Winter training with power

Hello everybody,

As they say i've been a long time lurker and have enjoyed ....it's killing me..and a couple of others.


Reason for my post : having just had a very very long lay off i just came back this March and it was like starting again,aged 53 and weighing 162lbs 5'5", my FTP in March was 172 now 8 months later i weigh 136lbs and my FTP has risen slightly to 215-220.

Now here in England it is the tradition to ease off to the point where you actually do nothing other than Sunday club rides, my available time for training is very scarse even throughout Summer so i do not want to loose the little i have gained and i have carried on doing 2 x 1 hour turbo sessions a week at around 90 % - 92 % of my FTP plus 2 weekend rides.

Is there a chance of over training and will i be able to maintain my FTP and when should i start doing intervals if i intend to try and race in March.

Many thanks.

It would be highly unlikely you could overtrain on 4 rides/week.

There's never a bad time to do intervals, just there are more appropriate times to do a given volume of high intensity work. If it's L4 work or below, you can do that pretty much any time. Nothing wrong with a smattering of L5/6 either, provided it's not a dedicated focus on that stuff.

Maybe try one of our training plans?

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Likewise I'm in England. I've always reckoned the Sunday club run is pretty dodgy in terms of training value - they often comprise dead miles sitting in, mixed with hammering up hills, and bisected by bad food in a steamy cafe and a chance to share every germ in current circulation. Okay, I'm a miserable *** but you get my drift.

If you can only get out at weekends then I'd think about what sort of rides you do and who you do them with - maybe mix social rides with solo rides, or find some like-minded riders for company; keep the steady miles steady.

If you're happy to crank up the turbo tthen intervals through the winter are useful - it's just a question of what to do, when. I do one set of 2x20's each week at threshold, all the way through. In a month or so I'll start doing some lower-cadence intervals to work on strength/force. Come January I'll start doing a sprint intervals regime that initially just works on leg speed, and by February I'll be starting to mix in vO2max intervals too. So there's plenty of variety and by the time the first serious races are a month or so away I'm on to full-on sprints, hill sprints and 1- and 2-minute intervals.

Having said that, I did take a full month doing next to nothing (one steady ride a week) following the end of the last season. I'm sure I've lost much of the top-end fitness, but the basic aerobic fitness doesn't seem to have vanished, and the aim of the winter is to build on it, rather than simply avoid losing it. I'm about the same age as you. Be bold!