute was 220W and then 210W on the second effort.

When I'm doing them I have to battle with my mind to not give up, I tell myself it's okay to drop power down a 5 or 10 Watts for a minute of two and then build back up once I get the average power to at least as high as I've done before.

My FTP then is more likely around 205+/- 5

Yes I agree that it's all guesswork, but I thought it would be ridiculous to base zones around an untrained 20 minute effort. Likely either I'd blow up by starting too fast and stop early, or I'd hold back too much and finish with too much in reserve. Both of which would not be of much use.

Additionally, I felt that even if I had done the perfect FTP test on day one, it would certainly become redundant in a fortnight and I'd have to repeat the whole process.

I wouldn't expect a gym trainer on the first day I joined a gym to get me to do a 1 rep max on a bench press and then base the next month's training on that, unless I was familiar with lifting heavy weights.

That was my logic.

I've only done 5 sessions of 20 minute intervals and 7 sessions with 10 minute intervals now, and it's quite an art to get the pacing right especially for the 20 minute efforts. I now know that a power output that feels manageable at 5 minutes may not manageable by the 15 minute point.

I think I will be able to give an FTP test a proper go, with this experience behind me.

However, if I'd known about the ramp test I would have just done that instead of training to do a test.

After the test I'll try to get a more realistic plan in place.

daragh_

Additionally, I felt that even if I had done the perfect FTP test on day one, it would certainly become redundant in a fortnight and I'd have to repeat the whole process.

That's the whole point of FTP testing. The results are meant to become redundant over time. You keep testing to gauge the effectiveness of your training plan and any gains/losses.

You seem to be looking at an FTP test as a goal in itself? It's not. It's a benchmark. Do a Ramp Test and start from there.

Yellahmann

I found an app called trainer day that brought me through the increments of a ramp trst and my best 1 minute was 296W. So going off that my FTP is around 215-220W, sounds a bit high but anyway that's what the test says so at least it's a repeatable measure I can use to test my progress.

Thanks everyone for the suggestions , especially regarding the ramp test, I didn't realise that was an option.

nilhg

Yellahmann wrote: »

I found an app called trainer day that brought me through the increments of a ramp trst and my best 1 minute was 296W. So going off that my FTP is around 215-220W, sounds a bit high but anyway that's what the test says so at least it's a repeatable measure I can use to test my progress.

Thanks everyone for the suggestions , especially regarding the ramp test, I didn't realise that was an option.

Did you upload any of your data to intervals.icu? If you did, it'll have done an estimation of your FTP as well, I'd be interested to see how it compares to the 0.75 of your last minute power method for the ramp test.

Yellahmann

nilhg wrote: »

Did you upload any of your data to intervals.icu? If you did, it'll have done an estimation of your FTP as well, I'd be interested to see how it compares to the 0.75 of your last minute power method for the ramp test.

I just looked at it now, the eFTP for the ramp test is 223W.

The only other thing I uploaded was 4*10minute efforts I did on Saturday and the eFTP for that says 208W.

nilhg

Yellahmann wrote: »

I just looked at it now, the eFTP for the ramp test is 223W.

The only other thing I uploaded was 4*10minute efforts I did on Saturday and the eFTP for that says 208W.

297*0.75=222, that's about as close as it gets to the eFTP, I think it's safe enough to work away off that figure.

Enjoy the new bike and trainer, hopefully spring is near and you'll be able to get outside shortly and make use of the PM in the wild...

Whyner

nilhg wrote: »

Did you upload any of your data to intervals.icu? If you did, it'll have done an estimation of your FTP as well, I'd be interested to see how it compares to the 0.75 of your last minute power method for the ramp test.

nice one, just discovered this site, there goes the rest of my working week

G1032

Yellahmann wrote: »

I'd much rather be out doing 2 or 3 hours at Z2/Z3 than sweating on a turbo trainer, but I can't imagine myself being able to tolerate 3 hours on a turbo trainer at 150W.

So until I can go beyond 5km I'm stuck in turbo land doing different intervals.

https://twitter.com/akilpin/status/1360954351620141056

Daroxtar

If you want big mileage on the turbo, go on Zwift and join the C Cadence pace group

Yellahmann

I'll leave the 5 hours on the turbo for the pros and racers. That's too many hours in one go from my own weekly exercise ration.

Raymzor

nilhg wrote: »

Did you upload any of your data to intervals.icu? If you did, it'll have done an estimation of your FTP as well, I'd be interested to see how it compares to the 0.75 of your last minute power method for the ramp test.

Never heard of intervals.icu until your post Nilhg. Thanks. Interesting piece of software. I took a look at some of my 20min sweetspot intervals. Looks like 30% of my time is higher than it should be! I always train outdoors on varied terrain with a number of left hand junctions prompting me to overcook power exiting! Anyone see this as a bad thing?

nilhg

Raymzor wrote: »

Never heard of intervals.icu until your post Nilhg. Thanks. Interesting piece of software. I took a look at some of my 20min sweetspot intervals. Looks like 30% of my time is higher than it should be! I always train outdoors on varied terrain with a number of left hand junctions prompting me to overcook power exiting! Anyone see this as a bad thing?

It's very impressive for something which is free, if you check out the forum you'll see that David, the man behind it is very responsive to queries and seems to have great plans for the site.

I'm not really qualified to answer your question re the SS intervals, my understanding from my reading is that it's not that important that the power is exactly right all through just that the average for the interval is within a couple of percent of the desired wattage. Or maybe you're underestimating your FTP and stronger than you think....

Raymzor

nilhg wrote: »

It's very impressive for something which is free, if you check out the forum you'll see that David, the man behind it is very responsive to queries and seems to have great plans for the site.

I'm not really qualified to answer your question re the SS intervals, my understanding from my reading is that it's not that important that the power is exactly right all through just that the average for the interval is within a couple of percent of the desired wattage. Or maybe you're underestimating your FTP and stronger than you think....

Thanks Nilhg. Time for a 20 min power test so!

dahat

Raymzor wrote: »

Never heard of intervals.icu until your post Nilhg. Thanks. Interesting piece of software. I took a look at some of my 20min sweetspot intervals. Looks like 30% of my time is higher than it should be! I always train outdoors on varied terrain with a number of left hand junctions prompting me to overcook power exiting! Anyone see this as a bad thing?

On varied terrain you’ll never hit exact numbers throughout the interval or at least that’s what I’ve found. On longer reps I always run avg & NP to compare, getting both close is a good guide for a quality interval.

Whyner

intervals.icu telling me what my legs already knew