FTP Buiding advice



fezzy

New Member
Dec 3, 2007
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Could use a little help/advice with my training. Back story is I picked up a road bike last year. Did some group rides, but not really what I would consider training. Ended up picking up the racing bug late last year and subsequently having my **** handed to me. Spent the winter on the trainer with the Powertap cranking out 20 minute efforts and cobbled together a "training plan" mostly based on reading the Its Killing me thread on here. I decided that as someone without much of a cardio base that I would dedicate my first year of training to FTP building. I will worry about sprinting later. Things went well through most of the spring and I got the FTP up to around 260ish. I have pretty much stalled since then though. And I often have days where I struggle to meet what I did the week prior, or the day prior or 2 months prior.

Things went well early in the season, I had several top 5s which was nice, but Im looking long term. As long as the numbers come up, I know I will have success down the road. Problem is the numbers have been stagnant since around March. My schedule looks something like this...

Mon 1 hr recovery
Tues 2x20 @95% FTP (~250 watts)
Wed 1x30-45 (~85%) plus some upper body lifting and core
Tues 2x20 @90-95% FTP
Fri Recovery
Saturday 1.5-2 hours endurance/tempo ride with a few leg openers
Sunday Race (1 hr) or endurance group ride (4 hr)

Any suggestions on how to jumpstart a stagnant FTP, or do I just need to be more patient or HTFU? Thanks.
 
fezzy said:
Could use a little help/advice with my training. Back story is I picked up a road bike last year. Did some group rides, but not really what I would consider training. Ended up picking up the racing bug late last year and subsequently having my **** handed to me. Spent the winter on the trainer with the Powertap cranking out 20 minute efforts and cobbled together a "training plan" mostly based on reading the Its Killing me thread on here. I decided that as someone without much of a cardio base that I would dedicate my first year of training to FTP building. I will worry about sprinting later. Things went well through most of the spring and I got the FTP up to around 260ish. I have pretty much stalled since then though. And I often have days where I struggle to meet what I did the week prior, or the day prior or 2 months prior.

Things went well early in the season, I had several top 5s which was nice, but Im looking long term. As long as the numbers come up, I know I will have success down the road. Problem is the numbers have been stagnant since around March. My schedule looks something like this...

Mon 1 hr recovery
Tues 2x20 @95% FTP (~250 watts)
Wed 1x30-45 (~85%) plus some upper body lifting and core
Tues 2x20 @90-95% FTP
Fri Recovery
Saturday 1.5-2 hours endurance/tempo ride with a few leg openers
Sunday Race (1 hr) or endurance group ride (4 hr)

Any suggestions on how to jumpstart a stagnant FTP, or do I just need to be more patient or HTFU? Thanks.
Do shorter(5 min +) intervals above your FTP.
 
+1 To be a true Tysonian you have to do some VO2max and smash that glass ceiling holding your FTP down.:cool: I like 4 minutes at 116%FTP.

POGATA said:
Do shorter(5 min +) intervals above your FTP.
 
POGATA said:
Do shorter(5 min +) intervals above your FTP.
You may find that this works however, I'm also going to suggest something else: just go a little harder in your 2x20's. Try to ride 10 W higher than you normally do. Once you can do 3-4 days of 2 x 20 that level, increase it again.

I'm not poo-pooing L5; L5 work is important for a racer, I feel. I'm just suggesting an alternative.

I think that you showed gains early on possibly because you had some "untapped potential" and improvement came easily. However, now that you are reasonably fit, you have to do something different and/or work a little harder to see some further gains. I think it was Andy C that said something like, "at some point, you are going to have to raise the power".
 
Are you suggesting replacing one day of the 2x20s with the VO2 efforts, or two or three? And how much total work time should I aim for?
 
Most guys do 5x5s at around 112% that is the max time 25 minutes per week I do 3x4s at 116% that is the minimum 12 minutes. I would usually do a 3x4 after a 2x20 to squeeze it in my schedule. You might even get a benefit by just kicking it during the last 3 or 4 minutes of a 3x20 or 2x20.

fezzy said:
Are you suggesting replacing one day of the 2x20s with the VO2 efforts, or two or three? And how much total work time should I aim for?
 
wiredued said:
Most guys do 5x5s at around 112% that is the max time 25 minutes per week I do 3x4s at 116% that is the minimum 12 minutes. I would usually do a 3x4 after a 2x20 to squeeze it in my schedule. You might even get a benefit by just kicking it during the last 3 or 4 minutes of a 3x20 or 2x20.
Just keep in mind that because of the increase in intensity when adding L5 work into the schedule, you may need more rest and recovery time during the week to compensate. If you don't include more rest, you may feel fine for the first few weeks but these things have a way of sneaking up on you. Consider reducing some of the volume or intensity you are doing on other days.

I also like the idea of "kicking it" during the final few minutes of a 20-minute interval.
 
fezzy said:
Are you suggesting replacing one day of the 2x20s with the VO2 efforts, or two or three? And how much total work time should I aim for?
Wiredued has offered some good advice.

As one who subscribes to the Lydiard approach, I wouldn't do L5 more than 1 or 2 per week and (generally) only before significant races (if I understand Lydiard correctly).

I'm guessing that if you're doing L5 work to augment SST & L4 training then 1/week for a few weeks (how many is up to you) should be plenty.

My 0.02,
Dave
 
Thanks for the advice guys. I did the 5x5 tonight, and it hurt a lot. Guess that means I did it right. Averaged 289 / 299 / 297 / 286 / 289. Started off doing 3 minutes rest, but switched to 5 for the last couple. I think I will try these once a week for a few of weeks, and see how things progress.
 
The breaks should be roughly the same as the intervals if you really feel fresh try to get within 10 beats of your max heart rate on the last 3.:eek:

fezzy said:
Thanks for the advice guys. I did the 5x5 tonight, and it hurt a lot. Guess that means I did it right. Averaged 289 / 299 / 297 / 286 / 289. Started off doing 3 minutes rest, but switched to 5 for the last couple. I think I will try these once a week for a few of weeks, and see how things progress.
 
I've had the exact same problem this year, plateau in FTP since March. I was doing at least 1/day per week of L5/L6 and had a gradually climbing CTL over the season up to a peak of 102. FTP didn't budge regardless.

I took 3 weeks off the bike at the start of this month for vacation, and now I'm starting over from a CTL of 48. This time I'm giving the classic periodization approach a chance, instead of my previous "nose to the grind stone" FTP build based on 2x20s, 1x60, etc. For the rest of July and most of August I'm focusing on longer L2/L3 base rides of up to 4 hours with a few mountain bike rides and races thrown in for intensity. In September I mix in higher level L4, L5, and L6 "speed work" to bring FTP up. My target races are a cyclocross series which runs from October to the first week of December.
 
I see you doing 6-9hrs of training per week. Not to be offensive, but what are you recovering from on Friday? Your training week is not hard enough.

I hope you can extend your training into the 10+hr/wk range of actual training. I think you should do some tempo after the 2x20s and really build the TSS every week.
 
I just studied a small article on what FTP is... and I think it's a nonsense thing, a commercial idea just to convince people that this measurement is important. In europe we use SRM (much more common than your powertap), but we use it in another way... for instance when I was U23 my DS recommended us to continue defining interval trainings with the heart threshold, so to avoid the natural increment of the power along the season (for instance I could erogate 290W@heart treshold in march and 325W in july at two bpm more, in fact the heart threshold also varies but not more than 2-3 bpm, what really changes is the power (W)). The power was only "measured" during trainings with the SRM to understand if we were going well or not, as a marker of our shape.

Apart from this, assuming % FTP equal as % heart threshold (I can't esteem % FTP), I think these trainings can be good to improve your flat-land pace, but remember that only group-training can push you really over the 100% (and this is mostly important, as other guys say the 4' at 116% is *really* important, it will be a situation that you'll ever face during a race so it's better if your muscles are used to work when full of lactic acid...5x5' are good indeed and *necessary* imho).

Where are the climbs in your training plan? :)
 
Sikhandar said:
I just studied a small article on what FTP is... and I think it's a nonsense thing, ....
Too bad, your loss..... Read more than a small article, maybe start here: http://www.cyclingpeakssoftware.com/power411/

or if that's too market driven to trust try here: http://groups.google.com/group/wattage and see what the professional exercise physiologists, and coaches, yes including european coaches and coaches working with professional cyclists racing in europe, think about the concept and usefulness of FTP vs. "threshold heart rate".

Ignore it if you wish, but a lot of folks have used the concept to substantially improve their race performances.

Good luck,
-Dave
 
I do not say that it doesn't work, obviously if you work at 95% FTP, that is (just to say) 95% threshold, you *are* working so you'll get trained as well; but your power (watts) will change from one week to the other, while your heart rate will remain still, so that's because in our team (and also in others, other riders) we used to regulate our training with the HR and used the SRM just to measure our improvements.

(Moreover the SRM was fundamental when doing strenght works, or "strengh/oxygen" work, it helped out in finding the right gear when doing the "strenght" phase of the work).
 
Sikhandar said:
I just studied a small article on what FTP is... and I think it's a nonsense thing, a commercial idea just to convince people that this measurement is important. In europe we use SRM (much more common than your powertap), but we use it in another way... for instance when I was U23 my DS recommended us to continue defining interval trainings with the heart threshold, so to avoid the natural increment of the power along the season (for instance I could erogate 290W@heart treshold in march and 325W in july at two bpm more, in fact the heart threshold also varies but not more than 2-3 bpm, what really changes is the power (W)). The power was only "measured" during trainings with the SRM to understand if we were going well or not, as a marker of our shape.

Apart from this, assuming % FTP equal as % heart threshold (I can't esteem % FTP), I think these trainings can be good to improve your flat-land pace, but remember that only group-training can push you really over the 100% (and this is mostly important, as other guys say the 4' at 116% is *really* important, it will be a situation that you'll ever face during a race so it's better if your muscles are used to work when full of lactic acid...5x5' are good indeed and *necessary* imho).

Where are the climbs in your training plan? :)
p-hr-tour.png

Link
 
Sikhandar said:
but your power (watts) will change from one week to the other, while your heart rate will remain still
http://www.peakscoachinggroup.com/Power_Training_Chapter.pdf
 
Sikhandar,

You get on this board and say that training based on FTP, which is, by the way, the way most people on this board train, is nonsense. Do you actually expect anyone to respect your opinion when you say that the way we are training is nonsense?

Not to mention, when you say that heart rate will only vary 2 or 3 beats but LT power varies more, I have to wonder about you man. In my own experience, depending on fitness and recovery levels, my heartrate at LT power could (when I used to wear a HR monitor) vary from 175 to 188 in a season. Explain that one.
 
Steve_B said:
He's probably trolling. That's why I wouldn't get to invested in this.
mmh, very strange, he is a regular member of italian bdc-forum.it, where surely he's not considered a troll. This doesn't mean I agree with him, anyway.