I've seen some pretty good results doing around two Zwift races a week. Over the past 7-8 seasons my FTP has remained constant, and I haven't done a ton to try raising it. I kind of felt I had hit a ceiling and it was already pretty decent for a triathlete (4.5 w/kg). However, biking around 4 hours a week over the past two months with two races thrown in - sometimes as short as 20' and others over an hour - has seen my FTP raise by around 10 watts. Not a huge gain, but when you get a pretty good FTP it gets harder and harder to get higher. I'll continue what I'm doing in hopes of getting to the 4.7 w/kg range.

In the past I did the traditional 2x20' and some shorter VO2 Max stuff. However I was never doing longer intervals at 95% or more, which is the majority of the Zwift races I do. Yesterday was a 45' race at 4.4 w/kg. I definitely wouldn't have had the motivation to do those type of intervals on the trainer prior to Zwift.

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I've had the same experience. After being stuck for years at 4.7w/kg, I've hit an all-time high of 4.9 this season. No structured training, just zwift races 1-3 times a week.

I’ve been doing 1-3 races / week for 2 years and have gotten close to all time highs across all durations on <50% of the volume i used to do

Huge believer in zwift races as a way to grow

Just think I need to change it up a bit to get faster.

Today I raced and hit 330 for 20 mins...

Edit - Formatting.

Thank you. Although your workouts are slightly different, the jist is the same as others. Race lets, focus on more quality workouts and increase total work each week.

Will report back in 2-3 weeks with another round of power updates.

Has Kevin Metcalf chimed in yet? 5 times 2x20 at sweetspot a week, with one outside long ride on Saturday. I've tried this, it works, but have never tried it when I was fit. Used it as a means to get back in shape after injury/kids etc.

Right now I'm semi-polarised. Here's an ideal week for me, and all the interval work is indoors with TR:
Monday - 2 hours easy
Tuesday- 4x8 mins all-out
Wednesay - 2 hours easy
Thursday - 8x4 mins all out
Friday - 2 hours easy
Saturday - Either 3 hours mixed group ride or 90 mins of sweetspot work (3x20)
Sunday - off

The problem is that the Saturday group ride always ends up being too hard. So I do better the following week with 90mins of trainer work. I average about 10 hours a week.

And on the opposite side of the spectrum I hit all time highs after avoiding >FTP efforts for 5 months. Prior to that I'd done a lot of "race" efforts for years. Which did get me in good shape very quickly in the beginning.

I'd suggest that it's probably good to change it up once in awhile.

I’m hoping for this. Did a lot
Of v02 over the years and have stagnated for quite some time. Now just doing threshold and below in season and
Leave the racing efforts for the races.