My last FULL FF showed my FTP as 3.49 W/per kg. On intervals.icu it showed 3.52 from 1st to 10th Oct, then 3.51 from 11th Oct all the way to 10th Nov where it dropped again to 3.49 up until yesterday the 15th Nov. I did a really hard workout today MAP 8 x 3 and I even bumped up all the metrics by 5% which I almost regretted but I managed to get it done but was surprised to see it has dropped again to 3.48?? Why is this? I have been doing all the workouts in the TT plan 3:1 ratio, with strength Plus adding 5% to a few workouts on days where I have felt a bit stronger. A bit demoralising to say the least
weight input in intervals.icu?
yep, 61kgs been there all the time
Mostly because it’s a metric you’re not supposed to really actively monitor.
Intervals has no means of knowing that MAP 8x3 has a chunk of segments over threshold and then recovery sections, so has no relevance whatsoever really to judging an FTP effort, but it adds its to the data.
The only sessions that give a clear FTP indicator are things like FF or a flat-out TT effort. The rest of the data is aggregated which may give a reasonable impression over time (or may not).
FTP on things like Intervals.icu is meant to be indicative for people with no other means to measure, it is absolutely not, well, absolute.
If you’re using SYSTM as your training platform, then use it as your testing platform too and ignore everything else (as anything other than cursory information).
6 Likes
Thanks!!
Nonetheless, I would not take any FTP test, as opposed to a TT, as indicative of what you could do in the real world. Too much depends on the mix of aerobic and anaerobic work you do in the 20 minute effort. You need to know your TTE for a given power effort.
As you say, the reason the FTP portion of FF makes sense for SYSTM is because the workout efforts on based on it.
4 Likes
Oh, indeed.
I think people put far too much stock into numbers that mean almost nothing.
The important thing is that your testing means something and is consistent.
A Full Frontal or Half Monty are useful for setting your workout targets in SYSTM.
An FTP estimate from Intervals is, maybe, useful for giving you a guideline target power out on the road, but not really if your input is just a mess of nonsense.
As you say, if you need to know your TT FTP, then you test it specifically.
4 Likes
Personally I put a lot more faith in the eFTP from intervals than in the results of Half Monty. The former aligns pretty well with Full Frontal while the latter is something I can’t dream of pushing for more than 10 minutes.
2 Likes
Yeah, current Half Monty is very broken for some rider types (myself included).
This is known and being worked on
One thing that we have to revisit is that your indoor FTP (or any other measurement) may not even be close to what you can do outdoors. Why? The environment, your equipment, and, most of all, you. For instance your indoor FTP could be 225W but your outdoor FTP could be 190. This is indicative of many factors, but the biggest could be what you have to do to remain safe out of doors. There are several articles and I think a Knowledge Podcast on this very subject.
3 Likes
I’d add that the difference between 3.48 and 3.52 w/kg is really nothing. That’s within normal variation of a power meter, never mind variation you might get from a bit extra fatigue, one too many beers last night, or a restless night. Perhaps you need a rest week and a proper retest to get a better gauge on where you are now? Measuring performance in situ from workouts on a plan won’t give you the that.
3 Likes
99% of my riding is indoors, not been outside on the bike for months
thanks!! don’t drink ha ha
1 Like
Is it your eFTP that is reducing? This normally reduces over time and requires a maximal effort of between 3 and 30 minutes to increase. The minimum time can be adjusted in the power section of your settings (5 minutes in my case)
Even if yours is set at 3mins, I suspect the intervals in the MAP 8 x 3 are lower than your 5min FF result and therefore won’t be enough to give an increase.
The screen grab below shows a big jump in my eFTP after a 15min maximal hill climb from about 4 weeks ago (that I would never want to repeat again). Since then my eFTP has shown a slow decline back to where it was.
2 Likes
If you don’t ride long hard sustained efforts at or above FTP then your eFTP will slowly decline over time. Not because it’s actually going down. Just because you’re not doing efforts that the app can measure. Mine did. Then when I did test it again it went up.
GIGO. It only knows what data you give it.
6 Likes
An even more general way to say it is, eFTP isn’t a measurement but is an output of a model. And the output depends not just on the model parameters but also the data you feed it. Depending on what data goes in, it might be a reasonable approximation if your ftp, or it really might not
3 Likes
Brilliant explanation.
1 Like