Your FTP is the most useful number in cycling. Set it right and every zone, every interval and every workout for the next three months is dialed in. Set it wrong and you train too hard or too easy for weeks without knowing it. And most cyclists set it wrong, because every FTP test depends on the one thing you cannot produce on demand: a truly all out effort. For 20 years, Coach Frank Overton, the Big Cat, monitored his athletes' FTP the old school way: by hand. Pulling best efforts from different days to build a critical power curve, checking heart rate to see how hard they were really going, and weighing how much they had been training lately. It's tedious work that takes a coach all day. This week Frank shows you how CoachCat's new FTP Tracker does that same analysis on your rides instantly, and how to set your FTP without dreading a test ever again. But first, a big announcement: FasCat is now the AI Research and Development Partner of CANYON//SRAM, the Women's WorldTour team. Frank shares how CoachCat's AI predicted the power it would take on Mont Ventoux and the Col d'Èze at the Tour de France Femmes, how the race data validated those predictions, and the season in review reports he's building for the team: Analyze, Predict, Prescribe. And the punchline for this episode: there isn't a single FTP test in the team's data. Not one. Their FTP comes from their racing and training, using the same engine that now runs in CoachCat. Frank also answers the question listeners keep asking about Zwift's new coaching feature, and the five things a game can't do that a coach can: your long ride outside, real power data analysis, recovery, nutrition, and a human coach in the loop. Ride Zwift, and let FasCat be your coach. Then the three old school principles behind the new school FTP Tracker: Tip 1: FTP is CP60, so build your critical power curve from every ride. FTP has always meant the best power you can hold for an hour, and the critical power curve finds it from your best efforts at every duration, from any ride, not a single test on a single day. Saturday's climb is your best 5 minutes. Sunday's race is your best 20. Plot them all and the hour takes care of itself. Frank explains why 95 percent of a 20 minute test cannot be right for everyone: two riders can hold 280 watts for 20 minutes and the diesel holds 272 for the hour while the punchy rider holds 260. Tip 2: Heart rate is the honesty check. The curve is only as good as the efforts that build it, and on its own it cannot tell a hard effort from a maximal one. Heart rate can. An effort at threshold heart rate is maximal and builds the curve. An hour at 240 watts at 90 percent of threshold is sub maximal, so your FTP is above 240 and the curve does not get dragged down to meet it. Even a steady sweet spot ride at a known heart rate tells us almost as much as a test. Wear the strap. Tip 3: Level brings the number to today. A curve built from July efforts still says July in November. Your FTP goes up with training and down without it, and your Level, CoachCat's daily measure of how much you have been training, is the one signal that knows what you have done since your last hard effort. Frank shows how one athlete took his Level from 33 to 64 on 16 Weeks of Sweet Spot and his FTP from 260 to 284 watts, why a rest week is not a layoff, and why the relationship breaks once intervals start, which is exactly why a new maximal effort always wins. And the new school part: we built all three into CoachCat. Sync your rides and the FTP Tracker runs the whole analysis instantly. You see two numbers side by side, the FTP we determined from your data and the FTP set in your profile, with a degree of confidence behind the number and what would raise it. If they don't match, update it in one tap and every workout on your calendar recalculates to your new zones. No test required. Plus: the FasCat Winter Training Series starts Tuesday, November 17. Three coach led rides a week on Zwift: Turnt Up Tuesdays, Zone 2 Thursdays and Sweet Spot Saturdays, pace groups A through E, free to join. Next week, Friday, November 13 at 2pm ET: Episode 49, AI Power Data Analysis and the Next Frontier. Frank goes behind the scenes of the CANYON//SRAM season in review reports and what the data says separates a good season from a great one. Read the articles: Find Your FTP Without a Test: https://fascatcoaching.com/blogs/training-tips/find-your-ftp-without-a-test/ FTP versus Critical Power: https://fascatcoaching.com/blogs/training-tips/ftp-versus-critical-power/ Level and FTP: https://fascatcoaching.com/blogs/training-tips/training-load-and-ftp/ FasCat Named AI R&D Partner of CANYON//SRAM: https://fascatcoaching.com/blogs/training-tips/fascat-ai-rd-partner-canyon-sram/ Ride with us this winter: https://fascatcoaching.com/ride-with-us/ Start your free trial of CoachCat, sync your rides, and see your FTP: https://app.fascat.ai/intro Work hard, ride fast, have fun and as always FtFP!
