Rather than this being a review of the 4DP test in general, this will focus only on my 4DP test results.
If you want to read a more in depth post on what the 4DP test entails then this is a better link for you.
My 4DP Test Settings
This is a little selfish info to help me in the future. I’ve experience some funk with The Sufferfest on previous occasions. When the power readings come from my Tacx Neo 2, they tend to report on the high side. Today I managed to get the power readings from the Favero pedals and things aligned perfectly.
Note to self: I turned down the Level setting to zero / no grade.
I’m wondering if setting this to maybe Level 1 may be better next time. See below for why.
How This Post Is Structured
I’m splitting this into three distinct sections.
What went well, what could have gone better, and lessons learned.
This is different to my usual FTP test reports. Just trying something new. And I guess it helped me to brain dump everything into section headings when writing this, so I didn’t miss anything that might be important to me next time.
My Sufferfest 4DP Test Results
Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose.
Today I lost out (or did I?) on three of the four sections.
I’m guessing the only thing most people care about if you’re reading a post like this is: what were the results of your 4DP test? Stop stalling, start showing… OK, OK, enough waiting:
So…
- 5 second neuromuscular effort
+65 watts, 942w / 13.85 W/kg - 1 minute anaerobic effort
-43 watts, 387w / 5.69 W/kg - 5 minute maximal aerobic power effort
-1 watt, 296w / 4.35 W/kg - 20 minute FTP effort
-6 watts, 228w / 3.35 W/kg
Suggested rider type: Pursuiter
If you have five minutes to give it everything, no one else has a chance. Though you may lack the kick of the true sprinter or the steady, diesel-like power of the breakaway specialist, you can put your head down and do serious damage on the track or shorter time trials.
My 4DP rider type
This is a change from last time, where it had me as an attacker.
What Went Well
Even though I’m down almost across the board, there were plenty of positives to take away from not only the ride today, but the prep in the week or two leading up to this test.
💪💪 Build Up Rides 💪💪
I’ve spent the last two weeks doing rides with the 4DP test in mind.
Admittedly most of these have been outdoors, and I have always said unstructured training is likely not the best bang for buck regardless, let alone in prep for something like this.
But any riding is better than none, and I can’t say I haven’t put myself through my paces.
🍲🍲 Pre-Ride Food & Drink 🍲🍲
I got a semi decent night’s sleep last night. Maybe 6.5 hours, which for me is fairly average.
When I got up I had a slow breakfast of cereal, coffee, then toast with peanut butter on one slice and Aldi’s own brand Nutella rip off on the other.
I made sure to drink a full litre of water before breakfast, and had at least half a litre after.
Then I waited for 2 hours before getting on the bike. Aside from eating healthier food, I think I couldn’t have done much better here.
🎯🎯 Knew My Targets 🎯🎯
Hardly scientific, but I had done a little pre-ride prep. I’d even written them down so I could refer back to them, if needed, during the ride:
Wishful thinking.
Got The Sufferfest Setup
As above, I got The Sufferfest setup and working properly. I’ve had issues getting the right wattage figures from bike to PC in the past. Today things went smoothly, and hopefully that translates into actually being able to get proper value from the software going forwards.
I Got Through The 4DP Test
I knew the test would be brutal. It’s harder than just doing the 20 minute FTP Test, but I feel the result is more accurate.
As much as I found this one difficult today, I got through the ride and completed the test.
Not my finest hour, but still…
What Could Have Gone Better
There’s the obvious one I’m not going to dwell on:
the numbers.
But beyond that, I reckon these three held me back:
🌶️🌶️ Heat 🌶️🌶️
It’s hot today. Definitely hot enough to be outdoors – it’s 24c as I write this, and was an average of 27c in the room whilst I did the ride.
That said, I believe it was also very hot the last time I did this, so comparatively we’re somewhere similar.
🧠🧠 Mental / Head Down 🧠🧠
Definitely a major disappointment today.
There were large chunks of the 20 minute effort where my head was drooping onto my chest.
Now, this is partly just tiredness, but I’d be lying if I said that was the sole reason. Definitely I felt defeated, particularly in the second half of the 20 minute effort where my pace fell off and I couldn’t bring it back.
Whenever I had my head down my numbers crashed in to the ~210s, but when I looked up I was able to bring that figure back up to ~220s or higher. Simply seeing the figure definitely helped, but I purposefully kept looking away because I was hurting so much.
This was a mental issue more than a physical one.
The positive takeaway here is next time the fix is easy: just keep the head high. Not only does it help mentally, it also helps with breathing I bet.
🚴♂️🚴♂️ Cadence / 95RPM 🚴♂️🚴♂️
A big one, and one I need to fix for next time.
I set the resistance level to Level 0.
What this meant was I had no happy 95 RPM, which is by far and away where I’m most comfortable on the turbo.
Again, a fairly easy fix to this is to do a little prep work and make sure I set the appropriate Level inside The Sufferfest to ensure I have a gear that allows me to hit this figure.
Questions & Lessons Learned
More positives than negatives then, which is something.
❓❓ Were My Metrics Wrong? ❓❓
The big question I have on this result is were my metrics incorrect last time?
Weight, height, age, whatever, they were all correct.
But was I accidentally using the Tacx power figures which report higher when I last did the 4DP test? I’m really not sure, but I’m going to say no, today and last time were equal from a technical perspective.
😁😁 Lower FTP = Easier Life 😁😁
Pretty much every time I’ve done something like this I’ve come out the other side with a more difficult set of targets to hit.
This time my FTP figure drops to 228 watts.
I think I was riding Zwift workouts at 245w based on my ramp test result.
So… yeah, bit of an odd one.
Try Another Workout / Cancel Zwift
I’ve now cancelled my Zwift account.
It was due to renew in 2 days time, so I figure I’ll max out my 14 day free trial at Wahoo and then continue on with that.
I’m keen to see what kind of workouts it prompts me to ride to improve on my figures. Also, with recent road based antics, I’m kinda keen to get back on the turbo for safety reasons and maybe my boredom with Zwift has been a big reason to keep avoiding that.
We shall see.
Done For Another 6 Months 🤣
Anyway, I can tick off the FTP test for another … well, it’s 8 months since my last one. Wahoo says do one every 8-12 weeks. Pretty optimistic as they hurt like hell.
I would be lying if I said I wasn’t keen to beat my current test though, and to move those numbers back in the direction of increased suffering.
Call me a sadist.
Or a Sufferlandrian.
