your FTP improwement

[marathon]

Just curious if you guys measuerd your FTP (functional treshold power), that is for example power you could sustain in a 40km TT or about 1h. It's also roguhly 95% of max. power you can sustain for 20min.

Anyway I was just curious what would be the biggest progress you made over time, let's say from middle base training till your season peak or between seasons?

[mises]

I just read in Bicisport that Pozzato's goes from 340 to 400w at threshold from the winter to peak in season, with a similar increase for maximum power on a ramped test to exhaustion.

[brf]

I've gone up 42W in 3 months of Base Training and will have a 2nd Lactate test after my Build phase to see where I am then.

[Crit Rat]

That's an excellent improvement brf. What percentage gain is that though, i.e what was threshold 3 months ago?


I need to schedule a test myself to find out, but I know my threshold is now higher for certain as racing has been way easier than last spring and average speeds have been just as high. In fact I gained the necessary points to upgrade categories last Sunday!

[MattC]

I've just done a threshold test (20min), after doing 3hrs this morning- I've had a 14% increase in the last two months in my threshold power.

[EpicriderGMAC]

My FTP was already pretty high before the begining of my first Base peroid--about 350 watts, or 4.7 watts/Kg. Now, about 4-5 weeks from my season peak, I'm at around 362 watts, or 4.82 watts/Kg.

With a few pounds off the body by the time I peak and some more watts (probably 370ish), I should hit about 5 watts/Kg for my peak races this season. That's a 5% FTP improvement. If you're a highly trained cyclist, I'd have a hard time believing that you could make much more of an improvement than that over a 3-4 month peroid.

Given that, my TT performances this year have been great! Now I need to dial my aero position in more than work on my power.

[marathon]

Even though I really know the way with nutrition and training I didn't expect such a gain in my case. It's now three years since I started studying power meter based workouts.

Ususally I do around 15.000km/season ... this year I will for sure have 22.000km. Anyway I was an all around athlete for many years.. but really got hooked on cycling now

I weighted 85.5kg in december and my FTP was 425W (4.97 W/kg) and this weekend I did my test on my usual climb, new FTP is 459W, but my weight is "only" 82.7kg now, so that's 5.55 W/kg or 11.7% better and I am still not at my peak. Just started doing intervals for anaerobic capacity 10 days ago. I also average 390-400W for 3-4h if it's hilly terain... that is about 80-90W more then last year. On the ramp (10W/30sec-start at 220W allready warmed up ) test I did 610W.

[brf]

That's an excellent improvement brf. What percentage gain is that though, i.e what was threshold 3 months ago?


I need to schedule a test myself to find out, but I know my threshold is now higher for certain as racing has been way easier than last spring and average speeds have been just as high. In fact I gained the necessary points to upgrade categories last Sunday!

Sorry for the late reply - been riding out of internet coverage.

It's hard to know exactly from what to what (as it depends on the Lactate level used to define FTP - but the shift in the graphs is exactly 42W). But it's roughly 250W to 292W (using 4 ml/l lactate as the FTP) which is quite a large gain - explained by the fact this is my first year of Base training - hence a big improvement.

I'm definately going to get a lactate test every 3 months from now on, as the feedback is very useful, eg I know my base is up but my lactate tolerance is down (as you'd expect from Base training). So, it makes focusing training very easy as you know exactly where you are.