FTP plateau, mostly outdoor riding

Triathlon Forum
1

I worked hard during the Winter to raise my FTP, was able to gradually increase it from the 240 range indoors in February, to a recent test with 275. I am a 53 year old male, 175 lbs. I did two separate tests about a month apart recently, 2x8 and a 20 minute all out effort, and came up with the same FTP. I did the first test in early May and the second test a few days ago. So in the last two months I have hit a plateau.

I have been riding six days a week, with a long ride on the weekends of 2-3 hours with a few 4 hour rides mixed in. Weekday rides are usually an hour with a mix of short and long intervals. It is extremely hilly where I live, so I am usually climbing 1000 feet per hour, sometimes more. I try to work the hills during the long rides. The rest of my riding is zone 2.

I am looking for suggestions on how to break through this plateau. I do most of my riding outdoors now since the weather is so good and it is daylight at 5:30. I have no interest in riding on the trainer this time of year unless it is raining. Should I try longer intervals where I really push the pace closed to 90% for 20-30 minutes at a time during my long ride? Any other suggestions?

2

If your FTP is set correctly, then you should be able to do 90% for 60 minutes at a time.

Check Hunter Allen Power Blog: The Next Level for suggestions: https://www.hunterallenpowerblog.com/2010/12/next-level.html

A quote from the link above:
Focus on doing longer intervals at or very near your functional threshold power (FTP). You are going to need to do at least 40-60 minutes of work from 91-105% of your FTP three days a week and then bump it up from there. After 3 weeks of riding at this level, you need to increase the amount of time spent at or near FTP to 60-90 minutes, where one session a week will be a long ride and have nearly 90 minutes of riding at your FTP. Start out with (3) x 10minutes at 105% of FTP and build up so that you are doing (3) x 30minutes at 100% of FTP

3

I assume you are riding alone?

The only way most people can get anywhere near the effort they see on a trainer is with a group of strong cyclists, or in a road race.

I don’t know what to tell you if you don’t have that option available, because I can’t do it myself.

4

I ride some weekends with a friend, but during the week I am alone. I like the idea that the other poster sent about doing long intervals close to ftp, but that is very difficult to do on the roads obviously. I would be getting a short break whenever I stop for traffic lights, stop signs, etc.

I just recently bought a new Tarmac and love riding it, so I won’t be going indoors until the weather changes or we lose daylight. I guess I will have to use Fall and Winter for indoor training to try and increase ftp.

5

I did two separate tests about a month apart recently, 2x8 and a 20 minute all out effort, and came up with the same FTP. I did the first test in early May and the second test a few days ago.

What makes you think you hit a plateau? You compared apples to oranges
If anything I think your thinking is misguided by the results of the tests

6

I assumed that both tests accurately measure ftp. So what am I missing? For the last two months the result was the same, just with different tests. I had hoped to see a higher number based on how much I was riding and how many long rides I have been doing.

7

Not sure of physiological reason RE 28 vs 120, but generally when doing any testing of any kind everything thing should be as close/similar as possible. Be it weather, time of day, fueling, and most importantly the type of test you are conducting. To test against baseline, repeat the same test.

8

I assumed that both tests accurately measure ftp. So what am I missing? For the last two months the result was the same, just with different tests. I had hoped to see a higher number based on how much I was riding and how many long rides I have been doing.

I presume that the poster to whom you responded is trying to get you to understand that not all methods of testing FTP have same levels of accuracy, and that some are more accurate than others. See here

The 2 x 8 minute test introduces more variables into things than a 20 minute test does. It appeared that you performed the 2 x 8 minute test first. If that’s the case, then you may very well have seen gains.

On top of that, and as a separate matter, we all eventually plateau, both in terms of absolutes (over numerous years) and each season. The former is just human physiology as limited by our respective genetics and training. From here, you may very well see improvements this time next year. When age really starts to take its toll, it’s actually an accomplishment just to hold PB as one age. But even then, sooner or later, one’s FTP does decrease from the maximum achievable.

Most MOP triathletes are not stuck there because of a lack of trying: it really represents what one could humanly achieve. Especially for master racers who care, the focus should be on the process and how to do the best one could, rather than aiming for some arbitrary year-on-year gain.

9

Coaches on this forum will have a lot more advice than I do, but I have read enough to have a decent idea of what people need to do.

  1. Get a coach or follow a specific coaching plan. Long rides and weekday free rides are all well and good but if you are not following a set program you may be doing more harm than actual good. Riding more is not what you usually need, training smarter is.
  2. Trying to raise your FTP means a lot of time spent just below or just over FTP. You can’t fake it by lots of Z2 work or Z3 work. You need a lot of time spent around FTP. There are lots of classic intervals you can look at doing.
  3. Outdoors is great but so much harder to replicate what you really need to raise your FTP. An hour long ride outdoors is generally less value than an hour spent on the indoor trainer.
  4. You need to make sure you can do your hard sessions as “hard” Your easy sessions need to be easy so they are not making your hard sessions just mediocre.
  5. Obviously you need to train with power for the best results.
  6. Add a strength and conditioning program where you can.

I don’t think you have said what you are targeting race wise as well. FTP is not everything, with what you have described that is a respectable age grouper FTP. You are likely to have many more marginal gains from optimisation of position, race kit (clothing, helmet and wheels) then trying to bump your FTP up to the 300 range.

10

Coaches on this forum will have a lot more advice than I do, but I have read enough to have a decent idea of what people need to do.

  1. Trying to raise your FTP means a lot of time spent just below or just over FTP. You can’t fake it by lots of Z2 work or Z3 work. You need a lot of time spent around FTP. There are lots of classic intervals you can look at doing.

I don’t think that’s true at all, my w/kg is far higher than the OPs and 80% of my cycling is Z1. There’s no magic intervals, it’s time on the saddle and natural ability, the majority of people will get stuck at 4w/kg or below.

Edit, I’m also 20 years younger than the OP.

11

80% of your cycling is active recovery??

I’d be too flipping bored to ride that easy

nothing good to add

12

Coaches on this forum will have a lot more advice than I do, but I have read enough to have a decent idea of what people need to do.

  1. Trying to raise your FTP means a lot of time spent just below or just over FTP. You can’t fake it by lots of Z2 work or Z3 work. You need a lot of time spent around FTP. There are lots of classic intervals you can look at doing.

I don’t think that’s true at all, my w/kg is far higher than the OPs and 80% of my cycling is Z1. There’s no magic intervals, it’s time on the saddle and natural ability, the majority of people will get stuck at 4w/kg or below.

Edit, I’m also 20 years younger than the OP.

TriguyBlue, Are you sure you are close to your potential…?

Amnesia, What I’ve seen is that a real ftp gains can only be obtained by really hard training stimulus (e.g. hard intervals, Zwift races, outdoor races etc). Longer outdoor rides do have another response and you might be able to hold a higher pct of this same ftp, so you probably have not hit a plateau, just didn’t look for the full picture … ftp from a 20min is not the end-all be all if you fall of a cliff after 21 min’s…

So I’d say continue as you ride right now and keep having fun, chasing some random number doesn’t make too much sense in the big picture.
I think the ftp-gains might start again when you start doing your indoor rides (icing) on top of the bigger cake from your longer outdoor rides

13

Coaches on this forum will have a lot more advice than I do, but I have read enough to have a decent idea of what people need to do.

  1. Trying to raise your FTP means a lot of time spent just below or just over FTP. You can’t fake it by lots of Z2 work or Z3 work. You need a lot of time spent around FTP. There are lots of classic intervals you can look at doing.

I don’t think that’s true at all, my w/kg is far higher than the OPs and 80% of my cycling is Z1. There’s no magic intervals, it’s time on the saddle and natural ability, the majority of people will get stuck at 4w/kg or below.

Edit, I’m also 20 years younger than the OP.

Well 80% of zone 1 riding is close to the classic prescribed polarisation schedule of 80% super easy and 20% hard…
Not sure if that really proves anything? You have not said what you are doing in the other 20% that is not Z1 though.
But I would think most would agree, you can’t raise your ceiling if you don’t work close to and over your ceiling. You can improve your ability to hold below your ceiling with lots of time below but you will struggle to raise it if you never go above it or close to it?

14

Yeah you have to do the hard work, just you said a lot of time in and around threshold, which I don’t think you have to do heaps.

I don’t do specific intervals anymore, been there and done that with trainer road. If i feel good on the day I’ll push hard, didn’t even know what my ftp was until today. I’ve done trainer road in the past and just found the endless sweet spot training unsustainable, feel much better cruising at 140w for most of my rides.

15

TriguyBlue, Are you sure you are close to your potential…?

I’d say so.
All of my training has been on the mountain bike, I’ll average 140w for a long ride, 20min test of 306w, 4.5w/kg, higher than when i was 12hours a week of intervals on trainer road. I either ride really easy or really hard.

Look at what the pros do for most of there training, they average less watts than most age groupers and they have FTPs over 400w

16

TriguyBlue, Are you sure you are close to your potential…?

I’d say so.
All of my training has been on the mountain bike, I’ll average 140w for a long ride, 20min test of 306w, 4.5w/kg, higher than when i was 12hours a week of intervals on trainer road. I either ride really easy or really hard.

Look at what the pros do for most of there training, they average less watts than most age groupers and they have FTPs over 400w

Two things:
I think you miss the genetic potential of pro’s…
Secondly, there are well known issues with TrainerRoad and its intensity and being difficult to maintain. I would not really use that as your comparator. Just search on here and you will find hundreds of posts complaining that it is not sustainable.

17

TriguyBlue, Are you sure you are close to your potential…?

I’d say so.
All of my training has been on the mountain bike, I’ll average 140w for a long ride, 20min test of 306w, 4.5w/kg, higher than when i was 12hours a week of intervals on trainer road. I either ride really easy or really hard.

Look at what the pros do for most of there training, they average less watts than most age groupers and they have FTPs over 400w

Fair enough.
Also don’t think that only mindless intervals are the way to go, in my experience just mixing it up a bit yields great results, however I’m also not sure the 80/20 rule should apply to amateurs that don’t spend huge hours on the bike … 20% of 30hrs is still 6 high intensity hours for pro’s, however at 10 hour per week only 2 hours of intensity seems low…
I’m most surprised on your long-ride power though (is it NP or AP), which seems very low for your ftp. (this seems Z0 efforrt, I’d guess 180-200W+ would be more appropriate for your very easy rides. no?)
Regarding pro’s, not sure whether talking of cycling or tri however the guys I see around here still seem to avg. >250W for their easy rides, I think this is still a little higher than most AG’s do for their easy rides (speaking for myself atleast)?

18

That’s AP, I’ll average 170-180NP @130bpm or so, threshold heart rate would be 180 something. Could i do better training differently? I have no idea, i just know trainer road was great for one block but I couldn’t sustain that effort. I’ve always been naturally good at shorter efforts, I’ve been trying to gain better endurance over the winter with the slow rides, but have also had a huge increase in FTP to go with it.

I have a job where I’m on my feet, so i guess that has to be taken into account with training load too. I think different things work for different people, some people can smash high intensity every day and recover, some people can’t.

By all means if the op has tried low intensity and it it’s not working then try something different, I’ve been trying different things for 5 years and will probably increase intensity if i hit a wall.

19

I don’t race anymore. I used to do tris but can’t run much anymore, so I mostly just ride and do strength training. I have about 10 lbs to lose. I used to race at 160 lbs, but that was when I was running a lot. I realize that 175 lbs now is too heavy to race well. I am confident that if I lost 10 lbs and got down to 165, I would not lose power. That alone would give me a solid increase in w/kg without any improvement in ftp.

I appreciate all of the responses and advice on here.

20

I assumed that both tests accurately measure ftp. So what am I missing? For the last two months the result was the same, just with different tests. I had hoped to see a higher number based on how much I was riding and how many long rides I have been doing.

A lot to unpack in the 4 sentences you wrote.

Before I get any further I think you need to determine what you want to test. Is it your 2x8 min power or 20 min power both of which can be inflated if you have a high FRC /anaerobic capacity. Is it your FTP? The amount of watts you can hold for 20min, 45 min 75min? What are your performance goals? Knowing those will before you test and start a training block will guide your testing & training choices.

The 20 min test x .95 is accurate for about 60% of people. Are you in the 60% or 40%? 8 min tests - your anaerobic capacity will cover some of that which can artificially inflate your FTP # that you get. This depends on how much capacity you have. You will get some of that anaerobic capacity recharged in that 4 min rest between 8 minutes. In the first test you may have depleted it in 3 minutes and in the second test 1:21. Plus you allow some recovery between those testing bouts.

An 8 min test with rest then repeated does not = a 20 min test. As duration increases even at a steady state power, the physiological response will increase. How many people on ST do the 20 min test x .95 = FTP yet can’t hold that same effort for 40k or an hour?

A fuck load. Which is a lot.

Then they go try to do something like 3x15 min or 2x20 min intervals and fail. Why? Bc they’ve over estimated their FTP. 2x20, 3-5x15 ~ 96-102% FTP isn’t that hard of a workout. It’s hard, don’t get me wrong but it’s not as bad as say 4-5x6 min @112 -120% FTP.

I’d bet you $50 that you can’t go out and hold 275 (or what ever the # was, I forgot) for 60 min by Saturday. I’ve never lost that bet to anyone doing a 20 min x.95% test in all the years I’ve been on ST. 3 or 4 have taken me up on it.

If you did 2 shorter tests w/ some recovery between them and got the same # on a 20 min test I’d actually argue that your fitness is better with the 20 min test. Again holding an near/at/slightly above FTP effort becomes harder as the duration increases.

Just bc you’ve been riding a lot and doing a lot of long rides doesn’t mean you are going to see an increase. Sure riding a lot helps. If you’re normally riding 125 miles/wk and bump that to 150 you’ll get a small bump. Bump it to 200 and be consistent and you’ll get a larger bump in fitness. I had athletes during the early part of the pandemic increase the amount of watts they could sustain for 60 - 400 minutes by 15 -30 watts on a 3-4 week bike focus with < 4 interval workouts during that time. They increased riding by 75-125% and maintained that for 4 weeks.

Anyway hope that gives you something to think about before you test again or think your training isn’t working. it may be, you might not be assessing it accurately.