After Half Monty your FTP and MAP numbers should auto-update (although you may need to log out and log back in to see them). So you shouldn’t need to manually update them after Half Monty, because it should happen auto-magically (even tho, like I said, it might require a log out and back in).
All that being said… if they don’t update after a log out and back in and maybe an app restart, then yes, you can either update them manually, or contact the minions to tell them the app didn’t update them and they will do it for you, or at least note it down as something to fix.
edit: After re-reading I realized my answer was incomplete and possibly misleading, so I added more in my next reply to hopefully clear that up.
The 12-week All-Around Cycling program has an HM after six-weeks. When I first did this almost a year ago the HM returned a significantly increased FTP and MAP that almost finished me when I did Nine Hammers the following week. This is not surprising, given what’s been discussed in this thread; the four FF tests that I have done this year have classed me three times as a Pursuiter and once as a Sprinter.
I’ve embarked again on the All-Around Program and am wondering if it wouldn’t make more sense to just do another FF at the halfway point rather than the HM, given that the former is more accurate. Has anyone tried this?
I think the reason for HM st the halfway point is that it’s good enough (accuracy wise) and takes a lot less out of you. At least for me, I needed a few days to recover from FF. Had it been in the middle of a plan, I would have lost too many days of training. That doesn’t happen with HM.
Following up on @AkaPete on the why, but I’d agree with you there’s no reason you couldn’t just do the FF instead, if you can handle the load and have recovery time. I personally stick to the 1/2 HM as “hump day” of the plan, to see how I’m doing, but then don’t adjust my #'s, as I like to bookmark FF at the end of each plan to gauge my overall improvement.
A couple of weeks ago I finished the All Purpose plan, and rounded off with an FF. I was a bit disappointed to see my FTP reduced by 25 W and my MAP reduced by 18 W from the mid plan HM. Although the second part of the plan was not executed 100% according to plan, consistency was still maintained.
Although being Time Triallist rider type, I think maybe I do better in HM than FF despite what @Coach.Mac.C states in the beginning of the thread. At least based on my latest attempts it feels I have a slight underperformance on FF, and perhaps a bit too well in HM, thus, the actual numbers may perhaps be somewhere in between.
Worth noting perhaps, is that my heart rate seems to have increased post-vaccination. In the months immidiately after I especially seemed to struggle, especially at MAP intensities, with a far higher HR than pre-vaccination. I suppose it has kind of levelled out eventually, but it is still notably more challenging with MAP efforts than before and I note my LTHR has increased a couple of beats compared to pre-vaccination (perhaps an insignificant change?).
Anyways, It feels like my current FF numbers are somewhat on the easy side, whereas my previous HM numbers were slightly on the challenging side.
I am inclined to do a new HM as a kind of second opinion, and if there is great discrepancy from FF I am inclined to manually change FTP and MAP to somewhere in between based on my own best judgement.
Both the thought of training at too low intensities, as well as too high intensities, makes me worry.
Main thought - from following this forum for awhile now, is that in general most everyone scores higher in HM and lower in FF. Nature of the (test) beast I think. HM’s ramp test is a much briefer stress test than FF, and the 20min constrained effort is VERY different from the 20min in FF. And most seem to feel that an HM result pushes their numbers toward “more challenging”.
So…pretty normal I’d say? As with most, maybe try the #'s that FF says you should be doing for a week or so, and if the efforts seem to be too easy, go into your profile and bump up the FTP/MAP to the HM numbers, and try that.
Did Half Monty yesterday but it failed because the stupid Tickr failed again (haertrate over 160 and it showed 120 or lower, when my haertrate dropped below 160 it gave correct numbers again)
Not the first time having problems with this HR-strap.
Today I did half Monty again (because, why not) with a Garmin HR-strap. All was fine now.
FTP stayed the same and MAP was up. FTP I expected since I’ve been doing mostly base work last couple of weeks (putting in the miles to have a base that would last me the entire season without dips in fitness). The increase in MAP was a welcome surprise.
After analyzing the results, I’m a bit surprised my FTP wasn’t higher. Last Half Monty my highest wattage was lower and the constrained effort was lower as well but FTP was higher.
Still a couple of weeks of base to go and then it’s time for 4DP followed by VO2 max to get the MAP and AC higher and then it’ll be time for fast grouprides again (and some GF’s too, hopefully)
I did my mid-program Half Monty today. Even reading Coach Mac’s comments about ramp tests potentially overestimating FTP and MAP for Pursuiters, my current rider type, didn’t prepare me for the result - a 20% increase in both these numbers.
I’ll learn how valid these numbers really are pretty quickly; the next two workouts in the program are Cash Register and Tool Shed.
Mid-program Half Monty today, increased significantly also, but I think that switching from just riding for fun to structured plan should produce results
True, but I believe this was not necessarily suppose to be the case for Time Triallists.
Pretty normal I guess, although I was not really prepared for FTP and MAP to drop that much.
Anyways, started a 4-week FTP block yesterday, and did 5x6 min FTP intervals today. Could have gone harder I suppose, but don’t think it was too far off RPE-wise. Guess I will stick to the numbers for now.
I was not too surprised that I managed Cash Register yesterday with the newly elevated FTP and MAP, after all, it’s only 30 minutes long.
I fully expected that while doing Tool Shed today I would hit a death spiral and have to dial the power targets back. To my surprise, I held to all the power targets. Cadence is another story. By the second half of the shovel I was lagging the cadence target significantly and I spent most of the final hammer standing at about 1/3 of the target cadence. Hope that isn’t cheating
Since posting this about 11 days ago, I’ve held to the power targets, although I was well below the cadence targets by the end of the MAP/FTP focused workouts, e.g. Fight Club and Defender.
For example, today’s schedule called for GCN Ready, Steady, Go followed by Defender. I kept to the power and cadence targets in the 23 minute GCN workout. I also managed to keep to the power targets in Defender, but by the second block I was well-below the cadence targets (although I did manage to work my way back to the cadence target for the final interval of the final block).
So here’s a question for the coaches (or anyone who cares to comment). From a training perspective, is it more effective to keep to the higher power targets even if you are grinding at 60 rpm (or less) when the workout is calling for 80 to 100 rpm? Or is it better to back off on the power target to keep to a higher cadence when that is what the workout is calling for?
EXC question @Salsa! I’m not smart enough to know the answer, but I suspect that you’re dramatically shifting the focus of a workout from cardio-heavy to muscular-intensive with the slow grind. whether that matters or not I leave to the experts.
@CPT_A@Salsa Actually I do think that is the answer. You are changing the focus and you probably want to dial down the intensity in the Ride Settings tab of the workout player.
This is what I suspected. I have The Chores and Vice Grips coming next week, and will see what happens with FTP and MAP set halfway between the original 4DP values and the Half Monty values. And the following week is the prep for the end-of-program 4DP, which will settle what the most realistic values are.
