Raising FTP by progressive overload?

Does anyone have experiance training to raise FTP by progressive overload? By this I mean, - Do a 20 minute TT all out to establish max 20 minute power (or whatever time you want) - For the next workout push 20 more watts for as long as possible, when able to acheive 20 minutes, (or whatever time), do your next workout 20 watts higher I don't think I've heard of someone doing this. What would the down sides be? Is it possible? Could you do this on a trainer over the winter, then in the spring start training longer to build endurance with okay results?

 

What you are describing is using anaerobic intervals to raise your aerobic capacity. If your primary goal is to raise your FTP (aerobic capacity), I don't think anaerobic efforts are the most efficient use of your available training time. Nonetheless, studies have demonstrated that a regimen of entirely anaerobic efforts will produce increases in aerobic capacity as well as the obvious increases in anaerobic capacity. Here is one such study: http://fulltext.ausport.gov.au/fulltext/2001/acsms/papers/LAUR.pdf

The downside is efficiency. By definition, the ratio of work to recovery will be less with anaerobic efforts than with traditional aerobic efforts.

 

There are some big "ifs" in there.

If your 20-min power is 200 watts, 20 watts more is a LOT more effort and you probably would never get there. If your 20-min power is 400 watts, 20 watts is still a 5% bump and pretty significant to try for every month.

Now maybe if you were talking about doing an extra 2 watts every other week, it might be an interesting experiment just to see what happened. Of course, if you did that all winter you'd probably be awesome at 20-minute efforts and nothing else.

 

At what length does an effort become anaerobic? Could you do this with a longer interval that is greater than that changerover?

 

Perhaps 20 watts is way to big a jump. Like you said, maybe 2-5 watts a workout. I agree, after a winter of this you'd be good at 20 minute effots and not much else. But...at the end of the winter you'd start extending your time and doing less intense workouts in order to build up to 1-2 hours at a tempo pace. I'm just exploring the idea of other ways to get faster, other than 2x20's at 90-95% FTP.

 

How about HoP? Or you could mix in VO2max and/or anaerobic capacity type efforts into a 45 - 60 minute tempo/SS session. Or...

You are only limited by your imagination. There are lots of books and training articles out there. Take a look and start combining the stuff that looks applicable to your goals (and looks fun too).

Dave

 

I've done this more or less. Inspired by this post http://www.cyclingforums.com/t/491391/i-need-a-19-watt-increase/50_50#post_4051915 when I was coming back from having my daughter but having limited time to train in the winter, I hit the turbo hard from late December onwards and started doing 4x4 min intervals at 250w on 2 min rest (FTP was ~230w at the time I'd guess). Within a couple of weeks I was completing those fairly easily, so I upped it to 260w. Then 4x6 min, 3x8 min, got to 10 min -- all on 2 min rest intervals -- and by then I was riding and racing outdoors more so the turbo mostly went away for the summer. But I started that season in great form, did a stage race in May where I was just flying. So it worked for me. I should add that the main reason I did this training was because I had my TT bike permanently mounted on the turbo and I wanted to gain watts in that specific position which I find harder to train outdoors than the road bike.

This past winter my schedule and goals were totally different and I could get outside 90 min a day 4 days a week, so instead I did a lot more volume and SST and FTP intervals instead. End result was mostly the same, my FTP is pretty similar to last year -- which was about the same as it was before I had my daughter. Over 40 now so it's only going to decline from here! I am toying with doing something different next year but we'll see, my goals may indeed be totally different again.

Anyway the short intervals are worth a try if you are suited to them. Tbh I think there are lots of ways to build FTP, the key is to ride consistently so whatever motivates you to train is what you need to do. It's all fine and well to say "do X at Y watts for Z duration" but unless you actually complete the workouts it's not worth much!

 

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I have not experienced your approach. However, this year I've tried to systematize using variable power as a means of boosting FTP. Like some mentioned, if you assess your CP20 correctly, then adding a large chunk of watts on top of it may or may not work. This depends how close you are from plateauing FTP wise.

What I tried on my end is this:
1. Establish a power level which is challenging over say 30min, but which could be repeated even with a fair load of overreaching
2. Set a realistic target as to what you'd like your FTP to be (i.e. when fresh etc)

Ride at the first level for 10min then at target FTP for 5min. When you reach the 5min stage, you'll slowly tumble over your red line. But 5min isn't enough to kill you. HR will go up, breathing becomes much harder. Then get back to the first level for another 10min, before getting back to target FTP for another 5min. So in short, you go 10min at a level which is at least 90% FTP (low level 4) then 5 at a power level you can't possibly hold for 30min (without proper preparation) then 10min then 5min.

Evolution of this set is interesting. You may decide to upgrade after 9min, and do 6min at target before backing down to first level for 5min and attack the final 10min at target. So the 10min/5min isn't fix. The total duration neither. You may decide after 30min that you can do another 15min @ 10/5, or 9/6, or even 5/10.

This model therefore gives the rider some flexibility as to going hard for longer without changing the total duration of the main set, or adding some 15min blocks thus increasing the total duration of the set, etc. I got someone at some point who decided to break away after only 5min, and ride for a full 30min at target FTP. Well, that night, we knew it was time to increase our FTP value in WKO.

 

Genetics has a great deal to do with the type of workouts that will help you. As do your limiters.


My max heart rate is about 183. My LT is about 172. Doing 20 minutes at FTP plus a couple percent I can get my heart rate up to 160 at the end of the session.

If I worked at it, I would increase my 20 minute power until I got my heart rate into the 172-183 range at the end of the session. And then work on extending my time out to an hour.

The 20 heart beats between 160 and 180 is a lot of watts.