[Jabba96]

I have been using 80/20 Ironman plan now for quite some time due to races being postponed a year.

My my last four ftp tests
7/23/20 253
1/20/21 259
3/10/21 276
4/10/21 258

On 3/10 I felt great and was able to get my cadence into a really good rhythm. Using the confidence from this, I set my goal for my next test around 280w. I failed, badly. Started off good and fell apart. I admit I didn’t go in feeling as fresh as well as not being able to get my cadence where I wanted. ( a friend suggested doing my next test on the garmin head unit as opposed to zwift where I can fine tune the resistance ).

I tend to do my zone two workouts near the very top of the zone (215-220w). Is it okay to keep 276 as my ftp for now? My thinking is that it’s harder to a fase FTP in excess than it is to sandbag one. But I don’t want to flirt with zone X if it’s going to harm me more than help me.

[David Warden]

Jabba,

For sure, keep 276. Your FTP should be your best performance in at least the past 6 weeks, which gives you 1-2 poor tests before I’d even consider lowering it. Even then, I would not lower FTP to the new tested low. I’d drop it by 5 watts if you have been regularly training. I’d only use a new low FTP when coming back from a long period of no training (6+ weeks).

Your Zone 2 work also confirms you’re still close to that 276.

David

[Jabba96]

Great, thanks for confirming. I just need to get through this last CMI workout 😩
My ftp went up just before the CMI set hahaha

Ride on,
Andrew

[Author]

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