Cycling Assessment / Testing

In general, workouts prescribe both relative intensity and duration of the work to be performed. The duration is easy… this can be the total time of the workout and/or can be the work or rest portion of intervals, in hours, minutes, or seconds. Although there are various methodologies that can be used to articulate intensity, in general for cycling we’ll use a percentage of functional threshold power (FTP) or percentage of threshold heart rate (HR). For some background on these terms, please see the following link for Functional Threshold Power from TP, this article from Cycling Weekly, this article for some background on LTHR. In the context of how I use LTHR, it’s simply your threshold HR that corresponds to your functional threshold power value.

Of course, to make a prescription meaningful (e.g. 80% of FTP), we of course need to have an estimate of your current FTP. These are referred to as bike tests or assessments, where we estimate your current functional threshold power. To get the most accurate measurement, we’d ask you to do a 1-hour time trial at maximal effort. This works well if you are doing a race, but it’s less practical for most if you are doing these indoors on a trainer. It can be hard to stay motivated indoors for a 1-hour maximal effort, and it can take a larger physical toll, requiring additional recovery time. Instead, we’ll generally use shorter tests as an estimate for threshold power. The basic version is a 20-minute maximal effort (after a warm-up), where we deduct 5% of the 20-minute peak power, as a proxy for the one-hour effort. In reality, typically only elite or pro athletes can hold this proxy for an hour (most amateur/age groupers can hold it between 35-50 minutes), but it’s still a useful estimate of steady-state power for setting training zones.

So, when we use the term bike test, these are truly more of assessments at a given point in time. They are not pass/fail. Rather, they simply estimate current fitness levels and then can be used to create targeted training levels (power and/or heart rate) to help prescribe specific workouts to help build appropriate fitness. Typically, as your body adapts to the training (building fitness), your power will improve at the same HR values. Periodically there will be other assessments, and we adjust thresholds and zones as well. This evolution helps to continue growth and reduce plateaus.

Once you complete your assessment, you can enter the data below. You will need to input your Normalized Power value for the 20-minute section of your bike test, as well as your average heart rate during the same segment. If you are following a heart rate (HR)-only plan (no power), you can ignore the power data and simply enter your average HR for the 20 minute test portion below (and just use the Cycling HR Zones below, ignoring power zones). If you added your power data, you can also add your weight if you want it to calculate your power to weight ratio, in w/kg. You only need to enter data in the pink areas below. Your FTP, estimated threshold HR, and power to weight are shown in the same table, and your cycling HR and power zones will be shown in the subsequent table.

For more information on how to enter your zone information in TrainingPeaks, see this link. The two key pieces of information that need to be entered in TrainingPeaks are your threshold power (FTP) and threshold HR (LTHR), as these impact all of your workout target values. You can also set your zones based on your FTP and LTHR, either by using the zoning we have from the spreadsheet (manually typing in the pace or power data and the names), or just using the built-in Andy Coggan methodology for both power and HR zones for cycling. There’s a slight variation between the zoning that we have provided versus Coggan zones, in that the spreadsheet zones also defines a “sweet spot” zone, and has slightly different power / HR cutoffs points, but the zones themselves have no impact on the workouts… just in the metrics shown in the TrainingPeaks dashboard. Alternatively, you can also use the “CTS” power and HR zones, as they are similar to the Coggan method, but include the zone name (e.g. Tempo) instead of just the zone number (“3”).

The great thing about TrainingPeaks is that after you enter your new power and/or HR values, it will adjust all your future workouts accordingly. So, if your power increases by 5%, all your future workouts will be increased by 5% as well.

Typically, we see relatively small changes in threshold HR values over time, often variations between tests may only be a couple of beats per minute. Power typically improves with training, depending on the type of training being performed. Note that performance can improve even with relatively small changes or no changes in FTP power. For example, if the focus of training is stamina, while FTP may be similar, the ability to hold power longer increases, improving the performance of those racing longer duration events. FTP is also impacted by fatigue, stress, etc., so if you go into an assessment without adequate rest, performance may be negatively impacted. In general, most of the assessments are done at or after the end of a recovery week, to help reduce the impact of residual fatigue.