Last night I decided to take a Zwift FTP test. My plan for this year is to ride much more than previous years, so I want to get into better shape. I’ve been able to lose some weight over the last few months mainly by reducing down my alcohol consumption. Now I’m at a point where I think focused (ish) training will help.
In order to train properly on Zwift you should do an FTP test. FTP is Functional Threshold Power and is the basis for the training levels set by Zwift for the workouts. One of the overwhelming things you hear about FTP tests is how hard they are. People talk about vomiting during or after them. I wasn’t feeling very excited about it
The FTP test takes 20 minutes. You are asked to pedal at a power you can hold for the 20 minutes. The FTP test on Zwift also features 20 mins of warm up exercises. Combined with the cool down the whole test should last 45 mins. I also had to warm up my Kickr Snap trainer and do the spindown to make sure the power readings were accurate. So I figured on taking an hour for the whole thing.
Proper planning?
The first thing I established is that poor preparation is my inherent style. I was taking the test in the evening, at dinner time, and I hadn’t eaten super well during the day. I’m not sure pro athletes fuel for training with a packet of Ramen and a brownie bite! I’ve recently changed to an Android phone and when I downloaded the Wahoo app on to calibrate my trainer it took me a little while to realize the bluetooth was off and that was why it couldn’t find any sensors. Thankfully this gave me a few more minutes of warming up the trainer to get a better spindown done. With the spindown completed and the trainer calibrated I was ready to start the FTP test.
The last time I did an FTP test was over a year ago. Really you should do them more often to monitor your progress. Since my progress was going backwards I didn’t feel a need to have a representative number of my failing. With the weight starting to come off I felt more enthusiasm for getting going on working out on Zwift again. I’d also thought that I didn’t quite get the power output right on the last test. I felt pretty ok at the end of it, and hadn’t fallen over getting off the bike. Or vomitted. I didn’t think I put enough effort in and my 190W FTP was reflective of that.
Doing the Zwift FTP test
When I started the warm up phase of the test I felt good. I’d also come up with a number that I thought I should be able to achieve, a 230W FTP. With my current weight that would give me an FTP of 2.7 W/Kg. That would be a good place to start for me and as I got stronger and lost weight it would go up. By summer I’d be flying up hills and laughing in the face of techy climbs. Obviously combining my feelings about my last FTP test and my over inflated sense of where I was currently led me to start hard. Too hard. I’d started trying to hold an average of 230W. I managed to hold this for a short time before deciding the 225W was a better aim.
After 10 mins I was struggling to hold 225W. I was feeling a lot of weakness in my legs and couldn’t really spin at a higher cadence or grind at a lower cadence. I typically feel the most comfortable at around 90 rpm but I was slowing down with each minute. As I neared the end I was fighting to stay above an average of 210W, but I wasn’t feeling bad. All my discomfort was in my legs, I was breathing hard but not struggling for air like I have on some tough climbs IRL. As I finished I didn’t feel like I had given everything but I didn’t feel like my legs had the strength to give more.
Hitting the limit?
I finished with an FTP of 200W. Better than my previous FTP, but not what I expected. What I also didn’t expect was how I felt during and afterwards. Immediately afterwards I felt bad in my legs, but that soon passed. I didn’t feel exhausted and in fact I didn’t feel that different to how I have felt after some of the Pack rides. I’m going to try to do another FTP test in the next couple of weeks, but try and build up during the test rather than starting too hard and struggling. I also want to see if the experience is the same or if my legs feel different.
Overall I don’t think I got to my limit aerobically during the test and I’m not sure if the lack of leg strength is a going to be a consistent thing of just a one off.