Welcome to my week 12 “Build Me Up” (BMU) training log.
About this Series:
I’m journaling my way weekly through Zwift’s “Build Me Up” training plan and calling out tough workouts, minor bugs, and Zwift feature suggestions along the way. For your reference, my FTP is set to 321W, as detected by Zwift’s ramp test at the start of the plan.
Past weeks: Week 1 // Week 2 // Week 3 // Week 4 // Week 5 // Week 6 // Week 7 // Week 8 // Week 9 // Week 10 // Week 11
This last week was about recovering so I could take a final FTP test (or two) to measure my progress. Would the test show improved fitness? Read on to find out…
Workout Journal – Week 12
Wednesday, June 7: Alpha
I finished week 11 with a big 2-hour workout on Thursday, then got in just 1 easy hourlong ride on Sunday morning in between visits to see our newborn granddaughter. Luckily she came just in time, at the tail end of this training program! Two of week 12’s workouts were super-easy leg spinners, so I decided to skip them and do “Alpha” as a leg opener workout to get prepped for the big FTP test the following day.
Alpha is an easy enough workout – something you would do the day before a big race or fitness test. It gets your heart rate up, gets your legs putting out some power, but doesn’t really fatigue you at all.
Thursday, June 8: FTP Test
And so we arrive at the FTP Test. This is the capstone of 3 months of Build Me Up training. After all that work, would I see an increase in my FTP?
First, I need to mention again that there’s a caveat here: the BMU program begins with a Ramp Test, and ends with a 20-minute test. These are two very different tests, and my guess is that the Ramp Test gives an inflated result for many riders, including myself.
So I didn’t expect to see a major increase from today’s test, because my hunch is that if I’d begun the program by taking a 20-minute test my result would have been 5-10W lower than it was with the Ramp Test.
There’s a lot more that could be written here. Like how Zwift uses 95% of your best 20-minute power to compute your FTP, even though that’s not actually how FTP should be computed (the actual 20-minute FTP test includes an all-out 5-minute section prior to the test). But I’ll just say that I did the math going into this test, and knew if I averaged 335W for the 20 minutes I would be just below my tested FTP of 321W. If I averaged 340W I would be just over.
I knew I could do 320W for 20 minutes. 340W seemed like a big ask. So I decided I would start at 335W, then up my wattage after 10 minutes if I felt like I could sustain a higher pace.
As luck would have it, my IRL cycling buddy Zane was grabbing coffee near my house just before I started the test, and he stopped in to cheer me on. It’s always good to have some real-life support!
After a looooong warmup, I began the 20-minute effort. This puts you in free ride mode, which is basically a 0% gradient where you have to manage your gearing and cadence in order to hit the power numbers desired. I quickly settled into a good gear where I was averaging 335W at 95-96RPM.
5 minutes ticked by, then 10. I was suffering – my heartrate had gone over threshold just 90 seconds into the effort! But 335W seemed doable, so I kept pushing. I shifted to a higher gear to mash the pedals for a minute or two at a lower cadence, but the higher cadence felt more efficient/comfortable, so I settled in there.
With 5 minutes to go, time had slowed to a crawl. I was keeping that 335W average, but couldn’t seem to sustain anything higher for any amount of time. I decided I would just keep this pace up until I had a minute to go, then I would go as hard as possible for the last 60 seconds.
So that’s what I did! In those last 60 seconds I averaged 412W while dying a thousand deaths. Then my result popped up:
Was I disappointed by the result, which was 2 watts lower than my tested starting FTP of 321W? Not a bit. Sure, it would have been amazing to get a higher number. But as I’ve already explained, this isn’t the same test as I began with, so we’re not comparing apples to apples.
To put it another way: there’s no possibility I would have achieved a result of 319W if I’d taken this test at the start of the program.
My Strava power curve got a nice upgrade. This test, in fact, was my highest power in the 15-20 minute window for all of 2021, 2022, and 2023! That’s a good sign, right?
To throw one last confusing bug into my BMU experience, when I went to save my activity I got the ol’ “FTP Increase Detected” box. How confusing is this?
I have two theories here. Not sure which one is correct, but I have a hunch:
- The alert popped up because my FTP test result (319) was lower than my saved FTP (321). This was Zwift swapping my FTP back to the higher saved number.
- Zwift re-computed 95% of my 20-minute power for the activity and decided it should be a couple of watts higher. I’m leaning toward this answer, as the FTP test said my average was 338W when I crossed the line, and 95% of 338 is 321.1.
I got new threshold power notifications from TrainingPeaks and Intervals.icu upon saving the activity, too! TrainingPeaks said 321W, and Intervals.icu (my new best friend) said 323W.
Intervals.icu had my FTP at 313W after my starting ramp test, so I consider this to be evidence of a boosted FTP.
Saturday, June 10: Ramp Test
After resting a day following the horrendous 20-minute test, I took a Ramp Test to wrap up my Build Me Up program. The Ramp Test isn’t actually part of the final week of BMU, but I wanted to finish with the same test I started with, to see if I at least got stronger in whatever areas the Ramp Test tests.
My legs didn’t feel great as I warmed up, and I actually considered binning it and just taking another easy day before testing. But I pushed on, and surprised myself by finishing the 440W block and getting a few seconds into 460W for a new Ramp Test PR:
Hurray! I don’t think my FTP is actually 335 – I think the 20-minute test is more accurate – but improving by 14W on the Ramp Test from the start to end of the program is a good result in my book. That’s a 4.36% improvement.
Whine of the Week: What is my FTP?
In Zwift’s early days, we only had the 20-minute FTP test workouts to determine our FTP. The game has also attempted to determine your FTP based on 20-minute power during all activities, but this can overstate your FTP since it doesn’t include the 5-minute all-out effort prior to the 20-minute test, which is what the “official” test requires.
Then Zwift released the Ramp Test in 2019, which gave us a new and less suffery way to test our FTP. A welcome addition, but not the most accurate, at least for some riders.
Lastly, in 2022 Zwift began computing our “zFTP” – Zwift’s estimate of our FTP based on our power numbers across 2-50 minutes in all Zwift activities.
So what is my FTP, anyway? Especially if you’re a newer cyclist, it’s a confusing question if you’re only looking to Zwift for the answer, because you’ll get 4 different answers. Here are mine:
- 20-minute test result: 319W
- In-game 20-minute power detection: 321W
- Ramp Test result: 335W
- zFTP: 306W
I would love to see Zwift begin auto-computing a full fitness profile for all riders, then using the FTP (and other) numbers from that to determine structured training parameters and recommend certain workouts. This is a huge area of potential growth for the platform, in my opinion.
One to Keep, One to Throw Away
I think each week of BMU features a key “cornerstone workout” and another which doesn’t really need to be done, so I thought it might be useful to call those out each week, in case your schedule is tight. For week 12, here are my picks:
- Key Workout – FTP Test: Sure, you may have nothing to compare your result to. But it’s still important to finish the program with a test to see where you’re at!
- Throw Away – Renewal: with a huge portion of this 30-minute workout being at Z1, this is a workout you could easily skip during your recovery days in lieu of going for a walk, an easy outdoor ride, or a spin with a RoboPacer.
What’s Next?
I plan to write one last post about my Build Me Up experience, summarizing the strengths and weaknesses of the program from my perspective.
As for what’s next in my riding/training – I’m going to be enjoying more outdoor riding in the coming weeks, for sure. But I’m also looking forward to smashing out some Zwift races! See you out there…
Questions or Comments?
Share below!
Congrats! Can’t complain about a ~4% increase for a rider who was already consistently riding and striving to get stronger.
Yeah, I’m happy with that. And quite convinced that I’m much stronger for 2-5 minute efforts, too!
No expert here and just training for a couple of years but 12w of training for just a gain of 4% on FTP does not speak well for that plan imho.
Two things:
First: this wasn’t an “FTP builder” plan, so it wasn’t purely focused on boosting FTP.
Second: once you’ve been training and racing for several years, you’ll dream of a 4% FTP increase. 🙂 At 2 years in many folks can still see decent gains from everyday riding!
I can see your point but to measure your performance you have to compare your starting performance with the one once the plan is completed, right? And what does Zwift offer to asses the performance according to the plan: one FTP test at the beginning and one at the end. So if we assess the plan quality it will be based on both FTP results as intended by Zwift, even if this plan is not called “FTP Builder”. Odd enough Zwift uses two different test, as you already mentioned.
So better option would be to do one of the power profile tests (e.g. the one from Allen&Coggan) to measure your gains before / after. Which should show the progress more cleary (and so the plan quality) as you noticed in your power curve. Just my 50Cents 🙂
What IS the reason this program insists you do different FTP tests which is known to yield different results, at start and end? I never could get my head round that
Well, the ramp test at the start is actually an “optional” workout before week 1. So if you knew your FTP before starting, you wouldn’t need to do it.
I think they use the ramp test because it’s hard to mess up – you don’t have to be good at pacing yourself or suffering for 20 minutes in order to do it. It’s good for beginners.
For various reasons, 2022 was my lowest mileage in 4 years. And then at Christmas, a friend talked me into riding the 7 day, 500+ mile, RAGBRAI (ride across Iowa) this coming late July. So I committed to the 12 week BMU on January 1, with my baseline FTP Ramp Test at 157 watts.
I followed the program, and while agreeing there are some imperfect workouts, it was definitely great just to have a program to follow. Anyhow on April 1 (yes, April Fool’s Day seems like a bad day for a big test) I did the full 20 minute FTP test. And I tested at 183 watts, a 17% improvement. (And maybe more if the January Ramp test overstated my FTP). So the BMU was a huge winner for me.
And now that I am IRL getting prepped for RAGBRAI, I am riding comfortably with B groups, and ok doing group rides with mostly A riders (I slow them down a lot less than in the past).
Nice work, Steve!
If the FTP starting test number is exaggerated (which, from personal experience, it is) then all of the workouts in the BMU programme are set at too high a level.
Pretty obviously for Eric they weren’t as he was able to get through them but for me they are and the whole process is demotivating.
The obvious solution is to grit my teeth and do the 20 minute FTP test to start with. But Zwift shouldn’t be telling me to do something else should they?
Yeah, it’s not ideal.
The Ramp Test doesn’t overstate power for EVERYONE… but I think it does for many folks. A 20-minute test is definitely more accurate, if you are able to pace it well.
Even the 20 minute test is only going to give you an estimate of FTP. It may or may not be a better estimate than the ramp test. The easiest way to get a pretty-much-reliable number for FTP is to feel it out on a free ride (maybe AduZ or Ventop) and keep going until you can’t keep going about 35 to 70 minutes later. Then look at that effort in training peaks or intervals.icu and take the average power as your FTP. It might sound daunting, but it’s much less unpleasant than 20 minutes at 105% of FTP!
I’m in week 3 of BMU but I noticed a lack of Z2 work, it is all tempo or threshold work. Is it advised to do longer Z2 rides in addition to this program or would that mean to much volume? Any advise would be greatly appreciated.
Yeah, I did some easy (z1-2) outdoor rides mixed in with BMU, especially in the early weeks. Definitely wouldn’t add any HARD rides, but doing easy recovery stuff is a good idea on off days. Not sure I’d do really long rides though.
Great wrote up of the BMU plan. I have done it twice and always noticed a good all round improvement. Most recent was after a 2 week (off the bike and eat lots of food) holiday end of October 2022. FTP was around 300 and dropped to around 280 :-/ Got back into a casual cycling routine for November then started BMU December. Two weeks after the plan finished, and doing a few more workouts and solid rides I did an FTP test and I came back with 325. Happy with that for sure ! The FTP test though was different to the 20min effort and 1min ramp test though. I think GPLama covered this one a while back, starts at 100w and goes up by 25w every 2.5mins and that becomes very hard as you get to your limit. Then there’s a quick calculation of what you did complete of the final effort you can’t finish. I have found this to be quite spot on. I wonder if anyone else has tried this version of the ramp test ? Again, cheers for the wrote up Eric
Thank you for sharing your experience with us.
I also started BMU, tomorrow is the second week. I do the exercises late in the afternoon.
I’m thinking of going to the gym for strength training, two mornings a week. do you think it is a good combination with BMU?
Honestly, for me, it was all I could do to manage all the BMU workouts – especially in the later weeks. I couldn’t do gym sessions as well.
But everyone is different!
I did the BMU progaram in 2023 and 2024. For this year (2024) my ramp test showed a FTP of 237 watts and I did all the trainings with that value. Today I did the FTP test in which I was able to have 211 watts over the 20 minutes test and my FTP was set as 200 watts. What is really interesting is the fact that the 5 minutes effort at 260 watts was easier that the 20 minutes one at 211 watts ( for my tacx the free mode is not that great compared with ERG). 2 weeks ago I did the 20 minutes effort outisde and I manage to have 254 watts over those 20 minutes….so I think this Zwift FTP test is not that concludent.