With the appearance of correct, dependable good trainers just like the KICKR and SNAP, extra athletes are making the most of the advantages of coaching with energy. With that comes a better deal with metrics like Practical Threshold Energy (FTP). For the uninitiated, FTP is usually outlined as the very best energy output you’ll be able to preserve for an hour. Many cyclists and coaches see FTP because the mom of all metrics, designing exercises and coaching plans round shifting that single quantity up. Standard pondering held that should you wished to enhance your threshold energy, it’s best to focus your coaching on threshold efforts.
The issue with that strategy is that it fails to take into consideration the variation in how particular person athletes produce energy throughout a variety of durations and intensities. Even athletes with the identical FTP can have very completely different capabilities in relation to pushing out watts above threshold. This variation makes it tough to design a one-size-fits-all coaching strategy primarily based on the one metric of FTP.
Consider the purpose of a better FTP as your vacation spot. How far it’s important to go, and what car is greatest suited to get you there, relies upon totally upon the place you at the moment are. Simply because two athletes have the identical vacation spot doesn’t imply they’re ranging from the identical place. Even when the space is similar, they might be taking completely completely different routes. One athlete might must sort out unpaved roads and mountain passes, whereas one other might have a straight shot down the freeway. Understanding the place you might be is the important thing to planning the perfect route. That’s why good trainers like KICKR are so efficient. They let you get real-time suggestions in your energy output and precisely monitor it over time. However it’s important to transcend FTP and have a look at the opposite methods you set down energy.
At Wahoo Sports activities Science, we use a complete energy take a look at that measures not simply FTP, however Neuromuscular Energy (5-second energy), Maximal Cardio Energy (5-minute energy), and Anaerobic Capability (1-minute energy). This is similar take a look at utilized by The SYSTM of their new 4-Dimensional Energy™ platform(4DP). We name it Full Frontal and it reveals what an athlete is able to throughout a variety of efforts, in addition to the vital relationships between the other ways of manufacturing energy on the bike. Take, for instance, Maximal Cardio Energy (MAP) and FTP.
Roughly equal to your energy at VO2 Max, MAP is set in Full Frontal by an all-out, 5-minute effort. In physiological phrases, it represents the higher restrict of your physique’s skill to make use of oxygen to supply energy. Greater than that, MAP additionally acts as a ceiling in your FTP. In different phrases, your FTP will all the time be under and constrained by your MAP. Whereas everybody’s MAP to FTP ratio is completely different, there are limits to how shut—or far aside—they are often. When fairly contemporary, your MAP can’t be decrease than 115% of your FTP. You are able to do as a lot tempo and threshold work as you need, however till you improve your MAP, your FTP merely received’t go up.
On the opposite finish of the spectrum, there are athletes with MAP values as excessive as 140% of their FTP. Simply because the ceiling may be too low, it can be too excessive. As soon as your MAP reaches a sure degree relative to FTP, it received’t improve till you identify a very good basis of endurance. It’s not simply the numbers in isolation, however the relationship between them that’s vital.
Take two athletes, each with the identical FTP. One has a MAP that’s 115% of FTP and the opposite has a MAP that’s 140% of FTP. Each in the end need to enhance their skill to supply sustained energy (assume time trial or the bike leg of a triathlon). To realize that very same purpose, one athlete might want to work on elevating their MAP ceiling whereas the opposite might want to deal with constructing a greater basis. Regardless of their similarities, the identical coaching strategy wouldn’t be applicable for each of them. A health take a look at that simply measures FTP wouldn’t reveal that key distinction.
Figuring out the way you produce energy throughout a variety of durations and intensities is step one in growing an efficient coaching technique tailor-made to your distinctive physiology. Correct, constant energy measurement throughout coaching, coupled with a stable understanding of the place you might be, is the important thing to getting the place you need to be. You’re greater than your FTP.