Hi team, I have never taken either of the FTP tests and I also don’t know what my FTP really is… but a few weeks ago I decided to increase the difficulty of my workouts by dragging that line up so that it makes all the wattage requirements higher. I now understand that what I was actually doing was increasing my FTP number (currently at 255).
This is fine. The difficulty is moderate. But I want to know whether Zwift will go back to automatically changing my FTP if I reach an improvement? Or am I stuck now with manually changing my own FTP?
I’ve also started the Zwift Academy, and I’ve been nailing the workouts so far … I would have thought I’d be due for an increase, which is my next question, how often does Zwift change your FTP?
Zwift doesn’t change your FTP unless you either a) take one of the two FTP tests (standard or ‘shorter’) in the workout menu or b) have a 20 min effort with average power that is significantly better than your current FTP setting.*
*it’s not quite that simple, really. Your FTP in Zwift is 0.95 x your average power over the 20 min test interval. So, if your FTP is currently set at 255W? That won’t change unless you put out something > 270W (average) for at least 20 minutes.
That said, if the difficulty is ‘moderate’ with your FTP arbitrarily set at 255W? Take a test.
If you’re on a smart trainer and doing workouts in ERG mode, you’ll never get the most from your workouts if your FTP is set too low - and the easiest way to know for sure is to test yourself.
Sorry, by automatic I mean give me the pop-up to tell me “we’ve detected an FTP increase from X to Y”.
Ok perfect, that formula is what I really needed to know. I am not sure that I can output 255w for 20mins straight so it’s probably set ok. I can do the workouts (don’t get me wrong, a few are hard) but none of them need me to hold 255w for 20 mins so that explains why.
Hey Jason - I’ve pretty much only done workplans since getting onto Zwift 3 months ago with probably no more than 3-4 non plan rides.
Not knowing how to use Zwift properly, after a couple of weeks, I had a “your FTP has changed” messages. Think that was my first race.
Then it happened again after another race about a month later.
Last week, after almost 3 months of being on a plan, I thought it was time to see if my fitness was improving by doing a casual ride up one of the bigger climbs - to see how much power I could consistently push out up the climb (it was about 35min climb for memory). At the end of the ride when saving to Strava, my FTP increased again. I have no doubts that if I were to take an FTP test at that time, I would have got the same result.