Functional Power Test

On Wednesday before heading to the airport I took my first power test on the bike. I really did not know what to expect. I got to Bicycle Village at 9:45 AM after a short day at work and linked up with Gabe. He put a PowerTap wheel on my bike and got me set up on a trainer in front of a fan. The instructions were: warm up until you are ready, then ride as hard as you can sustain for 20 minutes attempting to stay steady with your effort. I started out a bit easy by picking a gear that I felt I could maintain a 85-90 rpm cadence. I ended up not changing the gear at all but slowly ramped up the cadence, this may have been the wrong technique. The middle was excruciating, but as I started working through the last 10 minutes, it felt easier and easier and I pushed higher wattage for the last several minutes. Now that I have the experience, I know I can push higher watts next time.

The results: AVG Watts 223, 1 hour sustainable watts 203, power to weight ratio 2.57 watts/kg.

What does this all mean and what can I do to improve on the second test?

Theoretically, the purpose of the Functional Threshold Power test (FTP Test) is to see how much power you can maintain for one hour. Most times this test is not riding for an hour, but rather a simulated process that has you building up to a 20 minute effort.

First I can determine my Power Training Zones: Formula from Active.com

Power Based Training Levels
Level	Name	Target Power Range (as % of avg. watts in 20:00 max test)		Target Wattage
1	Active Recovery	0	0.55	0	123
2	Endurance	0.56	0.75	125	167
3	Tempo	0.76	0.9	169	201
4	Lactate Threshold	0.92	1.05	205	234
5	VO2max	1.06	1.2	236	268
6	Anaerobic Capacity	1.21	N/A	270	N/A
7	Neuromuscular Power	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A

 Not sure what good this will do me as I am too poor to buy a power meter for training, but lets see what else we can determine.

Is the cadence right for me? Joe Friel recommends that athletes take their first test at their natural cadence, three weeks later at 10 rpms below, three weeks later at 10 rpms above the first test, and three weeks later back at their natural cadence. He says this will help the athlete determine if they need to make any changes to their cadence for optimal power output.

Where do I stack up?

This chart from saris.com puts me at a disappointing CAT 4 performance, but at least I know where I really am. http://www.saris.com/aboutus/PTS/HowDoYouStackUpWithWorkout.pdf

Oh well enough for this post. Before the next one on this topic, I plan to research the proper way to warm up for one of these tests and will let you know how a proper warm up and trying the lower cadence affects my results.