A little trip to the “Whine Region” of Sufferlandria.
I did FF this morning. I had huge improvements to NM and AC. All good there - still need to work on repeated efforts. No surprises.
The “whine” is about the MAP and FTP results. I struggled to hold the HM numbers in FF (-12 and -6). As you can imagine, there is a cloud of profanity still hovering over the pain cave from both efforts. I’ve read the article on HM inflating those numbers for Sprinter profile a few times. I don’t have a fear or FF (I do however, dread the 20 min effort in HM).
In the last month under the old In-Season XC plan I completed the GCN aerobic intervals workout (2 20 min efforts just under FTP) and had no pacing problems. The HM targets from 7 weeks ago were hard, but do-able.
I was pretty well rested (green Whoop score this morning and most of the week), ate pretty good this week and this morning, fueling for FF…
Looking for advise on how to overcome this , it’s been a huge frustration in my last 2-3 FFs since HM was added mid-plan.
Hi @ErickT do you do HM and FF on the same Level mode ? What I’ve noticed is that in the one time HM I pull myself until I can go no more but in FF you do have to temper it a bit more and what I do now did a FF last night no improvement in AC but other 3 went up. I stay away from doing a HM in case it gives a bit of a false result. Im assuming you do the longer rides ie anything over an hour ? Blender is a good one for trying to sustain that effort over a longer period of time but if your a sprinter then it’s only naturally your MAP and FTP might not be as good as your AC and NM scores.
I think that’s the problem with the FF and HM. The ramps in HM are what 1 min or 2 mins, you will find you can probably the ramps in HM more easily until a certain point but with HM after already doing 2 sprints and the 5 min MAP you’ve already depleted a lot of energy. When the rests come I now put my bike into the small chainring and take it even easier than the targets on screen. Do you also use the same gearing for both ? You might just need to find the right gearing and power targets that you think you can hit. I’ve had a habit of trying to go into the smallest or smaller chainring on the back instead of going into the 3/4th one and maintaining the power I know I can do. That might be something to look at in the future if you don’t already.
That could also affect your profile since with ERG you don’t need to change gears to hit the power but doing the FF you need to gear up and down and just have to find the right gear for the FTP AND MAP I was in a higher gear for both the sprints and 1min but had to drop down a gear as I couldn’t hold those watts in that gear.
Seeing a 1-3 watt decrease when consistently training from my experience would be normal - a 7+ watt decrease is pretty big and I’m not convinced it’s the mechanics since my set up, gearing, and approach has remained unchanged.
Being able to complete the workouts at the HM numbers without bailing but on the edge of wanting to… my expectations and experience aren’t aligning with the results from this FF.
What you could try is one of the new Building Block 4 week Plans for MAP or FTP and see how you get on with that it’s actually only 3 weeks with 1 week rest
Just for the record, I’m a Sprinter and Half Monty definitely over-estimates my FTP and MAP. I can get away with the MAP, but I absolutely can’t sustain an FTP at the level Half Monty thinks I should be able to.
At the same time, I have the same problem with Full Monty that it then underestimates my FTP and MAP in comparison.
I tend to adjust my MAP and FTP on feel to sit between the results of each depending on which I’ve done most recently. MAP fairly close to Half-Monty, FTP somewhere closer to splitting the difference.
Indeed. My response on that was to Shaned as he felt the difference between ERG and Level mode might make a difference (which it may, but the tests are designed that way (I don’t think it does, though, as I’ve tried doing FF in ERG and using that to set the effort I wanted to be pushing at any point too and still had a similar experience))
It’s frustrating that for a Sprinter profile that the real MAP and FTP values are somewhere between what both tests are measuring. Which means weeks 1-6 of a plan aren’t challenging enough and weeks 7-12 are painful.
What I find to be the biggest difference for me between HM and FF is the difference between ERG mode and Level mode. In the HM ramp I can sprint whatever cadence is comfortable as far as I can go to absolute failure. This will tend to give me a MAP and FTP score that is too high for me to hold in FF because in FF I am in level mode and have to actually find and hold a gear and cadence that is comfortable. That comfortable cadence at my threshold power is not a constant cadence. ERG mode allows you to adjust your cadence while holding steady power. But level mode doesn’t work that way. And i will usually end up in a spot where the cadence I want for the power I want is somewhere in between two gears. One gear makes me grind my cadence a bit too low while the next gear up makes me spin just a bit too fast. Especially as I get tired. In HM on the ramp when I get tired I just slow my cadence and ERG keeps my power constant. And then in the constrained section I’m not at my limit so it’s easier to hold the power in the HR range.
