I put the new Xert What’s My FTP? app to work for two of my clients, and all I can say is Wow—the results are incredible! Now let’s show you how to get the same results for yourself.
Not even a month ago, Xert by Baron BioSystems, released What’s My FTP? on the Garmin Connect IQ ecosystem. The premise is simple: if you have a smart Garmin head unit (520, 820, 920, 735, 1000) and an on-bike power meter, you can determine your Functional Threshold Power (FTP) with just a few solid, hard efforts, over a period of time.
For those not familiar with FTP, I’ll anecdotally call it “the dividing line between mostly AER-obic power generation, and AN-AER-obic power generation (syllable emphasis all mine).
I’m always skeptical about new product claims, but given Xert’s incredibly short but solid track record of apps that are dead-nuts on, I decided to give What’s My FTP a try.
What’s My FTP: Setting Up, Checking It Out.
I installed What’s My FTP on two clients’ Garmins this week, and on my own. We went to work to see if this app yielded accurate information.
Just a quick note before we begin. The “What’s My FTP?” app does not record your value. It resets every time you turn the device on or off. (You can also set it to reset it every time you press the ‘Lap’ button.) More importantly, it also does not tell you the other two elements of your Xert Signature: namely, your Peak Power (PP) and HIE (High Intensity Energy, better known as your Anaerobic Capacity in Joules). So it’s only telling you one element of the trifecta that makes Xert so unique. That said, with the ability to reset the value after a lap, you can use What’s My FTP to accurately determine exactly how warmup and fatigue can reduce your body’s efficiency and threshold.
As a coach, this is incredibly useful data, since I can teach athletes how to use the field to determine just how hard efforts can help—and also hurt—their ability to further generate power, much like Xert’s “Stress” and “Strain” charts. But with What’s My FTP, you can deduce this in real time. How cool is that?
But first I had to see if the FTP projections What’s My FTP gave were close to my clients’ actual tests. These are excellent test subjects; both are women, one is a 63 is 53. Both are long-time clients who have sort-of plateaued with their Threshold wattage, and I’ve been urging them to pursue Xert via the Premium membership so I can coach them through breakthroughs using the technology. Best of all though, as long-term clients, I’ve personally tested their FTP many times, so I’m very confident their baseline data is accurate.
Athlete 1…
The first client has been using a Threshold of 140, but her work schedule work really throws her sleeping pattern off, and it can affect her numbers. For this effort, we performed one of my ‘Traditional” Xert tests, which includes a series of 10-second efforts, two 45-second efforts, and a 3-minute efforts. I chose these time periods because they sit at different areas of the Power-Duration curve. And while they’re certainly not easy, they’re less daunting than the traditional efforts I’ve given for “Critical Power” tests, which were the product of Dr. Philip Skiba’s work on RaceDay Apollo.
Using the information from this workout, we determined that the 63-year old’s Threshold on that day was roughly 133 watts.
And the What’s My FTP Connect IQ app from Xert? It read….. 129 watts.
So the delta there is about 3 percent. I was pretty impressed.
(By the way – the low HIE and relatively low Peak Power are the result of a long-distance Triathlete who has spent months focusing on lower-intensity workouts, and has still achieved a Threshold Power-to-Weight ratio of 2.9w/kg. So she’s pretty fit to begin with, has podiumed many times, and is raising that FTP above 150 when fresh. We’ll prove that in a later blog post. )
Athlete 2
Now – for the other athlete, we tried out the Xert What’s My FTP field in a regular workout. Her tested “Critical Power” reads 149 watts, which you can see on this image. “Critical Power” again, is analogous to “Threshold” or “FTP”.
The workout itself is below:
After roughly 20 minutes of riding, the cyclist performed a maximum effort for 60 seconds. It was the hardest effort I have seen her attempt in recent weeks. I watched the What’s My FTP app generate a circle of green, orange, red, and then purple, while the number inside grew. After 30 seconds of recovery, here’s what it showed…
That is simply astounding. The app determined her FTP, live, in the middle of a workout.
But Wait – It Gets Better!
One of the reasons cyclists train is to achieve breakthroughs. After a roughly 8 minute recovery, I had the cyclist try again, for a 90-second effort. I watched the What’s My FTP field run Green, then Orange, then Red, then Purple….. The number inside just kept rising.
149…
150…
151…
152… (Just 25 seconds left in the interval.)
153… (Her lungs are heaving as she fights the 2% slope and raises her wattage output even further!)
154… (Just 10 seconds left… She’s gasping by now).
155… (Nearing the end of the interval…!)
Final result?
A Better Way To Measure FTP
Xert is the newest, strongest, most use-able paradigm for determining cycling fitness today. What’s My FTP alone can change the entire conversation in a cycling studio like my own. It could be applied in a Spin studio. It will no doubt be employed by more cyclists every month as they find new ways to improve their fitness, indoors and out.
We can use this dynamic FTP feature to assess “Threshold Fatigue,” or eyeball a trend over time. I know my own Threshold rises and falls with the seasons, and this app should make it clear that investing the $10/mo is money well-spent, along with the ever-lower cost of investing in robust, accurate power meters and head units. (Even better, you can get $1 off the monthly fee by using ‘OBC’ in the discount code box).
I’ll write another post on this later this week as the athletes come back to the studio for another workout. I can’t wait to help them break these numbers, and become more determined to work harder, and enjoy their fitness gains. Now, they’ll see it visually, and will feel it out on the road, trail, or in the studio.
