Hi, thanks for your responses. Forgot to add the whole workout, that was just the 8 min interval.
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Great work on doing your first FTP test!
Ref the testing protocol, I would not recommend any of my athletes to do an 8m test to find there FTP. It’s too short and can be impacted considerably by your anaerobic capacity as an individual and can in turn causes issues when prescribing workouts thereafter - the same goes for the ramp test I find.
Rather, at the very minimum I would want an athlete to do a 20m test, but ultimately would rather see them do a much longer form test, using a Kolie Moore Baseline test protocol (Google it as don’t have link to hand I’m afraid) so we can see true TTE at FTP and a solid number to base training off.
As ever, all of these somewhat depends on your goals etc and what you are training for so consider that in the way you test. Importantly, test consistently and will the same protocol to track progress etc.
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I’ll give the Kolie Moore test a try, to get accurate values as you said. Thanks!
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Link to the TP article, where he talks about it.
As Kolie would say (paraphrased), put your ego one side; we all want a higher number.
Your FTP is what it is. If you train based on what you want it to be, vs. what it is, you will be heading down the training too hard pathway. It’s also about a 10W range (based on data and theory), so better to train on the lower end for longer.
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Here’s the Kolie Moore basic protocol that he posted in the TrainerRoad workout library. Highly recommend it.
- 2m 50%
- 2m 65%
- 2m 88%
- 1m 95%
- 3m 50%
- 1m 100%
- 1m 50%
- 1m 110%
- 1m 50%
- 1m 120%
- 5m 60%
- 10m 96%
- 15m 102%
- 1m ramp 102-103%
- 1m ramp 103-104%
- 1m ramp 104-105%
- 1m ramp 105-106%
- 1m ramp 106-107%
- 1m ramp 107-108%
- 1m ramp 108-109%
- 1m ramp 109-110%
- 1m ramp 110-111%
- 1m ramp 111-112%
- 2m 30%
- 5m 60%
Cooldown
- 10m ramp 60-40%
Good luck!
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It’s not a true test but I find riding a 45m Zwift race usually reliably gets me a new FTP in intervals.icu if I haven’t tested/raced in a while. I try to stick in the lead pack, hold my watts at or above my currently known FTP for as long as I can, and then kick the last mile or so for as hard and as long as I can.
This last time I did 36m above my previous FTP, and that feels like a really solid amount of time to hold and extrapolate an FTP off of.
I’m not going for super accuracy, just a ballpark, and like others have said I usually ride conservatively, especially my endurance workouts I tone them way down just in case my FTP is marked too high.
Performing any kind of such tests should happen preferably with an indoor setup.
This is the best way to generate a consistent and comparable setup for any future tests. Only such setups enable you settling a consistent wattage from start to end.
And at some point it’s way more secure than doing it outside especially when you are capable of push so many watts which makes you fast on flat sections.
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Highly disagree, or at least it really depends. For me indoors ftp is circa 30w lower no matter what, which was very frusttrating when I did not know about it. But I started testing it closer after failed first interval from 3x15 at z4. I was so angry I decided to just take my bike off my trainer and just ride ouside just coupe of easy kms to get rid of my frustration at the end I did outside second half of the interval 30w higher, and did other two intervals too 30w higher again, and it was not even that hard.
For now I only have one bike and it is a MTB, so tests and workouts have to be done on MTB. I’d dream of doing the test on a trainer and get consistent output but for now the economy precedes. Same for Z2 workouts, spending 2h at the same gravel path is all but entertaining.
I’ve only had two indoor trainers, but they both read low…which might explain that phenomenon. Poor setup might be part of it too.
I’m stronger inside than out, knowing when and where an effort will end (along with knowing i could quit at any moment) lets me push far harder on the trainer.
I’ve only had two indoor trainers, but they both read low…which might explain that phenomenon. Poor setup might be part of it too.
setup is ok, I have a smart trainer and assiomas for power comparision, both calibrated
I think the problem for me is just I’m very tall (198cm) and no fan can cool my body down when I generate near ftp power or higher. Outside I have no such problems. But ofc it can depend and that was all I tried to say. Best would be to test yourself with the setup as close as possible to the race setup, so if you race on zwift, it should be indoors but if like me you care about your outside results mostly and indoor riding ids just a training when the weather is not helping, it should be done outside.
I’m stronger inside than out, knowing when and where an effort will end (along with knowing i could quit at any moment) lets me push far harder on the trainer.
haha, thats funny 
People are strange and I must say I’m just complete opposite to you, it is to easy for me to quit inside but outside I can dig 3x tiimes deeper just because I know even if completly empty I will somehow come. back home and by pushing during an outside workout I can reach new limits 
I am very glad to read the content of your comment, but there is one thing I do not understand: when this 20 minute test is finished, will it be FTP? Or do you need to continue x0.95?
Personally, I prefer several Critical Power with different length to plot a Power-Duration Curve rather than a single 20min test or 8min test. So I would say every full output is meaningful.
The trend of the power shows that your real power exceeds the test results, which is quite normal considering that this is your first test. Usually, you need to try the test protocol several times then you can fully control over the pace of testing and get a more accurate result.
You multiply the 20 minute test by .95 to approximate the power you would be able to generate over 1 hour. These are the two original ftp tests.
There are other testing protocols that have cropped up since. They all have one thing in common, they can be done relatively quickly. A 20 minute ftp test with proper warmup takes an hour. In addition to the warmup there is also a recommended cadence of 80 to 90 which taxes the cardio capabilities, increases heart rate and thereby nullifies attempts to lower cadence to jack up the power.
Done correctly you will know for a fact what power you can maintain for an hour. That is the biggest plus. The literature is littered with cyclists who have done the other tests and find themselves unable to maintain the power they claim.
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I’m sorry that I didn’t make it clear. What I mean is that after adopting the scheme of 5 minutes (full exertion) +20 minutes, does the data of this 20 minutes need to be multiplied by 0.95
To fulfill this test protocol, yes.
One of the benefits of the KM test he says is that one of the advantages is that, after a few of them, you get to be able to “feel” the point when, as he puts it “you start to fatigue a lot faster at that point than you do before it”
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Once you finish the test how is the FTP calculated?
It’s the average power from the test.
His test uses a target power that you think you can average for the effort. You start below the expected average and then increase the power after 3-5 minutes, and then again at 15 minutes. The more you do this, the better you get at it.
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