How does one effectively train and increase a max power for 2hour efforts. My goal is to only see a slight drop off in FTP for 2 hour efforts. Is <10% to unreasonable?

Having read countless articles and the Power Bible. Then discussed and trained with power by a cert. power coach for a full year. I notice a drop of ~20% of FTP by the 2hr mark, I think it should be much less. My coach and I think to keep training FTP higher and higher and I'll see a benefit in 2hour threshold. Still, I come to you fellows for further advise.

Stats:
60-63kg (depending on the season)
~295w FTP @ ~105rpm
12-15 hours/week on the bike.
usually 2-4 hours/week of some form of FTP intervals, the rest are at L2 recovery pace.

Should I try to double my ride times to 30hr/week, and keep intervals the same? Should I double my standard FTP workouts?

ie should I try these workouts...

▼ 10 minute controlled warm up with bursts up to FTP
▼ 20 minutes @ 85% FTP
▼ 4 minutes recovery @ 150 watts maximum
▼ 20 minutes @ 85% FTP
▼ 4 minutes recovery @ 150 watts maximum
▼ 20 minutes @ 85% FTP
▼ 4 minutes recovery @ 150 watts maximum
▼ 20 minutes @ 85% FTP
▼ 6 minutes cool down spinning at 100 rpm

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CAAD9 - 6.32kg

This is what Hunter and Coggan say about fatigue:

Lactate Threshold
20min 60min 90min
Below Average(Strong Initial Effort) 100% 7 to 11% 15 to 25%
Average 100% 4 to 6% 8 to 14%
Above Average(Strong Endurance) 100% 2 to 4% 5 to 7%

The formating got messed up, you can see it here.

Two hours are not in there, but it should help you guess.

I would try and figure out what exactly causes the drop off and then try and fix that.

A WAG is that your glycogen stores are depleted. If that is truly the reason, you could tackle your feeding strategies and try and move the enegery source % to your favour, meaning that you use more fat and glycogen for the same effort by focusing more on Endurance and Tempo levels.

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"Nothing compares to the simple pleasures of a bike ride," said John F. Kennedy, a man who had the pleasure of Marilyn Monroe.

Make take on things.

1) Trust your coach. The raising of ones FTP will help in your goals. The workout you listed (or ones similar) would be good for sustained efforts.

2) Ypsylon's WAG about the glycogen levels is a very good guess. Depending on genetics and a whole host of other things you cannot maintain FTP or a slight degrading thereof without taking more energy onboard for that duration.


FWIW when I had stats similar to yours I could hold ~95% of FTP for just shy of 2 hrs without eating, but did ingest ~650ml of gatorade.

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"Physiology is all just propaganda and lies... all waiting to be disproven by the next study."
"I'm not a real doctor; But I am a real worm; I am an actual worm." - TMBG

95%ish should be doable over 2 hours when peaking. The 4 x 20' FTP workouts help me with longer efforts, but typically I do these when I have good chunk of 2-3 x 20's in my legs and I do these 93-95% FTP.

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http://demarere.blogspot.com/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

It's very likely that nutrition is the cause of a reduced 2h power. I'll work on that. Also is 20hr/week sufficient for US pro stats? I am pondering...

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CAAD9 - 6.32kg

Impossible to answer. It depends on how you adapt to training, how well you recover, other commitments in your life, age, weight, years cycling/racing, contacts (if you want in on a team), and a whole host of other things.

"Easiest" way is to commit to seeing how deep the rabbit hole goes.

_________________
"Physiology is all just propaganda and lies... all waiting to be disproven by the next study."
"I'm not a real doctor; But I am a real worm; I am an actual worm." - TMBG