The Zwift FTP Test: Pain Is Not A Mindset

When talking about an FTP test, it is kind of a known fact that it will probably hurt. You will sweat, your legs will feel like shit and afterwards you might want to quit biking and take on another sport that doesn't make you rethink you life choices everysingle time you do it. Now you can do an FTP test outside, with the wind as some sort of temperature control that quite frankly works way better then you think. Me being one handed for 6 weeks decided that it would be a good job to do the test in my basement with a braise on, and only a fan to help with the inevitable fact that I was going to sweat enough to make my eyes sting. I had never done an FTP test before, so I wasn't expecting a whole lot out of this except a hard workout, which I later realized was an understatement. After filling up my water bottle, and grabing some gels, I jumped on my bike and decided, "this is the day I die."

For the people that don't know, FTP means funtional threshold power. and the goal of an FTP test is to find out your 20 minute max effort wattage, and then multiply that by .95 do find out your the max amount of watts you can do for one hour. Although this test can find out a general range of what you can push, it isn't entirely accurate. For example, if you like me, and you have one hand to work with, you stand up pedalling will be hindered dramatically, so you probably won't get an accurate reading. Anothing factor that may play into your results is your fatique level. If you have been riding hard, or had a hard ride the day before you do a FTP test, you probably will not be able to push a max effort, so again, you won't get an accurate reading. If your like me, and every recovery ride ends up being a full attack cause you, "feel good," (yeah thats the point of a recovery ride, to feel good), Then you probably won't be able to max out your effort.

In zwift you have a few choices for FTP test. The main one being, "the FTP test." This consist of a 20 minute warm up going from 20% to 70% of what zwift guesses your FTP to be. Then you have 20 sec of 90% of your FTP, 20 seconds of 110% of your FTP, then 20 seconds of 130% of your FTP. This repeats 3 times. Then you have 5 minutes of 60% of your FTP, then 5 minutes of 110% of your FTP. then 10 minutes of 60% of your FTP, and final, 20 minutes of a full out effort. The second one is a shorter warm up, but pretty much the same thing. Then you have the ramp test. These are pretty much one minute at a certain wattage. Thay wattage keeps going up every minute until you can't push anymore. Idecided to do the Long one cause, like a said, "today is the day I die."

The 20 minute warm up was farely easy. I felt like I was spinning out my legs just fine the whole time. I also felt good with the alternating 20 second efforts. when you it came to the 5 minute 110%, I felt like a was using my legs a little to much for the fact that I was going to do a max effort in 15 minutes. I had a 10 minute cool down, and then the 20 minutes of suffering. When it started I felt good, for 3 minutes. I tried to push watts, that with one hand, was not possible to sustain for 20 minutes. 10 minutes in brought up the humidity in my

basement by 30%. I could see the sweat stains on my top tube and I could feel the agony in my legs. As I reached the 15 minute marker, I could see that my average watts for that 15 minutes had gone down by a about 30 in the past 5 minutes. I was done. I rolled in the 20 minutes and felt like a dieing horse. I had nothing in me, which was probablt what was supposed to happen because it was a test about how hard a could go.

Now here is where the title comes into play. When I see people with a positive atitude. and a, " I can do it all" persona, I always think to myself, "wow, im glad that you have found what makes you happy, and that you think you can do anything you put your mind to." Unfortunately, that just isn't the case. I do not care who you are, you are probably only good at about 3 things. I am not saying you dont have a choice for those three things, but your greatness is limited. and if you suck at something, you should probably embrace the fact that you suck, and everyone sucks at some things, so you don't need to feel bad about it. At all. Embracing the suck is the most important part of cycling. When your going up a hard hill or your in a hard race, you have to think to yourself that you can make it happen, and that will actually help you make it happen. That mindset can only help you so much. When you get to the point where you glycogen levels or low, and it feels like you just can't pedal anymore, then that probably means that physiologically, you actually can't do anymore. You have tapped out, and thats ok. If you never find this physical limit of pain, then you will never now how hard to push yourself. It is important to find your limit so you know how to manage it. So I encourage everyone to go out and push yourself as hard as you can, just know that at some point in this quest into the pain cave, your positive atitude won't save you.