Time to move on from FTP testing

Added: 2026-05-13

[00:00:00]Welcome back to the RCA podcast, which is also on YouTube. Today, I'm joined by the RCA's head coach Ryan Thomas. And today, Ryan, we're going to talk about critical power for laymen.

[00:00:11]I'm a little bit of a layman when it comes to critical power, and I think there are a lot of people out there that still are, despite the fact that it's used over FTP quite often these days.

[00:00:19]>> Yeah.

[00:00:20]So, I don't want to go too deep into the weeds with critical power, which I'm conscious you can. I want to try and stay high-level.

[00:00:26]But I think before we talk about you know, critical power for laymen, and you know, how to test it and what it's about, maybe if we can just talk about FTP first, because it's kind of a different mechanism to, you know, using FTP as your your way to work out your zones and your your your threshold and all this kind of stuff. So, how is it different to FTP? Yeah, well, I I actually think of FTP just as a term.

[00:00:51]It's typically by by the layman, it's thought of as one way to test, and that's a 20-minute effort, typically with a 5-minute effort before. And it's your approximate 60-minute maximal peak power. That's what they were trying to achieve out of the FTP testing.

[00:01:07]>> FTP testing. The old-school 5-minute hard all-out effort, and then your 20-minute all-out effort, and you take 95% of that. Most people don't do the 5-minute effort, though. Let's face it.

[00:01:16]>> No, it's a 20-minute test, but still pretty close to estimating your 60-minute maximal power. Yeah, okay.

[00:01:22]>> essentially what they were trying to find a number that estimates your metabolic steady state. Yeah.

[00:01:28]>> Which was pretty close, and it's a good it's a good test, but there's been, you know, more science around critical power and your actual power profile, and it's shown to be closer to what your actual metabolic steady state is. So, it's been proven in the literature then that it is more effective identifying that steady state. Yeah, it's more closely related to your actual LT2, so where your lactate curve to your lactate threshold two. Yep.

[00:01:54]>> Uh we have two lactate thresholds. The first inflection point, if you're doing a lactate test is LT1 or your top of your typical zone two. Yep.

[00:02:02]>> And then your second lactate point is your threshold or your functional threshold power, your critical power, whatever however you want to determine it Okay.

[00:02:09]>> or describe it. But critical power is found to be closer to what your actual lactate threshold is as opposed to your approximate 60-minute maximum peak power. And I feel, in addition to it being more scientifically valid, it's actually maybe less daunting for people to do.

[00:02:29]100% >> In terms of the testing protocol external to the ramp test which you can do if you're testing FTP. Yes. Because that's just like a ramp to failure. It's pretty easy to to get through even though it can be, you know, inaccurate.

[00:02:44]>> Yes. Um if people are actually doing it, which I mean most people aren't doing it as well. You know, they're not testing.

[00:02:50]So that's that's another rabbit hole for another day. But with critical power, you know, before we talk about how you were using it, like how are you how are we how are we testing first and foremost? Yeah, so whenever I'm talking to a member and I say, "Oh, we're going to do testing." you can see their faces just go, "Oh, oh no. I'm going to have to do a long hard effort." Yeah. And then I say, "Oh, we're using critical power testing and we're using a 3-minute and a 12-minute effort." They're like, "Oh, is that all?" So like people respond really well to that. They find it much more easy to achieve by doing a shorter effort than a 20-minute all-out.

[00:03:26]Science suggests you need anywhere from two to four parameters. So two to four durations that you choose and typically between two to 20 minutes is what you would choose in your range. Okay. The initial examples were three and 12. And three and 12 would pretty much get you pretty close to if you were to do four tests. So we recommend you do a 3-minute, a 12-minute, and if you have time and the motivation to do a 5-minute. Okay.

[00:03:55]The 5-minute is optional, and the reason I scored it as optional is that usually you get within 2 to 4 watts without the 5-minute by just using the three and the 12. Okay.

[00:04:06]And we do those on separate days. So, we want those to be your maximal effort, not on fatigue legs, not going in after a fit effort. We We want these to be maximal, fresh, ready to go, your best power that you can produce on the day. Okay. And separate days for the 3-minute and the 12-minute?

[00:04:23]>> Separate days.

[00:04:23]>> Okay.

[00:04:24]>> Yes. So, if someone was like listening and going, "Okay, maybe I should trial this."

[00:04:30]Uh how would they like what would a week look like to do the 3-minute and the 12-minute test? Would you do them back-to-back days? Would you spread it out over the week? Uh obviously you want to be fresh that week as well. So, don't, you know, come off the back of a a huge volume week where you've done 20 hours and 500 watts or whatever it might be.

[00:04:46]>> So, you go into the week fresh. What would it look like to do the 3-minute test and the the 12-minute test? Yeah, usually I would give someone a day off.

[00:04:53]Yeah, easy week before, a day off. Let's say we're starting on a Monday. It's a simple way to think about it. Start on a Monday with your day off. On Tuesday, you do some sort of activations to get your body ready after having an easy week so that you're primed for that 3-minute effort.

[00:05:07]>> Yep. Following day, Wednesday for example, you would do your 3-minute. Um and the key here is you need to do some activations before. You don't just go do 20 minutes at zone two and then go into this 3-minute effort because you'll get a sh- big shock. Yes. an easy week. So, need to do a couple activation efforts, some 30-second efforts, a ramp to threshold, something like that to open the legs.

[00:05:27]Recover for 5 to 10 minutes and then go for your 3-minute.

[00:05:29]>> Yep. You can do the 12-minute the next day, so on the Thursday, because a 3-minute effort on its own isn't super exhausting. So, you recover pretty quick from one's one individual 3-minute effort. Okay.

[00:05:39]>> Particularly 24 hours later. So, but I usually do it back-to-back days. Okay.

[00:05:44]But if your schedule aligns, then a day in between's is Okay. Yeah, that's it.

[00:05:48]Once you've done those two efforts, we can we can get your critical power.

[00:05:51]There's so many different calculators out there. Uh we can I'll Should we link one below in the >> I'll leave it I'll put a spread a link to a spreadsheet below that you can use.

[00:05:59]Okay. Um the the key is there's some calculators out there that this is where it becomes even easier for the layman is if you've got a segment or a Strava segment that's 2 and 1/2 minutes or it's 3 minutes 15 or it's your longer ones >> Does it have to be 3 minutes?

[00:06:14]>> No, it doesn't have to be and you can change the duration in these calculators to the seconds. So the calculators are usually based around the seconds of effort. Yep. So you can adjust based on it doesn't have to be bang on 3 minutes.

[00:06:26]>> Okay. Um so that's also a benefit of doing this type of testing. So if someone's done the the three roughly 3-minute test and roughly 12-minute test, could be 11 minutes, 13 minutes, as you said, depends on the hill, depends what's practical for somebody.

[00:06:39]Uh and they punch it into the calculator, what are they going to be presented with? You'll get your critical power number. Okay. Your threshold, so you needed change your mindset is that critical power number is your threshold.

[00:06:51]That's the that's the setting that you use in Training Peaks for your threshold number. Okay. So we're now getting if we've had an old FTP or an estimated FTP, goodbye? Goodbye. Okay. In the bin?

[00:07:01]Replace that thinking. Okay. Replace that thinking and now we have a critical power number.

[00:07:05]>> critical power number. Okay. Yes, and we use that as your leverage for your zones. So that number will leverage your zones for the rest of your zones. The other other number that you'll get is a number that's W with a little asterisk and it's a W' prime Okay. W prime.

[00:07:20]Right. And essentially it's measured in joules. So joules is energy and it's energy that you can expend above critical power. Okay.

[00:07:28]>> So if you think about your power curve anything above critical power within that curve, in that exponential curve, all that area in the middle is how it's calculated and that's energy that you can expend. Okay. Every time you go above, let's say critical power is 300 watts, in an event or a bunch ride, you go above 300 watts, that jewel gets jewels gets taken away from how much you can expand. And theoretically once you expand all of those jewels or you're above critical power for a certain amount of time, you're empty and that's you're you're a failure. Okay.

[00:07:57]>> It's really accurate. So if you were going to go and do an effort for 320 watts and your critical powers 300, we could tell you pretty close to the second when you're going to fail at 320 watts.

[00:08:11]So it's it's really accurate in that sense.

[00:08:14]There's not many practical applications for that unless you're a professional athlete or you're doing really short time trials, but it's a good way to measure how much energy change when you're doing testing over a period of time. Uh it does that energy above critical power change. Do you get more? Have you done training that gives you less energy above by increasing your critical power? So there's a whole bunch of play in the play that goes on with the with these numbers that gives you a lot more data than just doing a straight 20 watt effort. How does it correlate then?

[00:08:47]I'm going to give you a use case, right?

[00:08:49]So recently I had a call with a recreational um rider who you know, like most, uh actually hasn't done any official testing. Yeah. So he had a rough FTP number, uh but he was doing some pretty good training, so I would say maybe his rough was actually, you know, pretty good in comparison to you know, some others that I've heard about.

[00:09:08]And he said to me, "Cam, I I really struggle with sub-threshold efforts.

[00:09:15]So you know, that's maybe 90% of FTP in his world or 95% of FTP. He was doing 6 to 8-minute intervals. Yeah. And I was thinking, "Hmm, you shouldn't really be struggling um you know, if you're conditioned."

[00:09:26]>> Hmm.

[00:09:27]But then he's then he said, which suggests he does have some good conditioning, "But I find 3-minute efforts at VO2 max are quite easy." Yeah.

[00:09:37]And I'm like, oh, so here's a rider where perhaps he isn't that strong at threshold, but he's actually really strong at VO2.

[00:09:45]So, how does critical power support a rider like that?

[00:09:49]>> Yeah, it's a really good use case because the essentially critical power is modeling your power curve. So, if you see on the new TrainingPeaks, if you're in the analyze function or the there's extra graphs in the analyze 360 now that will predict your power curve. Okay.

[00:10:06]>> So, if you've done a couple of hard efforts anywhere across your power curve, it'll make that curve exponential and it'll flatten out at some point. So, what the power curve what the critical power is trying to do is >> And just just hold that thought. Let me interrupt just for those who have never seen or heard of a power curve before.

[00:10:21]>> Yeah. It we kind of look at like top end, what can you do for like 1 second, 5 second, 10 second, 30 second, 1 minute, >> Yeah. 3 minute, 5 minute, >> Yeah, 3 5 6 10 >> it extrapolates it out. Yeah, and the benefit of TrainingPeaks it looks at every second of that curve. Yeah, 2 minute 2 minutes and 5 seconds is is on there your peak for that duration. So, if you're like a really conditioned rider who's racing and really focused, you're probably going to have all these numbers, but if you're a recreational and amateur that's never really looked at this before, you're probably going to have no idea.

[00:10:53]>> Exactly.

[00:10:54]>> So, the critical power is kind of by doing that 3 or 2 minute whatever test and that the 12 minute test, it's it's kind of plotting that out for somebody.

[00:11:01]>> Exactly. Yeah, it's estimating your power curve and what what the benefit of that is if we do a 3 minute test and your 3 minute is relatively to someone who's not very strong in that anaerobic VO2 area, if it's much higher than another person, then it'll adjust the curve down the bottom end. So, we're assuming that you're not very strong aerobically and anaerobically you're really strong.

[00:11:25]Whereas if your 12 minute relatively to your 3 minute there's 50 watts difference instead of 100 watts, for example, >> Yes. Then we're assuming that you're aerobically quite strong. So, it's going to adjust your critical power based on that. And it gives us those markers. So, if you're doing a 3-minute VO2 effort, for example, we know that your best 3-minute ever is 400 watts. So, if we're getting if you're doing efforts and you're like you're there set at 300 watts, then there's nowhere near what you're capable of. So, it gives us a marker to base your efforts on as well. So, we know what that limit is. So, we can go pretty close to that limit in terms of prescribing intervals in 3-minute duration, for example, pretty close to that limit and repeat it Yes.

[00:12:09]>> one after the other. And that's where the big benefit comes from this type of stuff is that we're getting multiple maximum peak powers that we know you're capable of. We want to push right up to that ceiling, repeat it over and over and over for for weeks. And that's that's where we go. Whereas, you don't do these tests, you don't do a 3-minute or a 5-minute or a 12-minute, we only know what your peak 20-minute power is.

[00:12:29]What what we don't have no idea what's happening with the top end of your if you've never done a maximal effort there. You might have done a couple efforts to like 90 95% of max, but it might be 30 watts off. So, how how do we know? It's interesting. I was editing a a client testimonial for the RCA today.

[00:12:46]We'll drop a link below. Andrew, if you're out there listening. And he was actually saying, you know, one of the things that he really enjoyed about the process of of working with the RCA was identifying what type of rider he was.

[00:12:57]>> Mhm.

[00:12:58]Which I assume is part of the critical power testing protocol. Yes. And you know, he's not a very strong FTP rider, but he's a really good A-grade club level crit rider that wins. Yeah.

[00:13:12]>> Um and his FTP, if you heard it, particularly when you consider his weight, watts per kilo, is actually not that great. Like on paper, I would be a lot stronger than him, but I can't win an A-grade club level race.

[00:13:23]But he he's very good at repeating the you know, the 3-minute or the 1-minute or the 2-minute efforts, which makes him a really good crit rider. Well, yeah, contextually, so his his peak power is around 1,500 to 1,600 W. Okay.

[00:13:36]>> So, enormous neuromuscular. Yeah.

[00:13:39]Enormous neuromuscular.

[00:13:40]>> Pretty good for a 47-year-old, is he? Or 47? I've never I haven't seen it I don't You don't see that in the in the pro velo much at all, like >> Yeah, okay. He's a big guy, but doesn't doesn't matter. 1,600 W is still 1,600 W at the end of a at going 70 k an hour, like it dusts me in a sprint. Yeah, [laughter] yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So, you know, there's a use case, you know, a lot of people do FTP tests and maybe, you know, if you're not genetically predisposed to have a good threshold, people go, "Oh, I'm not a good cyclist." Yeah. Well, actual fact, it's only one one use one a very good use case, you know, which helps a lot of people work out their zones and, you know, be able to operate at threshold, etc., but um it misses a lot of the picture. I think so, yeah. It It does It does work and it gets critical power and that 6-minute approximate maximum peak power usually within uh it's very dependent, but it's like within 5%. So, you're getting you're getting close, but it's how you It's the rest of the picture and when you're looking at critical power testing is the big benefit for me. It gets It's a much better measure for your metabolic steady state, but it's the other stuff that it's giving you, the other benefits of that other maximum peak powers and the power profiling that most good coaches would do regardless anyway. So, if you're doing a 20-minute effort, you would do other short maximum efforts to get your power profile correct, but if you're an amateur out there just riding around and you're just doing a 20-minute and you don't know what your peak 2-minute, 1-minute, 5-minute is, then what type of rider are you? You don't really know until you do it. Yeah, the other interesting point is, like if you are like trying to improve and you're going through maybe your own training plan or you're working with a coach, to be able to get to the 6-week mark and retest or 12 12-week mark and retest, unless you say you're not inclined to have a big increase in threshold, and then you do the test and you're like, "Oh, the training hasn't been doing anything." If you've got another test there, which I think was the case for Andrew, he didn't have a huge increase in thresh- his critical power, I should say. Um his ability to operate at critical power increased significantly.

[00:15:38]>> Yes.

[00:15:39]But where he saw big improvement was his 3-minute, which I think went up by 50 W in in 12 weeks.

[00:15:46]Um so once again, if you didn't do that test, wouldn't know.

[00:15:49]>> Exactly. Yeah. Yeah, and it testing is I say this to all all the athletes that I work with is testing is like it's you have to be on your best day, right? It's hard to and if you have testing across three different days, one day you might have a good day, you might have a bad day the next day, and an average day the other day. So, we have three or four measures to go on, then usually one of them's going to be good.

[00:16:10]Or if for whatever reason it's a have busy life or stress and stuff happens, and we use that context. But I say we can still say your 3-minute went up 20 W, but this was just a bad day the other day. So, it gives a Yeah, it gives us a lot to work with. Yeah, cool.

[00:16:25]All right. Well, I think that's that's solid to me. Critical power came in after my time as a coach. So, I feel like I'm still learning about it and then the use cases and you know how powerful it can be for pretty much any rider. So, we'll drop a link to the calculator below or in the podcast description, and we'll catch everyone in the next show.