How much can I increase my FTP?

acslater

IMO doing something simply because the pros do it is a formula for failure. The pros ride hours because their races are hours. My longest race is about 75 miles. Also most of my races rarely give me much of a workout. My intesity factor after most races is .7 to .8. Not much and I usually feel pretty fresh after. I have to push myself during the week or I won't make gains.

The pros race hard...really hard...and they have to rest in between. That is where there long endurance rides come in.

I tried the long endurance rides in the off season. You know what when it came time for early season races I got dropped. This is the first year I did LT and sub-LT (sweet spot) and I am off the front...well sometimes. The difference is huge and the guys around me are asking what I did different. I have even been asked if I am "on" something. I take it as a complement. I am a big believer in doing LT intervals on consecutive days then resting for a few. I think it works.

Sillyoldtwit

Lol I guess I'm playing it safe by saying 200 - we'll see.

__________________

BullGod

My races destroy me. It hurts to breathe afterwards, and it's not uncommon for me to lie on the ground afterwards until someone brings me a coke ;-). Have you thought about upgrading?

I know a few pros who use power meters - you know what they use them for? - To make sure they don't ride too hard in training - and to analyze form in racing.

that's not to say elite riders never do intervals - just less often, and always with an eye on the next race.

wiredued

Are you saying training at your 7 hour pace will improve your cycling as well as training at higher intensities? When I trained at that pace I was around 211 watts FTP for two years, my sprint was about 640 watts and my average speed for a 7 hour ride stayed at about 13mph it was getting kind of boring.

__________________
Romans 5:10 For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life. http://www.earnharts.com/html/reala...ecific.asp?id=3

rmur17

thanks for the observations and comments. it is interesting to hear another informed point of view. Re the bolded part above, would you mind elaborating on that for us? I have a suspicion that some (or perhaps many) of us don't train much differently from what you espouse. But I'm not sure where you draw the intensity/endurance line. Could you clarify?

__________________
rmur

strader

Urikola's aversion to setting training zones based on power makes it so we have no idea what he's talking about when referring to "endurance", or "intensity" training. With my FTP at ~285 I consider an "endurance" ride in the 200~250 watt range. I know other people that would call that an "intense" ride, and my endurance rides should be <150 watts. This January I was pulling on a group ride at 150-200 watts and had the rider drafting me tell me I was going too hard for that early in the year. Group rides which most recreational/competetive cyclists participate in are impossible to categorize one way or the other. Even on small chainring "endurance" rides I participated in over the winter there would be several places where the group would go over 300watts in headwinds and over slight grades (and I'm the only one in the group with an FTP close to 300 watts). Maybe he's encouraging us to ride strictly by RPE, but that alone can be pretty deceptive. After a good warm up 400 watts feels pretty easy for me - for about a minute. On rides below FTP I reference my power tap to limit my pace more often that I use it to remind me to keep my pace up.

Urkiola2

"Endurance" is a typical and wide spread term used since the beginning of times of cycling (at least here in Europe) to describe "long training rides". That is at least more than I would say 3h. In terms of fuel utilization, "endurance" woud correspond to that exercise intensity where fat is used the most and for a long period of time. "intensity" term is used to describe "short, hard-training" and would correspond to the exercise intensity where the predominant energy fuel is CHO, or at least an intenisty where CHO utilization is higher than fat.

Urkiola2

With all due my respect, I think you have your training zones concept a bit screwed up. I believe that you undermind the knowledge of people on this forum. I don´t think you can make assumptions based on what a cyclist drafting you was telling you about what others told him.....

You cannot assume that a given wattage output would represent a given training intensity. For some 230W would be high intensity for others would be very easy intensity. For you could be an easy intensity like for pros would be like watching tv on the couch but for others 230W could be a high intensity. Our ability to exercise depends on the conversion of Chemical energy to Mechanical energy in the muscle. That is, the power output during exercise determines the demand of ATP, which will ultimately depend on metabolic fuels, mainly Fat and CHO. The rate of ATP production and utilization depends on many different factors and "players" like cardiovascular and respiratory system, neural and endocrine systems and adaptations and especially, muscle respiratory capacity, mitochondrial density and oxidative enzimes as well as other muscle adaptations like isoformic changes in LDH, increase in MCT´s (MCT1 and MCT4 mainly) and other adaptations I may forget and others yet to be discovered. So, the challenge is to put all this together and explain it in easy-to-understand and apply terms so that we all can use them. The terms "endurance" and "intensity" are very vague, I know, as many other concepts described on this forums but for the most part are easy-to-undesrtand for most people. Althoug I don´t use those terms much I rather use the term "endurance" than "aerobic" and "intensity" than "anaerobic". Aerobic and anaerobic terms are still confusely used. Establishing power training zones could lead to confusions since a given PO does not elicit the same metabolic responses overtime, and therefore does not decribe a same "metabolic and physiological" state.



Cheers

rmur17

okay I think I'd use the term "endurance" the same as you. But with all due respect to your training and experience, I believe there's a large gap between "endurance training" and "short, hard training". And that's pretty much Coggan levels 3 and 4: tempo and threshold :-)

I honestly don't rate anything up to 1-hr power (FTP) as high intensity. Honestly, is an hour effort *that* intense? Borg 4 maybe 5 out of 10??

Once you get into L5: Vo2max power level and above, I'd call that "intense" and would agree that it's very hard to simply get in enough volume at those power levels.

__________________
rmur

Urkiola2

Of course!. I agree with you. I did not even mention L3-L4 since was just talking about differences between "Endurance" and "intensity" not defining levels.

strader

Okay, so then generally speaking:
Urikiola "Endurance" = Coggan L1/L2
Urikiola "Intensity" = Coggan L3-L7+
When you use ambiguous terms such as endurance and intensity it can mean a lot of different things to different people. Maybe there's some standardization amongst Euro pros and the physiologists who work with them, but there is not among web forums, club racers (at least in America), and the training literature available to the general public (Cyclist Training bible, Morris, etc). Many on this forum, for instance, train race endurance primarily at Coggan L3/L4. At the other end of the spectrum, Josh Horowitz from PezCycling would probably suggest all endurance training be done at zone 1/zone 2. http://www.pezcyclingnews.com/?pg=fullstory&id=5392
I've seen people post their winter training plans on web forums which include 15+ hours per week of Friel zone 1.. 15 hours of active recovery. Compare and contrast with say, DaveRyanWyoming.

Um... well, that was kind of my point. The pace I was riding at was squarely in Coggan L2 - the rider drafting me believed that a winter base ride should be at a level of zero perceived effort. I think the point of contention was that my speed had exceeded 30kph. So yeah, I know you can not apply one rider's training zones to another rider. The other rider was slower than me, but not *that* much slower. I was trying to give an example of how people have different ideas of endurance rides. (BTW, he would have though I was crazy if I rode at my normal SST/L3 pace).

As a relative newcomer to cycling myself I would have to disagree (2nd year racing). Figuring out training zones was the easiest part of the whole thing. It's the nebulous concepts such as peaking, tapering, base building, speed skills, strength-endurance training, and my personal favorite, overtraining, that make racing a bike really hard to figure out. I banged my head against the wall for my first year of racing reading other web forums, and the training "Bible". This is the first forum I found where people started making sense... not only that but I found out some guy (Coggan) figured out a way to model the whole base building/tapering/peaking thing. As an engineer the CTL/ATL/TSB concept really spells it all out for me.


Never been a problem for me. The nice thing about a power meter is I get constant feedback from every training ride and every race. If this months L4 interval feels like last month's L3, then great! I'll retest and revise my training zones if necessary. At least then I know my training is working.
Anyhow, thanks for the physiology lesson.

acslater

I have upgraded to cat 2, but most races aren't that hard for me. Cat 1,2 and pro all usually race together. Crits aren't bad road races are tough.

I think the difference is that your races often push you beyond your limits which stimulates your body to improve. I have to do it on my own. I wish there were races where I had to lie down after it was over...well maybe "wish" is the wrong word. I try to put in attacks as much as I can, but at some point I am just wasting energy and not getting results. I really try to use early season races as training and try to push the pace as much as possible so I can get some good training in.

Thanks for your insight it is really helpful.

acoggan

I wish I could claim credit for that idea, but all I've done is propose a 'watered down' (and hence significantly more practical) version of Banister's original impulse-response model. Be that as it may, I'm glad that you've found the Performance Manager approach useful.

strader

For what it's worth, I've found the "watered down" version much easier to apply.