Having just lost over 20% from my peak FTP in the last 4 months I’m looking to get it back. I find I get bored with the 2x20min so I’ve been doing the following:
5-10min warm-up (easy)
6x5mins at 110% FTP
2.5mins between at ~60% FTP (easy)
warm down
What’s yours?
Having just lost over 20% from my peak FTP in the last 4 months I’m looking to get it back. I find I get bored with the 2x20min so I’ve been doing the following:
5-10min warm-up (easy)
6x5mins at 110% FTP
2.5mins between at ~60% FTP (easy)
warm down
So how well is that working for you?
I’ve experimented a bit with 8 x (5 min @ 105% of functional threshold power, 1 min at 50% of functional threshold power), but haven’t found it as effective as longer efforts (e.g., 2 x 20 min). On a trainer at least, though, it’s a good way of getting used to the aero position.
Conversely, I made pretty good progress late last summer (i.e., prior to Moriarity) after stealing a page from Rick Murphy’s playbook and doing 1 x 50 min at 100% of functional threshold power. However, I also increased the frequency of my training at the same time, so it is hard to say whether I improved as a result of doing even longer efforts or simply as a result of increasing my overall training load (“more is more”, as Paulo would say).
.
I need THREE types of workouts per week to boost my FTP to or past previous season’s best:
1 threshold workout (2x20 genre: 1x40-60/ 2x20-30/4x10-15, etc…40-60 minutes at 95-105% of threshold)
1 VO2 workout (6-10 reps of 3-5 minutes at 115%+ of threshold, equal rest to intervals)
1 long ride of 2.5+ hours at 70-85% of threshold.
Other rides as schedule allows are ~1-2 hour easy riding.
I can’t be at my best relying on any single one of the three. Periodization of my schedule will sometimes drop one of the three types for a short time…focus on specificity depending on the event coming up…but the bulk of my cycling weeks contain all three rides.
Having just lost over 20% from my peak FTP in the last 4 months I’m looking to get it back. I find I get bored with the 2x20min so I’ve been doing the following:
5-10min warm-up (easy)
6x5mins at 110% FTP
2.5mins between at ~60% FTP (easy)
warm down
So how well is that working for you?
I’ve experimented a bit with 8 x (5 min @ 105% of functional threshold power, 1 min at 50% of functional threshold power), but haven’t found it as effective as longer efforts (e.g., 2 x 20 min). On a trainer at least, though, it’s a good way of getting used to the aero position.
Conversely, I made pretty good progress late last summer (i.e., prior to Moriarity) after stealing a page from Rick Murphy’s playbook and doing 1 x 50 min at 100% of functional threshold power. However, I also increased the frequency of my training at the same time, so it is hard to say whether I improved as a result of doing even longer efforts or simply as a result of increasing my overall training load (“more is more”, as Paulo would say).
I ‘feel’ it is a good workout but haven’t being doing it long enough to track the results yet. I experimented with it last year (first year with PT) a bit but most of my riding at the time was outdoors so never really did this workout much (this is a trainer workout for me as I don’t have the roads to do it here). It’s the perfect time to try it as all of my riding is on the trainer (and will be for the next couple of months).
I started incorporating 5x5min at 110% with 3 min. rest intervals about 8 weeks ago. While I have plateued with the amount of power I can put out in those intervals(time to back off on them for a little while) I saw my 20min NP rise from 340 to 350. I was also doing 3x20 sweet spots and some(twice) 2x20 ftp and hard group rides as well though…so tough to say. I feel those v02 max intervals make ftp workouts feel “easy” and may help edge FTP up a bit…