WHAT IS FUNCTIONAL THRESHOLD POWER (FTP)?

Like every other field of expertise, power cycling has collected a string of acronyms—TSS, CTL, ATL, SST, IF, and of course FTP. Improving your FTP (functional threshold power) is one of the most important things you can do for your training.

In last month’s article, we discovered why FTP is important for overall performance improvement. But what exactly is FTP?

In simplest terms, your functional threshold power, or FTP, is the maximum power you can maintain through an hour’s effort without fatiguing. But it gets much more complicated….

The word “threshold” has become synonymous with the word “confusion” for many athletes. To make it worse, there are several other terms for the same thing: anaerobic threshold (AT), lactate threshold (LT), maximal lactate steady state (MLSS), and onset of blood lactate (OBLA). I’ll use the term lactate threshold (LT) for my explanation.

Exercise physiologists have known for more than thirty years that your LT (the level of exercise intensity at which lactate begins to accumulate in your blood) is a powerful predictor of your endurance performance ability. This is because, although your maximal oxygen uptake (VO₂max) sets the upper limit to your aerobic energy production rate, it’s your LT that determines the amount of this VO₂max that you can utilize for any length of time.

There are complex body factors that determine LT, but essentially your LT tells you how well your muscles are able to match their energy supply to your energy demand, which in turn determines the fuel “mix” (i.e., carbohydrates versus fat) your muscles use and how they fatigue. Consequently, functional LT (especially when expressed as power output) is the single most important physiological determinant of performance in events ranging from a 3km pursuit to a three-week stage race.

Your LT (or FTP) provides a solid basis for any power meter-based training program, because your level of effort when exercising at a given intensity depends upon your power output relative to your power at FTP. When your power output exceeds your FTP, you’ll fatigue quickly. When your power output is just below FTP, you’ll be able to maintain it much longer.

Determining FTP

So how do you figure out your FTP? One way is to get laboratory testing done with blood samples. Determined this way, however, FTP is often significantly below what athletes and coaches think of as a threshold.

A much more convenient, simple, and possibly more accurate method of determining your FTP is to use data collected by your own power meter as you ride. There are a number of different ways to do this, all of which provide very similar estimates of FTP. I think the best way to do it is to jump on your bike and go for a ride specifically designed to find your threshold, and I’ve got a good one for you below. This is without a doubt the first big step in the adventure of training with power.

The Threshold Test

Your goal in this test is to average the highest watts possible for a lengthy period of time. (Hint: When you get to the main effort, make sure to pace yourself so that you don’t tire too quickly.)

1. Start out with a 20-minute warm-up, which means just riding along at a moderate pace, at about 65% of your max heart rate (HR), which is what we call your endurance pace. (Be sure to do the same warm-up at the same intensity each time you do the test.)

2. Next do three fast-pedaling efforts at 100 rpm for one minute each, with one minute of easy recovery pedaling between each set, to further prepare your muscles for the effort ahead. After these three sets of fast pedaling, ride easy for five minutes at endurance pace (65% of max HR).

Now the real work begins.

3. Ride 5 minutes all out. Punch it and hold it! Start at a high pace, but not so high that you die at the end. You should have a little energy held in reserve to kick it toward the finish line in the last minute.

The goal of this first part of the effort is twofold: first, to open up the legs for the rest of the test, and second, to measure your ability to produce watts in the VO₂max power zone. This initial 5-minute effort also helps to dispense the “freshness” that always exists at the beginning of a ride; your next effort will produce power that is more likely to be truly representative of your FTP.

4. Ride 10 minutes easy at endurance pace.

5. 20-minute time trial. Try to do this on a road that’s fairly flat and allows you to put out a strong, steady effort for the entire 20 minutes. Don’t start out too hard! Get up to speed and then try to hold that speed as steadily you can. If you’ve never done one of these efforts before, I suggest trying it on a steady climb or into a slight headwind, which forces you to put out a maximum effort for the entire 20 minutes.

6. Ride 10-15 minutes at endurance pace, pedaling easy.

7. Finish the ride with 10-15 minutes easy pedaling.

Your goal in the main portion of the test (the 20-minute segment) is to produce the highest average watts possible over the entire time. The test doesn’t work if you start out too hard and suddenly run out of energy, because you won’t be able to produce your true maximal, steady-state power. It’s always better to start out in the first two minutes a little under what you believe to be your FTP, build up along the way, and then ride at your maximum level in the last three minutes.

Now that you’ve done the test and downloaded your data, find your average power from the entire 20-minute effort. Take this number and subtract 5% percent from it. The result is your functional threshold wattage value. For example, if you averaged 300 watts during the 20-minute time trial, 5% of 300 (300 x 0.05) is 15, and 300 minus 15 is 285. Your FTP is 285 watts.

The reason for subtracting 5% from your average watts during the 20-minute test is that your true FTP is the highest average power you can maintain for sixty minutes. Most athletes have a hard time putting out maximal effort for sixty minutes, however, and those who can learn very quickly that a sixty-minute time trial is not much fun. I’ve found that twenty minutes is a more realistic time frame. It’s obviously a shorter time period, however, and it incorporates more of the athlete’s anaerobic capacity, which skews the wattage data by about 5% over a sixty-minute effort. By subtracting that 5%, you end up with a wattage number that should be very close to your true FTP.

Ready? Go! What’s your FTP?

Hunter Allen is a USA Cycling Level 1 coach and former professional cyclist. He is the coauthor ofTraining and Racing with a Power Meter, codeveloper of TrainingPeaks’ WKO software, and CEO and founder of Peaks Coaching Group. He and his coaches create custom training plans for all levels of athletes. Hunter can be contacted directly through www.PeaksCoachingGroup.com.

TAKE YOUR PERFORMANCE TO THE NEXT LEVEL!

TAKE YOUR PERFORMANCE TO THE NEXT LEVEL

As the winter takes hold we present some great tips to explain the importance of training through the Winter to help you hit your peak in the Spring and Summer.

posted by PeaksCoaching - (November 2, 2012 at Bike Radar)

Everyone says they’re aiming for the next level. The next level? What does that mean? More endurance? Faster sprints? Higher functional threshold power (FTP)? More matches in your matchbox? More of everything?

Naturally we all want more of everything. Is it possible to improve everything at the same time? Or should we focus on one area at at time until finally we have more of everything?

Reaching the next level means improving every aspect of fitness, but it’s our threshold power that holds us back. If George Hincapie could suddenly crank out 450 watts at FTP instead of his normal 420, I’d say he’s reached the next level. Does this mean his sprint has also improved, or his ability to go hard on short, steep hills? Probably not, but now that his FTP has increased so much, he might never have to do another sprint because he’s winning solo off the front.

Such was the case with a masters athlete I coached a couple years ago. He’d improved his sprint and VO2 max power and was more competitive in his masters category, but he still wasn’t dominating wins and was occasionally still pipped at the line. The solution? Move to the next level. I asked him to focus only on improving his FTP without worrying about any other specific area of fitness. He increased his training by 15-20% and rode more sub-threshold and threshold intervals than he’d ever wanted. He kept this up for three months, and it paid off; his FTP increased more than thirty watts that season. He no longer needed to contend in sprint finishes or worry about short hills. He simply rode away from everyone else.

Click through for key steps that’ll bump you to the next level….

The average speed of a Category 4 race is determined by the collective average threshold power of the riders in the peloton, which is a lower power-to-weight ratio than Category 3 riders. If you want to ride in the Category 3 peloton and you are a Category 4 now, you need to increase your threshold power to at least the median of all the racers in the Category 3 pack. (Not sure what is your FTP is? In general terms it’s the max wattage you can maintain through an hour’s effort.)

Here’s how to do it:

1. Increase your overall training stress by 15-20%. Many of us have such full schedules that it’s impossible to ride longer than two hours a day, but if you really want to reach the next level, figure out how to squeeze it in. You need two big rides (preferably three) each month, at least 5-6 hours long, that force you to dig deep near the end, so that when you get home you’re tired and your muscles are quivering (not cramping) from the fatigue. This is the number one thing you can do to improve. Whether you’re a pro or a recreational cyclist, you have to increase the miles, hours, and overall volume of training stress to challenge your cardiovascular and muscular system enough to create positive adaptations for the future.
2. Do longer intervals at or near your FTP, at least 40-60 minutes of work from 91-105% FTP three days a week. After three weeks of riding at this level, increase the time spent at or near your FTP to 60-90 minutes, with one session a week of almost 90 minutes at FTP. Start with 3 x 10 minutes at 105% FTP and build up so that you’re doing 3 x 30 minutes at 100% FTP, with lots of little steps in between. If you get too tired from riding right at FTP, lower the power to “sweet spot” wattage (88-93% FTP) and continue from that level. You’ll still get plenty of training stress, and as long as you can maintain at least 88% or so, you should be training intensely enough to see improvements in your threshold.
3. Give yourself a rest day between each training day. The beauty of the power meter is that it gives you a wattage goal to maintain in each interval, but it also tells you when you can’t do the work, and that is equally important. If you head out on a threshold workout and can’t hit your wattage goals, give yourself some rest (endurance pace) and try again in twenty minutes. If you still can’t hit the goals, it’s time to go home and rest up for another try tomorrow.
4. Focus on quality over quantity. If you can’t produce the wattages at your threshold power, you’re not straining your systems enough to improve. For example, you could do 4 x 10 minutes at threshold power with 10-minute rests between each and still get in a total of 40 minutes at threshold, which is better than doing 2 x 20 and finding in the second interval that you can eek out only 85% FTP. If you start to fatigue, shorten the interval length (no shorter than 10 minutes) in order to still hit the wattage goals. As you get stronger, you’ll be able to do more intervals and lengthen the total amount of work done at threshold.

It’s always the last hill repeat, the last interval, the last week of your build cycle that really makes the difference. Dig deep. If you start too hard, you won’t be able to maintain your threshold pace for the entire effort. If you start too easy, you’ll cheat yourself out of precious training strain. I recommend that you start out quickly (without sprinting) to get up to speed, then immediately settle into your threshold pace. Hold this pace until the last minute of the effort and then increase your pace by 10-20% and push hard to the end. This gives you a double peak shape in your power file (peaks of wattage at the beginning and end).

Reaching the next level isn’t as simple as doing some random intervals, riding fifty more miles each week, or focusing on one specific energy system. It’s the combination of all of these things in a rational, progressive manner that allows you to overload your lactate threshold system, and when you rest, your system improves to produce a higher threshold power.

It will take at least three months before you see significant gains. There’ll be days when you’re tired, and there’ll be days when you doubt the training is working or even worth it. Have faith and push through. The next level awaits.

Hunter Allen is a USA Cycling Level 1 coach and former professional cyclist. He is the coauthor of Training and Racing with a Power Meter, co-developer of TrainingPeaks’ WKO software, and CEO and founder of Peaks Coaching Group. He and his coaches create custom training plans for all levels of athletes. Hunter can be contacted directly through www.PeaksCoachingGroup.com.