Struggling to doctor my fitness signature to get a sensible LTP

Support
1

I uploaded my last 3 months of power data to start me off and have sunce done a few more rides on Xert that resulted in breakthroughs, specifcially the Zwift RAMP Test and the microbursts workout agian on Zwift straught afterwards. The RAMP test certianloy felt like a breakthrough as I did better on it than ever before. Happy days I thought, but …

Now I understand what LTP is and mine was far too hight, my stats were:

FTP 294w
20 min 303w (I know this is fairly accurate as I did this just recently and could have done a little more)
Peak power 929w (I can mange this for 5s outdoors out of the saddle, but not on the trainer. More like 700-750w on the trainer)
LTP 250w-ish (I can’t remember exactly as I’ve been messing around)

I cannot do 250w for hours on end, I can maybe just do that for a 50 mile TT, so 2 hours and then I am a broken man afterwards!

I would guess my LTP is more like 190-210w so in an effort to get Xert to shoo my LTP as such, so that the LTP based workouts don’t totally crush me I staretd playing wiht my parameters.

I;ve ended up putting peak power to 700w, HEI to 30.7 and FTP to 280 and now my LTP is 203w which seems more reasonable (maybe still slightly high)

But that then means some of my recent breakthroughs show some lengthy effort above MPA so I am wondering what Xert will do to my fitness signature once I hit another breakthrough?

Also HEI of 30.7k, according to this graph, http://baronbiosys.com/avada_faq/is-my-fitness-signature-right, would be more likely with a Peak of 1200-1400w, not 700w.

Overall I am somewhat confused. I don;t thnk there were any errors in the data I uploaded.

Edit: I tried Riders on a Storm - 120, with myu old signature and it just destoryed me, it was hitting me with intervals labelled “Easy” that I just could not complete, I had to do scale them to 80%. I just took a look at it now with my new fitness signature in place and it looks much more managable. It still looks hard, but maybe now I could complete it on 100%

2

I’d write to Xert support directly - they can see your data and give a more complete answer, plus they’ve seen loads of cases.

Some thoughts…

  • To me the original signature didn’t seem that unusual for an endurance focused rider… is that how you would describe yourself (as opposed to more explosive power rider)?
  • LTP doesn’t necessarily mean the pace you can ride for hours on end… apparently for most, that would be around 90% LTP. I think it’s meant to be your one hour ish power when you’ve no HIE left, so will apparently feel like riding at TP if you do it when really fatigued.
  • Riders on the Storm 120 is not an easy workout… the ‘easy’ won’t feel easy due to fatigue (MPA drawn down), especially if you are not feeling fresh… try an easier (2 star) endurance one to see if LTP is reasonable…
  • yes, your next BT will reset the signature again (but you may want to recalculate progression first - see what support suggest)
  • If you had a BT in a ramp test, then immediately did another ride and another BT, I suspect you left something on the table in the first BT. (That would mean a higher signature, so doesn’t help!)
3

As I understand it LTP is the lowest level your TP drops to under fatigue (ie when your MPA has been brought down to failure). It is not the top of Zone 2 in a zonal model but it can be close in individual cases. LTP is rather low tempo pace and therefore fatigue will set in long before it would do if you were riding in zone 2.

1 Like
4

@wescaine

  • To me the original signature didn’t seem that unusual for an endurance focused rider… is that how
    you would describe yourself (as opposed to more explosive power rider)?

Yes my sprint and even 1 minute power sucks and all my training is for time trialing, so all endurance, threshold, vo2max based.

  • LTP doesn’t necessarily mean the pace you can ride for hours on end… apparently for most, that
    would be around 90% LTP. I think it’s meant to be your one hour ish power when you’ve no HIE left,
    so will apparently feel like riding at TP if you do it when really fatigued.

Ah OK so maybe I am misunderstanding LTP, but certainly a lot of the endurance based rides,m looked too hard when i was browsing them with my LTP. Perhaps I should have given more of them a go though.

  • Riders on the Storm 120 is not an easy workout… the ‘easy’ won’t feel easy due to fatigue (MPA
    drawn down), especially if you are not feeling fresh… try an easier (2 star) endurance one to see if
    LTP is reasonable…

I have also come to this conclusion :slight_smile: I don’t think I do well in general once fatigued so probably jsut need to practice that more before tackling that workout again.

  • yes, your next BT will reset the signature again (but you may want to recalculate progression first - > see what support suggest)

I did a short zwift race yesterday with some very hard efforts in it and Xert has modified my fitness signature a little, it’s taken my threshold down 3w, HEI woth 1.5Kj, Peak up 43w and my 20 min power is now a little too low at 300w, but overall not a drastic change as my LTP is still at 204w.

  • If you had a BT in a ramp test, then immediately did another ride and another BT, I suspect you left > something on the table in the first BT. (That would mean a higher signature, so doesn’t help!)

I agree that does point to that, but I absolutely gave the RAMP test my all, I just could not push the pedals at the finish. I do seem to do quite well at the microburst type workouts, It’s much easier for me to get a breakthrough on them I think. For instance I woiuld wager that if I hit another zwift race right now I would struggle to get a BT, but if I did another microburst workout (with the right wattage for the intervals) then I;d have a much better change of getting a breakthrough.

Thanks for all the input here though that really helps.

@carytb Thanks for input, so more like low tempo, which makes sense. I still don’t think my low tempo is 250w ish, but maybe I am wrong.

I think you’ve both convinced me to stop messing around with my signature, reset it what what Xert suggested and make sure I attempt a good selection of workouts before I decide whether my LTP is too high :slight_smile:

Thank you

1 Like