Understanding how to go hard without overdoing it in the first 5 minutes is the key to a great effort!
For most riders the thought of a 20 minute FTP effort creates anxiety and stress, but knowing how to gauge your effort can make any 20 minute effort more manageable. Now you might be thinking, I’m not ready for a 20 minute effort but if you want to get the most from your training you need to know where your fitness is now, not where you want it to be someday or what it was 3 years ago. FTP changes throughout the year and it changes a lot over time, so get an accurate assessment of your fitness now and make your training zones work for you.
I like to break the effort into five 4 minute segments with a goal for each.
- 1- 4 minutes: Start Conservatively!!! It’s easy to go way to hard the first 4 minutes of the effort because heartrate and lactate lag behind power output. So start at 90-95%FTP for the first 4 minutes and give your heartrate a chance to gradually catch up to the load.
- 4-8 minutes: monitor your cadence and make sure you are staying at your optimal cadence for outside not the higher inside cadence. A higher than normal cadence will feel great to start but once you reach your cardiovascular ceiling there is no where to go later in the effort. Power should be 93-98%
- 8-12 minutes: check your heartrate and make sure you are not at your VO2 heartate already. Ideally if you started conservatively and you worked into the effort you should be right at your threshold heartrate but not High threshold or VO2 heartrate. 96-101%FTP
- 12-16 minutes: check your cadence again and make sure you are using those legs this is when you can start to gradually turn up your watts if you have some room with your heartrate if not wait. 99-104%FTP.
- 16-20 minutes: the final push. You should be increasing your watts with a bigger gear or more cadence if you have some in the tank. Heartrate should go up to VO2 max and stay there for the final 3-4 minutes. You have done everything to build into this strong finish, now it’s time to use up what you have left. 102-107+%FTP
No matter how fit you are the goal is always to push yourself and do your best for that particular day both physically and mentally. Make sure you are well hydrated, rested and fueled up to do your best effort.