I was dealing with strains/injury from too much sweet spot training, That was the motivation to change my training, more so than increasing FTP.

At 64, I can't do a large number of intense workouts. The main thing I had to do was reduce time/intensity to achieve greater FTP. Didn't think is the way adaptation worked. I thought redlining was a steady way to raise FTP. Old outcome was my NP was always about 10 watts more than avg watts with slow growth and not moving the needle enough for my liking.

Cycling

One is power intervals, out of the saddle, under a minute, on a steep hill, with about a 9-10 minute recovery. Total workout 60-90 minutes. Outcome is NP about 40 watts more than avg watts and FTP increasing.

Capacity intervals, in the saddle, for several minutes, on a gradual hill, with about 5-8 minute recovery. Total workout 60-90 minutes. Again, outcome is NP about 40 watts more than avg watts and FTP increasing.

Long easy rider. 90-120 minutes. NP about 10 watts more than avg watts.

Long harder ride 90-240 minutes closer to sweet spot. NP about 10 watts more than avg watts.

So I thought it was safer/surer not doing intervals and I've changed my mind. Have only been doing this for two months and it satisfying. It was hard for me to drop my %FTP below 60 to go as high as possible during the intervals.

Also doing versions of this for swimming. It seems like there is intensity carry over from one sport to the other. The body's capacity grows.

Not doing this for running or lifting though as I'm concerned about injury.

---

Indoor Triathlete - I thought I was right, until I realized I was wrong.

I'm old (48) and I've been riding about 3 years. I use TR, Zwift and Sufferfest. TR mainly, following their Sweetspot base, then general build and then sort of picking workouts i like for the rest of the season.

I've had enormous success. I pretty quickly got to 330W (4.3W/Kg) and was doing well at 70.3. This year I've been trying road racing and found that a focus on FTP was not the whole story. I needed to do a lot of shorter, repeated very hard efforts to simulate sprinting out of corners then settling in at threshold multiple times each lap. It's going well so far.

I believe it was probably 2014 when I joined a tri club and they tested us there during a bike session.

---

Twitter@Forsey37

Twice in my life starting from scratch I've maximized FTP in a few months. >50% gains in that time. My training was just going balls out 3 times a week. I had various courses and climbs where I'd try to set a PR, and for awhile I got faster every time. Great motivation! Eventually I hit a wall never got better. Endurance and recovery improved but not max performance on <1hr efforts.

So... it's possible that you really did max out years ago. But I'd guess you probably have some room for improvement if you've never focused on it that much. For instance if you've never done a high-volume low-intensity stretch (months long) then that would be beneficial. If you've never done high intensity, that would help too. Since you've already been riding for 6 months it might be interesting to do a high intensity block first... and that's just various intervals and efforts where you are over FTP by a great enough amount or long enough duration for it to be hard. You should definitely see some gains from that.

What sort of training have you been doing lately? Easy rides? Kinda hard?

Hey Forsey. Thanks for having a look at The Sufferfest. Our plans are designed by our Chief Science Officer Neal Henderson (the guy who coached Flora Duffy to three world championships last year and currently coaches US tri-sensation Taylor Knibb). Here's an article about how hundreds of people - including GCN presenter Dan Lloyd - saw an average of double-digit increases in their FTP, MAP, AC and NM. https://thesufferfest.com/...-to-hero-in-10-weeks

Also, as there's a lot of focus in this thread on FTP, here's some info from Coach Neal on why that's not necessarily the best approach: https://thesufferfest.com/...-a-slower-triathlete

---

David McQuillen
Founder & CEO of The Sufferfest

Efforts have been easy in the beginning to moderate to build a base before I plan on put the hard work in. Haven’t really done any hard efforts at the moment.

---

Twitter@Forsey37

Thanks David for the input. I will definitely give the articles a read.

---

Twitter@Forsey37

my question is, how do i transfer this then to a 180k bike ride?
increasing ftp is one thing, holding 75% of it over 180k another.

the theory behind is to go long and slow for metabolism reasons as well as ftp increasing sessions (as mentioned above) from nov to feb and then build endurance on target wattage until the race end of june. is that correct?

A local guy has done RAAM a few times. He shared the 2 man record for awhile. His coach had him doing tons of volume at low intensity, plus once a week leading into the race, 1min x10 intervals. He spoke very highly of this approach.

I believe for any event more than a few minutes long, as much volume as you can do in the 50-70% FTP range is the main thing for building aerobic ability. Plus do enough >FTP intervals to max out VO2 and anaerobic capacity prior to race time. All these plans on "how to increase FTP in 8 weeks" or whatever, seem to be focused on the later. IMO that's the icing on the cake, but not the whole deal.

I realize that you specifically asked how to increase FTP besides just riding, but wanted to second the opinion that a big part of it really is just riding. If you have a power meter and training software (WKO / Golden Cheetah / etc), set your FTP properly (and keep it updated) in that software, and then try to get your "CTL" (chronic training load) up to 100 (or even 120), aiming to increase it about 5 per week. Now, how you do that does indeed matter, but getting there without mentally and/or physically killing yourself is goal #1. Note that it could take you months to get your CTL to 100, depending on where you start.

As to how exactly to do that (composition of training, or goal #2), I would do something like: just ride until you get CTL to at least to 40-50 range. That's sort of a basic low level of fitness. Then, once you reach that level do something like this: twice per week do some intervals, and do them really hard. I would suggest something like 4x8mins (4 mins rest) one day and 4-6x4mins (4 mins rest) the other, both followed by some hard tempo riding with a few (3-5) 15 second sprints thrown in (not to improve your sprint really - just to build leg strength), to fill out the workout to a total of 90-120 mins. Another option is 6x4 (2mins rest) once in a while in place of one of those. Be sure to do your intervals fresh, i.e., after a rest day, and do them really hard. Those are your "don't hold back" days, and they are the days that matter most and will make you stronger. Then, the day after your hard interval day, go long but don't kill yourself. Do a good 200-300 TSS (5 hrs medium, say - see your training software). Ideal is a fun friendly group ride with a group that pushes you but doesn't kill you. That's 4 days/wk. Then add one day 2hrs of low to medium tempo depending on how you feel. 5 days/wk total. If you have more time than that, do a 60min recovery ride the other two days, really really easy (!). No pushing at all on the recovery days. Also, best as you can, try to make it fun because mental state matters as much as anything.

Do this program and your FTP will go up pretty close to as much as it's going to go up in the time frame.