During the 20 minute section of 4dp I registered the same ftp as last 4dp, but 2 or 3 minutes in I noticed my HR well above what I can typically hang on to. Expected a spectacular crash, but hung on to that HR until the end, but again, ftp was unchanged from last 4dp at about 5 or 6 bpm lower.
Additional info: MAP is up a few watts, and my max HR for that section was 10 bpm higher than I’ve recorded in well over a year.
More info: week 11 of the 12 week advanced +strength general road plan was largely recovery while week 12 was the standard 4dp prep week, so the legs were really fresh.
Lastly, I may not have been 100% healthy as there was a slight amount of nasal congestion at the time, but nothing in the chest, no fever, aches, cough, or anything that would otherwise indicate that a 4dp would be a bad idea.
Anyway, I’m just curious what might have happened to get an increase in LTHR with no increase in FTP.
How are you measuring your HR? If your lthr went up it is likely you have a higher hr ceiling. If you changed hr straps or if it is old this may change your results.
Not sure exactly how it is better to have a higher lthr, but the way I see it is that you will be able to hang into an hr zone for longer. Also, what conditions did you do your 4dp? Did you change your trainer? Was it a wheel-on trainer? Maybe you are using a new power meter.
Then this could be due to the fact you have not been feeling 100% is a factor. I suffer from bad allergies and some days I will hit my lthr but barely put down watts and some days I will do the opposite.
Sometimes the simplest answer is the easiest answer but not always the correct one but here we go anyways…
LTHR is essentially your body’s threshold of when it is going to be churning out more metabolites like lactic acid than it can clear. I know I sound like a broken record stuck on repeat in the worse possibly way; however if your LTHR went up and your FTP power did not but you saw power increases in MAP, it seems to me that your body has found a way to be more efficient with the its oxygen uptake and usage. So using SufferFest Theory here but that means you did raise your aerobic ceiling however (this is the sad part) you may have not raised it enough to drag your FTP along either that or your FTP is being stubborn, LOL! what I really mean is that maybe you paced the 5 minute segment great but that left the 20 minute segment a little worse for wear so it did not budge.
The fact that your watts went up in MAP and so did your LTHR tells me you are well on your way to an FTP increase if you keep at it. I am going to guess that you will likely see a small increase in your AC as well in the long run.
Good Luck I hoped this helped!
Higher LTHR means you are able to sustain a higher percentage of your (fixed) maximum HR for longer. So higher the better for any individual. But LTHR can be quite variable based on your fitness and health. I know mine has varied from 171-182 over the last year. I wouldn’t be that surprised to see a difference of 5-6 bpm from test to test over a period of weeks or months. Or even the next day if I wasn’t feeling 100%!
@Calvin_Crawford, I think it’s a positive sign that your LTHR has apparently increased and that should in theory allow your FTP to increase alongside. Maybe you just need to adjust mentally to squeeze out those extra Watts. Slightly increased MAP also a good sign of course. Or maybe you were simply not quite at 100% health and your LTHR hasn’t genuinely improved i.e. same power output at higher HR is less efficient. But there are loads of other reasons why your HR on the day could have been 5-6 bpm higher. Sleep, nutrition, hydration, temperature, stress, bugs etc, etc.
