Improvement of FTP?

[ponka00]

Hi!

I was wondering how much you could improve your FTP over a good winters training or through the next season. I am 18 years old and has just finished my first proper season of racing. My FTP is somewhere around 280w and I weigh 65kg (143lbs). The reason I ask of this is because I want to get some extra motivation

Now, my training hasn't been really well organized. Barely no intervals at all and probably not enough hard training. I have also gotten sick or injured from crashes every month or so, putting me out for one or two weeks at the time.

How much do you think I could improve my FTP if I kept healthy, injury free and started doing proper interval based training?

I just need a little guess. I think it would help my motivation for the cold and dark winter months if I knew how much I could possibly be able to improve if I train well

[jmilliron]

I highly recommend reading this:
http://www.peakscoachinggroup.com/Artic ... _level.pdf

[Rick]

That's a reallygood article.
I needed a reminder of this:
I have listened to countless stories of
riders talking about how they just can’t improve any more no matter how many
intervals they do or how many group rides they ride in, yet they never do rides that are
5 hours or longer.

[Ghost234]

Hi!

I was wondering how much you could improve your FTP over a good winters training or through the next season. I am 18 years old and has just finished my first proper season of racing. My FTP is somewhere around 280w and I weigh 65kg (143lbs). The reason I ask of this is because I want to get some extra motivation

Now, my training hasn't been really well organized. Barely no intervals at all and probably not enough hard training. I have also gotten sick or injured from crashes every month or so, putting me out for one or two weeks at the time.

How much do you think I could improve my FTP if I kept healthy, injury free and started doing proper interval based training?

I just need a little guess. I think it would help my motivation for the cold and dark winter months if I knew how much I could possibly be able to improve if I train well

It is certainly possible to gain close to 10% in your first year of consistent winter training. More realistically would be something in the range of 5-7%. I was about your weight last year with an FTP of 265 and no winter training to speak of. After a good solid winter base session I was able to get an FTP of 282.

FTP stuff takes quite a bit of time to really see gains, and it is the hardest thing to improve in the sport. But when gains are made there, everything else seems to fall into place quite easily.

[Tapeworm]

It is utterly impossible to quantify how much you can improve by and what your limit is. The factors effecting fitness gains are legion.

There is only one real way to find out...

[mvogt46]

That's a great article jmilliron, thanks for posting

[mattyb]

Except I think it's completely inappropriate for an 18yr old in his first season of racing.
That's not meant to offend, just the essence of the article is that there are fundamentals that need to be looked at and implemented once you are well trained and seasoned and if you think you have reached your limits or potential.

Clearly not the case here.

[Rick]

Except I think it's completely inappropriate for an 18yr old in his first season of racing.
That's not meant to offend, just the essence of the article is that there are fundamentals that need to be looked at and implemented once you are well trained and seasoned and if you think you have reached your limits or potential.

Clearly not the case here.

Good points!

[hotshot]

Its pretty much impossible to be able to tell how much you can improve. You may not improve at all realistically as you may have already hgone through that first lot of big adaptions you get when you first start training. Looking at you situation with the information you have provided there are a few areas you can focus on. The big one is consistency. It can take upwards of 2 years to get a good solid aerobic base and by missing time off the bike is only going to slow that down. Aerobic base rides are key. do the using HR zones and not power zones. HR zones generally do not change greatly with improved fitness but power at these zones will. As you get stronger aerobically you will find your self riding at a higher power for a given HR. There are a number of other things that you can look at depending on they type of rider your aiming to be and what events you will mainly be doing but the 2 points i made are very important no matter what the rider you want to be.

[Tapeworm]

do the using HR zones and not power zones. HR zones generally do not change greatly with improved fitness but power at these zones will. As you get stronger aerobically you will find your self riding at a higher power for a given HR.

There is no reason why power cannot be used over HR. I personally don't see the the point of HR if you do have power (its a rather useless metric, like speed, if used in isolation).

If you don't have a power meter then fine but otherwise this makes no sense.

There is a whole lot of literature on testing and assigning correct zones using power.

[Privateer]

Select an event early in the year that you want to do well in. Focus on preparing for that, and gain motivation from it.

FTP is just a means to an end. There are no prizes for having a high FTP.

[Tapeworm]

Very true. But those winning won't exactly have low FTPs (or more relevant w/kgs or w/cda) .

A high FTP just enables the potential of success.

[hotshot]

do the using HR zones and not power zones. HR zones generally do not change greatly with improved fitness but power at these zones will. As you get stronger aerobically you will find your self riding at a higher power for a given HR.

There is no reason why power cannot be used over HR. I personally don't see the the point of HR if you do have power (its a rather useless metric, like speed, if used in isolation).

If you don't have a power meter then fine but otherwise this makes no sense.

There is a whole lot of literature on testing and assigning correct zones using power.

HR is still very useful when combined with power. The reason why you would look at HR and not power on long aerobic rides is your looking at decoupling over the ride. All intervals you would still use power zones as your reference not HR. There is a write up on it on Joe Friels Blog http://www.trainingbible.com/joesblog/2 ... -ride.html

[Tapeworm]

I think you need to re-read what he has posted.

The decoupling effect is because of the intensity being too high (by following HR as a metric and not power) and how this can be compared between riders in a groups.

By pacing by HR and not power he demonstrates how the ride was significantly harder than a true "zone 2" ride for the "less fit" rider.

[hotshot]

He says in that article that:
"While in the base period I like to have athletes use their heart rate monitors to set the effort, what happens to power is the real story."

Anyway the main point I was trying to make was that you need to get your aerobic base as strong as possible which takes time and focus. I know this personally. I have a fairly high FTP but can only hold zone 2 power just over 2hrs on a good day. I've done a heap of interval work on the ergo but I was lazy with getting base kms in.