I just completed Half Monty and it resulted in a 6 watt drop in FTP (on top of a 5 watt drop from last time). I don’t think my prep for this was the best - I had some residual muscle fatigue, neck pain from where I hurt my neck yesterday etc, and just generally probably wasn’t firing on all cylinders.
So my question is this: can poor prep/recovery account for this level of drop off (2% of FTP)? Or are my numbers likely to be close enough to my ‘true’ numbers that I should accept them and move on? Or do I take 5 days to recover properly and try again?
Appreciate this sounds like a slightly desperate attempt to not accept the decline in my abilities
2% is easily accounted for in ‘normal life’ I’d suggest - in that with an ftp that high, you could use Half Monty (let’s assume no recovery was needed and all else was the same) every day and probably see that difference each time.
The residual fatigue thing probably nails it.
If the trend over say six months is the same and tests are continuing to show steady drops, then I guess it’s then a decision as to whether the evidence is pointing to a decline in indoor capability. But that single test, with fatigue, I’d say doesn’t feel like a worry bead.
As the number of previous tests builds up there’s sometimes an indicator re max heart rate for a minute during the RAMP, as that is part of the process for setting the constrained HR in the ftp section. So if I am short on HR on the RAMP my MAP will also be lower but my ftp will be silly low because my HR never got high enough. Which in my case just means I wasn’t ready to hit that ramp.
I can echo what @Martin said. 2% is “life” and I’d add about the tolerance of the measurement device typically.
I had a similar question from a friend here; my FTP is stagnant, what can i do? I asked if she was doing much VO2 work and i got the reply that she didnt like it so -Nope, none.
My analogy to her was… if you want to park that real tall truck in the garage you need to raise the ceiling (VO2 work). At least thats my take (disclaimer-Im NOT a coach)
If you see the decline last for a while you may want to setup a call with a coach.
