10 Tips For Improving Your Cycling Ramp Tests
Cycling ramp tests are simple protocols that can offer valuable insights into a number fitness and performance markers. They aren’t too taxing, and allow you to spot changes in variables like ventilation, blood lactate concentrations, muscle oxygenation, O2/CO2 consumption, or simply to predict various threshold powers and heart rates.
Here are 10 tips to help you improve your ramp tests and get more practically useful data from them.
1: Use appropriate ramp protocols
Broadly-speaking there are two types of ramp test; maximal ramp tests and sub-maximal ramp tests.
‘Maximal Ramp’
With a maximal ramp, the primary goal is to reach VO2max at the end of the test. A maximal ramp is typically performed until the point of exhaustion, and is usually used to either measure/predict VO2max, or estimate FTP based on the maximum power achieved in the ramp test before the point of exhaustion.
With these tests, we want a fairly rapid ramp rate that ensures you reach VO2max before the point of exhaustion. However, the ramp rate also doesn’t want to be so fast that you run out of steam before VO2max is reached.
Maximal Ramps will typically have steps that last 1-min or less, and will ramp up your power at a rate of roughly 20-35W/min. You’ll want to pick a ramp rate that suits your ability level, and that has you at the point of exhaustion within around 15-25 minutes.
Most of the common ramp test protocols, such as those used by TrainerRoad or Zwift fall into this first class of ramp tests.
‘Sub-Maximal Ramps’
In contrast, sub-maximal ramp tests are generally performed when we’re more interested in what’s going on during the ramp test, rather than what’s happening at the end of a test. Although it’s worth noting that sub-maximal tests are sometimes still continued until the point of exhaustion.
Key uses of sub-maximal ramp protocols would be to perform lactate testing, or the talk test, which can be used to determine your lactate or ventilatory thresholds respectively. Sub-maximal ramps can used with devices like the MOXY, which uses ‘near infrared spectroscopy’ to measure oxygen delivery and uptake at the muscles.
With sub-maximal ramp tests, it’s important to have long stages in order to give the body a chance to reach metabolic stability (at least for wattages below your threshold power). We usually recommend a minimum step length of 5-minutes, although if you have the time and the necessary endurance, then longer stages are even better.
The wattage increase between each step will depend on the amount of time you have available to test, how good your endurance is, and the level of accuracy you want.
Smaller steps (e.g. 5-10W increases) will give a more detailed picture of how your body responds at different wattages. However it also makes for a much longer test, so use your own judgment to decide what’s appropriate for you.
The bottom line: if you’re testing VO2max or FTP, choose a test with a quick ramp rate and short stages (1-min or less). If you’re interested in measuring lactate, breathing, muscle oxygen saturation, or other physiological parameters at sub-maximal intensities, use a test with long stages of 5-mins or more.
2: Test at the right time
If you’re completing a maximal ramp test, you’ll want to make sure you’re sufficiently fresh to perform the test and not be hampered by existing fatigue.
We recommend having 1-2 days of lighter riding before trying a maximal ramp test. For example, a couple of days comprising recovery rides of 30-60 mins in duration, keeping power below 60% FTP or a 3/10 effort level would be a good lead-in to your ramp test. You can add a few surges to your recovery rides to help keep your legs feeling activated.
If you’re performing a sub-maximal test, then you can get away with a little more fatigue going into the test. However, bear in mind that any significant fatigue (such as after a race or particularly long ride) can still affect your test results due to muscle damage, glycogen depletion, or fluid retention, for example.
Try to avoid planning any testing in close proximity to harder training or racing sessions.
3: Fuel and hydrate appropriately beforehand
If you’re performing a maximal ramp test, it’s important to make sure you’re fuelled well with carbohydrates and have been drinking throughout the day.
Aim to consume a small meal containing 1-2g of low glycemic index carbohydrates roughly 2-3 hours before your test. This will provide a consistent supply of carbohydrates while minimising any sizeable swings in blood sugar levels, which can impact subjective sensations of fatigue.
Some good options include beans/peanut butter on wholemeal toast, porridge or rice pudding. If your testing in the morning and have minimal time to eat beforehand, then take a gel, small snack, or energy drink during your warm-up instead.
For sub-maximal tests, nutrition beforehand can also sometimes impact your test results, particularly for lactate testing, where eating beforehand can increase lactate levels. So it’s often advisable to do sub-maximal tests in the morning after an overnight fast. This helps ensure your pre-test nutrition, blood sugar and muscle glycogen levels are similar when you come to repeat the test down the line.
If you would like to learn more about different types of ramp tests, we cover these in more detail in our Cycling Physiology and Training Science Guide.
4: Warm up thoroughly
Before any type of ramp test, you’ll want to make sure that your muscles and ligaments are warmed-up in order to minimise the risk of injury.
The warm-up is also important to help ‘prime’ your aerobic system, so that this responds better and more effectively when the ramp test begins, and as the workload starts getting harder.
We recommend riding for at least 15-minutes, at a high Zone 1/low Zone 2 intensity (e.g. between 45-55% FTP, or around a 2/10 effort level). Extend this warm-up a little longer if you know that you are someone who is slow to warm-up (e.g. you notice that your heart rate is quite slow to rise when you first start riding, or that you struggle more than others earlier on in a ride).
Importantly, you should keep the intensity of the warm-up below the wattage of the first stage of the ramp test, otherwise this may impact your test results, particularly for sub-maximal ramp protocols.
5: Start at a higher cadence if riding with ERG mode
Most athletes will complete a ramp test using ERG mode. The big benefit of this is that it holds you at the target power, allowing you to give 100% focus to just keeping your legs moving as the resistance increases!
One big drawback of ERG mode though is that it has the tendency to drive your cadence downwards. This is because, if your pedalling rate drops slightly, the trainer will respond by applying more resistance, making it hard to lift your cadence back up again. If this starts to happen in the latter stages of the test, where you don’t have much headroom to overcome the increased resistance and get your cadence back on track, then this can lead to a ‘spiral of doom’, and an early termination of the test.
By starting at a cadence that’s a little above your natural cadence (e.g. 100-110rpm), then you have some sliding room to drop down to a more natural cadence (e.g. 80-90 rpm) towards the end of the test.
6: Try riding with ERG mode off
Although ERG mode has its benefits, some riders do find it harder to produce power while riding in ERG mode, particularly if they tend to do most of your training outdoors.
This is probably because ERG mode can impact values like pedalling cadence, and the way you apply power across your pedal stroke, and can feel quite unnatural to some.
If you’re able to control your power quite well without the assistance of ERG mode, then we recommend having a go at switching this off, and seeing whether that feels more natural and comfortable to you.
7: Create motivating conditions
Whether you’re executing a maximal or sub-maximal ramp test, things will likely start to feel quite challenging towards the end of the test. If you’re pushing to the point of exhaustion, then you really need to have your head in the game in order to hang on for those final few seconds.
As obvious as it might sound, creating a playlist of motivating and high-tempo tracks can really help when the ramps start to become painful. This has been shown to significantly increase motivation and performance during aerobic exercise (Jia et al., 2016; Brooks & Brooks 2010).
If you’re executing a maximal ramp test, we’d also recommend experimenting with goal-setting.
Some cyclists find it useful to have a A- B- and C-priority goals. If the A-goal doesn’t seem to be achievable, then you can quickly switch to your B-goal, helping maintain motivation, rather than becoming demoralised by the failure of your first goal. As an example, you might set an A-goal of making it a full stage further than last time. A B-priority goal might be to make it half a stage further than last time, and a C-priority goal might just be to ride at least 1-second longer than last time!
See how you get on with goal-setting though. Some find it creates too much pressure and causes under-performance, or even test avoidance. Others find goals unnecessarily constraining, causing them to stop riding as soon as a goal has been hit, even if they could have ridden for longer.
If this chimes with you, it might be worth hiding your power and duration data, so that you’re riding purely by feel, with no quantitive feedback as to how you’re performing until you’ve finished the test.
Have a play around with these different goal-setting strategies, and see what works for you.
8: Choose conditions that reflect training and racing
Variables like your bike set-up, seating position, and even gearing can all impact the results of your ramp test. For example, riding in an aero position will typically lead to a lower maximal ramp test performance, lower lactate threshold power and so on.
Likewise, choosing bigger/smaller gearing (even when riding in ERG mode on a smart trainer), can impact how you apply power across the pedal stroke, and thus may influence your test results.
We recommend first deciding the purpose of your testing…
Are you performing the ramp tests:
(i) in order to set intensity zones for training or
(ii) to understand your racing strengths and limiters or track changes in these?
If your answer is (i) then you’ll want to perform your testing under conditions that are as similar as possible to the way you normally train. So make sure variables like pedalling cadence, gear selection, bike equipment and seating position are all as similar as possible to your normal training set-up.
If your answer is (ii) then you should instead try to align your testing with your usual racing conditions. When it comes to gearing, if you tend to race on the flat and/or at high speeds, you’ll want to be in a low gear, which will allow you to build a lot of inertia in the trainer flywheel for a given power and cadence.
If you race on hilly and/or more stochastic disciplines like XCO, then you’ll want to use a bigger gear, which will reduce the inertia in the trainer flywheel, and create pedalling dynamics that are more race-like.
It’s worth noting that, particularly as you get closer to your target events, the way you train and the way you race should become more and more similar, and so differentiating between these two testing goals will become less relevant.
9: Recognise test limitations
Be aware of test limitations when interpreting your results…
For example, if you’re using a maximal ramp test to set your FTP, it’s important to understand that this test only provides an estimated FTP value. If you are a punchy rider, who is good at short, sharp sprints or accelerations, your FTP is quite likely to be over-estimated. If you are more of a diesel engine, and struggle with changes of pace, then your FTP may be under-estimated by the ramp test.
Likewise, if you’re using a ramp test in conjunction with lactate testing, then an awareness of the limitations of lactate measures is important. This includes, for example, an understanding that lactate levels depend on both lactate production and clearance rates, and a low lactate level doesn’t necessarily mean lactate production rates are low.
Try to get yourself clued up on the specific testing protocol you’re using, including its limitations before interpreting your results.
If you would like to learn more about different types of ramp tests and their limitations and recommended testing protocols, then we again cover several of these in our Cycling Physiology and Training Science Guide.
10: Keep test conditions consistent
When it comes to being able to reliably measure changes in your test results over time, it’s important to keep the testing conditions consistent each time you test. Some key things you’ll want to control are:
The test protocol you use (e.g. step length and ramp rate)
The equipment you use (e.g. bike, power meter, smart trainer)
The seating position (e.g. upright seated, aero position, or standing)
Caffeine and other supplement use before and during the test
Also try to control the following if possible:
Nutrition and hydration before and during the test
Training over the 24-48 hours before the test
Time of day at which testing is performed
References
Jia, T., Ogawa, Y., Miura, M., Ito, O., & Kohzuki, M. (2016). Music attenuated a decrease in parasympathetic nervous system activity after exercise. PloS one, 11(2), e0148648.
Brooks, K., & Brooks, K. (2010). Enhancing Sports Performance Through The Use Of Music. Journal of exercise physiology online, 13(2).
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