One of the best for this is Nine Hammers. Make sure you have decent legs and give that a go with the new HM numbers and you’ll get a sense of how close they are there. The good thing about NH is it’s also hitting those MAP systems hard, with some ftp - both thing that HM gives you so it’s a good match up.
Be interested to hear how you get on.
I don’t do HM typically as it happens but this is a great use case for it … when numbers are increasing fast and then use NH (rested’ish) to back it up.
Just my tuppence worth. (I use NH to validate my FF results every time - rightly or wrongly (and no, not the day after hahah))
Jokes aside (making an assumption here!), I agree the FF is probably the best test - but it also does mean doing a proper taper into it, to get a true picture.
I’ll do a FF after ToS, before starting next 12 week plan but right now keen to find some numbers ahead of ToS that are taxing but achievable.
‘Told off by angels’ looks like a good validation too. Maybe more representative of a tough all round session vs. The toughest (NH?)
There’s a heap of workouts out there to be honest. Do either of these … and then use the same one in future maybe.
Fir me it’s as much about the consistency side of it - if I use the same one regularly to ‘validate’ then I have a sense of how that one feels as often (actually more because I do NH more often than FF) as I have a sense of how FF feels - consistency is key … probably more so than whichever workout you pick. As you will get to know where You Are relatively.
Sometimes a workout is better than FF as it’s a real use of those numbers (IMO) but when validating HM, FF eventually is the answer.
Interestingly I’m the opposite Sir Jim - routinely do better on HM than FF - my FTP is always a bit too high on HM and possibly a bit too low on FF. I’ve shuttled back and forth from Attacker to Sprinter to Pursuiter in rider type. I think my sustained efforts stink, so hoping post KoS I can continue to build on endurance.
Well first of all, many thanks Sir Martin for your suggestion of doing Nine Hammers as a validation test. Undoubtedly the hardest session I have done to date. Especially with a new MAP that is 11% higher following Thursday’s Half Monty!
So overall I think I scored a pass on the new numbers. I completed 7 of the nine hammers at 100% and then dropped it to 98% for the last 2. You might recall that the last hammer steps up every minute and I made it until 30 seconds until the very end before I went into a Erg mode death spiral.
I don’t know about other peoples thoughts but I’d say that NH is very much a test of the MAP parameter. It does say it is 5/5 for MAP focus 4/5 for FTP. I thought the Sustain/FTP hammers were very comfortable compared to the VO2 hammers which were touch and go from the first one!
I’m also someone that jumps around rider types of Sprinter, Attacker and Pursuiter. I’ve done Half Monty three times now and have always faired considerably better than for Full Frontal.
I decided to test this a little further. After a bit of a break from ToS, I decided to do the Full Frontal. I came out with
FTP 263
MAP 339
AC 494
LTHR 166
Then today, a few days later than the FF, with one hard 2hr ride and a Primers workout session in between (far from ideal!), I did the Half Monty. I got
FTP 297 +34
MAP 368 +29
LTHR 170 +4
With such a wide variance (10%+) I’m really not sure what values I should be training with. Any suggestions?
I had the same issue. Basically advice I got was pick a halfway point between the two and do nine hammers. Depending on how it feels you’ll know. See the link below:
However one does not simply “do” nine hammers. I’ve previously done nine hammers after a HM test and the values were probably 5-10% too high as I could only complete seven hammers with those values. I think when they’re closer to accurate, I usually fail in the last minute!
I last did HM on June 26. My results were MAP 318; FTP 257; cTHR 158.
I did FF the next week. My results were MAP 318; FTP 253; cTHR 162.
I had about 4 weeks off. Then have been sporadic, but improving since the middle of August.
Today I did HM agin. My results were MAP 318; FTP 259; cTHR 160.
That’s amazingly consistent despite the time off. I was actually expecting all my numbers to go DOWN. So, I’m pleasantly surprised. I stopped with 20 seconds to go in the ramp step I was on. Felt like I could’ve made it to the end of the step, but really didn’t feel like pushing myself that hard.
@emacdoug I had a mid-summer break (not intended) of about 2 weeks and had a similar experience to you with numbers. However, from there I started getting even stronger fairly quickly. The recovery definitely helps the mind and the body!
Yep. I had to manually drop my numbers down to 235 for a while as I got back into it because they were just too much after a long break. Then put it up to 245 for about the last month. Definitely took a bit of time getting back up. But I do feel a lot fresher. I was in danger of overtraining a couple times. Just shows that a week or two off the bike for recovery can actually help you get even better!
