Chicken or the egg?

[MikeMuk]

Hey guys,

Been a lurker here for a while and wanted some intelligent opinions on something. I have come trhough what could be described as may base period and am starting to work on the harder stuff, mainly to up my FTp (as I never have, nor never will be a sprinter).

My first race is pencilled in for early April (though it will be used as a training session tbh), with th aim to peak around the end of April/early May. What I wanted to know is for boosting FTp, should I be looking at mainly L4 stuff?. How important is L5 in the whole thing? At the moment my FTP sits at around 4.4 W/kg, with 5 min power at around 5.2W/kg, and I was wondering if by focussing on FTP my 5 min will naturally rise, or is attention to both needed in order to remove any sense of a "glass ceiling" that L5 would impose on the development of FTP?

Cheers!

Mike

 

[Piotr]

Hey guys,

Been a lurker here for a while and wanted some intelligent opinions on something. I have come trhough what could be described as may base period and am starting to work on the harder stuff, mainly to up my FTp (as I never have, nor never will be a sprinter).

My first race is pencilled in for early April (though it will be used as a training session tbh), with th aim to peak around the end of April/early May. What I wanted to know is for boosting FTp, should I be looking at mainly L4 stuff?. How important is L5 in the whole thing? At the moment my FTP sits at around 4.4 W/kg, with 5 min power at around 5.2W/kg, and I was wondering if by focussing on FTP my 5 min will naturally rise, or is attention to both needed in order to remove any sense of a "glass ceiling" that L5 would impose on the development of FTP?

Cheers!

Mike

FWIW, my 5 min power went up after a period of L4 training. I didn't do any VO2max intervals during that time.

 

[ccrnnr9]

I cannot remember the source but in my ex phys class that I am taking this semester I remember reading a study that indicated an increase in VO2max in runners after a period of mainly threshold training (i.e. L4). They also indicated the same sort of reaction to mainly VO2max training. Specific training such as primarily VO2max training is obviously going to have the biggest impact on that realm but it can improve other areas as well. I makes sense to me. I think for that reason (depending on the nature of the event you are training for) you are probably going to see gains in both areas up to a point. At some point the gains you may get with probably start to plateu until you focus on that specific system. Someone correct me if I am wrong.
~Nick