How big of a gain have you seen in your cycling during an off season? I have an FTP of around 260 and ideally want to get closer to or at 300w. Haven’t cycled a lot previously prob around 2x/week but have now gone up to 4-5 times with one long ride and two hard interval/climbing sessions. Won’t be able to do any outside cycling until around april/may as it is too cold where I live. Is this gain even possible without losing too much of my running fitness as well as also going hard on swimming?
I have a 6 week cycling block planned starting feb where I will go up to 10h/week
How big of a gain have you seen in your cycling during an off season? I have an FTP of around 260 and ideally want to get closer to or at 300w. Haven’t cycled a lot previously prob around 2x/week but have now gone up to 4-5 times with one long ride and two hard interval/climbing sessions. Won’t be able to do any outside cycling until around april/may as it is too cold where I live. Is this gain even possible without losing too much of my running fitness as well as also going hard on swimming?
I have a 6 week cycling block planned starting feb where I will go up to 10h/week
Oscaro,
There’s no easy way to know unless you try. A forty watt gain from 250 to 300 is just over 15%. Depending on your genetics that could range from a very difficult goal to a pretty easy one. It sounds as if your bike training up to now has been very limited so that speaks in favor of you making a very solid gain with increased volume and intensity. I have a friend who started with an FTP of ~240 and drove it up over 320 in that sort of time period. He’s obviously a good “responder” to training perhaps you are as well. What’s your weight?
Good luck and enjoy the journey.
Hugh
Thanks for the reply Hugh, yes my bike training has been limited so hope that I can see some good increases now that i’m training harder. I weigh 82kg and am 193cm, but my race weight is around 3-4 kg less.
Will start doing a bi-weekly ftp test and try to track my progress that way and do a lot of sweetspot intervals.
All the best,
Oscar
Here’s a post by Andy Coggan from a few years back that might give some insight into what one might see with average Joe genetics.
"Let’s do some figgerin’…
The average healthy but sedentary, college-aged male has a VO2max of approximately 45 mL/min/kg. However, I have seen it argued based on studies of, e.g., aboriginal tribes (and there are population data from Europe as well as military inductees here in the US to suppor the conclusion) that the “default” VO2max of the average human male is closer to 50 mL/min/kg, and the only way to get below this is to assume a couch-potato lifestyle, gain excess weight, etc. (and/or grow old, of course). So, I’ll go with that latter number.
With short-term training, VO2max increases by 15-25% on average, with another perhaps 5-10% possible (on average, anyway) with more prolonged and/or intense training. That gives a total increase of 20-35%, so I’ll go with 30% just for argument’s sake.
So, if VO2max is, on average, 50 mL/min/kg and increases by, on average, 30%, that means that the average Joe ought to be able to raise their VO2max to about 65 mL/min/kg with training. Indeed, there are many, many, many, MANY amateur endurance athletes with VO2max values of around that number (not to mention the fact that athletes in team sports with an endurance component - e.g., soccer - often have a VO2max of around 60 mL/min/kg, something that is also true in other sports that you don’t normally consider to be of an endurance nature, e.g., downhill skiing or motocross - i.e., motorcycle - racing).
The question then becomes, how high might functional threshold power fall as a percentage of VO2max (again, on average), and what does this translate to in terms of a power output? The answer to the former is about 80% (LT, on average, being about 75% of VO2max in trained cyclists), which means that in terms of O2 consumption, a functional threshold power corresponding to a VO2 of 65 mL/min/kg * 0.80 = 52 mL/min/kg could be considered average. If you then assume an average cycling economy of 0.075 W/min/kg per mL/min/kg, this equates to…
3.9 W/kg"
So in your case if you had “average Joe genetics” that works out to - 78 X 3.9 = 304 watts. The fact that you’ve chosen to be an endurance athlete probably implies you’ve got at least somewhat better than average genetics working for you.
Hugh
Wow, very interesting and highly upplifting! Will see in a few months how it works out 
running will limit this a fair bit, so it depends on how much you keep that up. Easy treadmill running, and not huge mounts of volume, would prob be your best bet.
I envy you though- i am around 260watts yet ride 6-7 hr weeks for that. I wish 2x was all i needed. You have that in your favor if your trying to get to 300.
Yeah I understand running will hinder the process, but not ready to give up the running gains I’ve accumulated over the past few years. Won’t do too much crazy speedwork while running but have to put it at least decent mileage.
Believe that my strength training and especially my squats helped me a lot when starting out on the bike.
You don’t need to test that often.
Many get too caught up in testing.
Spend your time training.
V02 if 65 at 82kg would be a absolute value of 5.33liters. Highest values are typically found running on a incline but let’s be optimistic and say he is in the 5.33 range
75w a liter at max 399/ 70w a liter 373
85%339w/317w
80%310w/298w
75%299/279w
There are a lot of assumptions going on here like actual v02 values. And I disagree most people can get into the mid 60s, I know lots of hardcore runners and cyclists that have trained for years and aren’t in the 60s.
Only way to find out is to start training a lot and you will find out!
A bit of an update, just finished a Ftp test to get an accurate idea of where i am now and measured in at 267W. Feeling quite confident that i can get it up to 300, however the test was not conducted in aero position so ftp is likely a bit lower when aero.
Anyhow will be focusing on increasing ftp and getting a good position, hopefully that will set me up for a low 5 bike.
You ever hit your goal of 300?
Not quite yet, however have made large improvements. My last 20 min test I held 310W, so I think I could hold somewhere between 280-290 now. I think I’ll revise the goal until next season.