How To Pace an FTP Test 20 Minute Test Pacing Testing repeatedly over time tracks changes in your fitness, allowing your workouts to be calibrated to your current abilities. An effective test can extrapolate the point at which your muscles are successfully walking that lactic tightrope and maintaining the balance between hard work and too-hard work. This is why it is important to test your FTP and test it often. But, the applicability and usefulness of this number has been proven by generations of coaches and endurance athletes.īecause we use this measure of fitness as the basis for all of your training, it’s important that this number estimates your actual sustainable-power threshold as closely as possible. Without actually testing your Lactate Threshold and VO2max in a lab, your FTP is an approximation.
The FTP estimate you obtain from an FTP test is used to calibrate your training zones and set the intensity of your workouts. TrainerRoad offers both of these tests as options, but they are more subject to pacing, fatigue, and equipment challenges than the Ramp Test. In this format, your FTP is derived as 90% of the overall average power of the 2 efforts. Another common method is the 8-minute test, in which you ride 2 all-out 8-minute intervals with 10 minutes of rest in between. In this format, you ride as hard as you steadily can for 20 minutes 95% of your average power during this interval is used as your FTP. Perhaps the best-known FTP testing method is a 20-minute time trial. Since it is quick (normally about 25 minutes, including warmup and cooldown) and less stressful, it can be taken frequently to track changes in your fitness. Our data shows the Ramp Test results in the most accurate and useful FTP estimate for the majority of riders using TrainerRoad. 75% of the best one-minute power you achieve during the test is used as your FTP. The Ramp Test begins with a 5-minute warmup, and then every minute thereafter, it gets slightly harder until you cannot maintain target power any longer. TrainerRoad’s preferred FTP assessment is our Ramp Test. In practice, this is extraordinarily difficult to pace correctly and incredibly fatiguing, so most testing protocols use approximations derived from shorter efforts.
Since FTP is supposed to represent the power you can sustain for an hour, the most obvious way to test FTP is to ride as hard as you can for 60 minutes and measure your average power output during that time. For the most effective workouts, your FTP should be assessed every 4-6 weeks, so your training plan can keep pace with your current abilities. An estimate of your FTP is calculated from your power output, and from this result, your workouts are tailored to your personal fitness. In an FTP test, you attempt to sustain the highest workload you can for a specific duration of time.
What is an FTP Test?Īn FTP test is a physical assessment, intended to evaluate your Functional Threshold Power (FTP). Sustaining high effort for durations of this length pushes you into that grey area between the power you can sustain all day and the fleeting power you can only tolerate for a couple of minutes. Physiologically, FTP is analogous to Lactate Threshold-the point at which your lactate production has risen and leveled off, closely matching your lactate removal ability. In theory, it’s supposed to represent the maximum power you can sustain for an hour, but in the real world, most riders have trouble sustaining it for much longer than about 30 minutes. In essence, it’s the measure of your highest sustainable power for an extended duration. Your Functional Threshold Power, or FTP, is the foundation upon which all of your power-based workouts are built.
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