I completed the 4DP in December. Have just been looking at my result as I’m do it again tomorrow as I have just completed the Mountain Fondo training plan.
I notice it says test results not great. I have attached a picture of it.
Just wondering if any can shed some light on where I went wrong so I don’t repeat the same mistake again.
Cheers
A better way to ‘diagnose’ would be to look at the graph of your power output (found under the 4DP profile, fitness test history). This will let you see if you 1) surged during the 5 min test and/or 2) died during the 1 minute test.
Further to the excellent advice above, and disclaimer that I’m Not sure how new to 4DP you are, but you are aiming for Constant maintained effort for the duration of each test within the 4dp. So it reads as though you had a high 1 minute spike of effort during your MAP section, rather than a fairly level power output for the duration of the five minutes.
Likely your one minute test left something more in the tank than the test anticipated, which is why it flagged your result. It’s unusual to see that.
I still dream of the day I take a perfectluy time test. Hope your next one goes well. Each day is different!
The one exception to the constant maintained effort is the AC effort at the end. The instructions even tell you not to try.
Thanks for all the feed back. This was my first time doing it. Looks like I had a massive spike at the beginning of the 5 minute effort. Will see how tomorrow goes.
Here’s a screenshot of my power for it
You may likely have already read this, but Wahoo has a great article on how to best approach the 4DP test. I’ve found this one really useful, and I return to it every time I do the test myself:
One thing that I’ve found helpful is to determine what I think my targets are going to be for the various efforts and jot them down on a post-it note somewhere that I can see them when I’m on the bike. The caveat to that is that you absolutely still have to listen to your body and adjust to how things are going, but I find the 4DP can be a bit stressful, especially as the fatigue sets in, and just having those targets written down helps me focus so I don’t undershoot or (probably worse) come out the gate too hot.
Good luck!
Something I find worthwhile is working out what gear and level you need to be in for your target power. So a quick play around in the week running up, so that during the test you aren’t chasing your target power and changing gears and/or levels too much to find the right one. That should help avoid spikes.
There have been couple of good suggestions to try to see if they work for you. As you do more of the tests (FF and HM) you will find something that helps as well as just getting used to doing them. Keep in mind that both are a snapshot of your ‘fitness’ on the day you do it and is influenced by rest/sleep, nutrition and stress as well as training.
I’ve done both Sir Justin’s and Sir James’ suggestions. Doing a trial run to figure out what level is best is something I usually do the week before a 4DP FF test. I use a steeper ramp on the NM and AC tests than the MAP and FTP tests. I also go back to ERG mode between the tests for the recovery sections (keyboard shortcuts are great).
For the test itself, the last couple of times I’ve turned off the power display. I found I was chasing my target number versus letting my body do it naturally. The ‘chasing’ of the power number caused several issues 1) power spikes, 2) a psychological effect if I didn’t hit the target power and 3) a psychological effect if I did hit the target power (backing off instead of finding my max). I mostly go by my RPE, backed up by cadence and to some degree heart rate.
To help with cadence, I’m using gearing with a one tooth difference in the gear steps. That might mean being in the small chainring and small cogs vs big chainring. I also have a custom playlist for Full Frontal with songs that 1) help me with cadence and 2) get me pumped up. My MAP song is just over 5 minutes long (AC/DC Shoot to Thrill) so I’m not looking at the clock for that section to end. FTP is several songs back to back with an increasing tempo on the second song once my body has settled into the effort.
Another thing, don’t worry too much about NM. That energy pathway is totally different than the others but it too can have a psychological effect at the start of the test (especially if you mess up the timing of it). My training reality is that if I have a NM sprint in a workout, I’ll usually toggle to level mode for the sprint.
Best of luck!
Do you also have too many women with too many pills?
I have Megadeth’s Symphony of Destruction permenantly seared into my brain because it was my pre-race song for cross-country during my senior year in high school. I had a cassette with it recorded over and over again on both sides so it would be the only thing in my head once the race started. It worked a little too well.
