Increasing power threshold over the winter (Page 7)

BTW, is there any way to subscribe to this thread so that it stays somewhere on the front page?  I'm not sure I want email notifications of every post, but it would be nice if I didn't have to search for this thread when it goes for a couple days and nobody posts to it.

Maybe I'll just check the email notification and deal with it that way.

I think the different testing protocol probably explains most of the difference.  I know that I can ride over 105% for one 20min set.  But 2 x 20 with only 2min to recover is much harder to fake. 

Oh, and I did 2 sessions so far this week.  One w/3 x 12' (2') at FT and today's was w/2 x 20' (2') at 88-94% immediately followed by 1 x 10' at 100-105%.  Too early to say what kind of progress I'm making, but was hovering around the high end of all my target ranges.  We'll see how I hold up for a slightly longer session on Sat.

Yeah, seems that way. Here's what I've got.

11/15/07 - First FTP test in a long time. (As background I got hit by a car in mid summer and suffered some muscle damage to my left quad that left me severly lacking in power once I was able to ride again. Training from mid Aug to this point was nonstructured & I took almost all of Oct off.) That test was the 20m TT after 5min hard and WU, etc in the coggan/hunter book.

NP=235 FTP=235*0.95=223. CTL that day was 31.9, TSB was 11.9 (obviously little training to that point). I do think I may have overheated a bit on this one and ended up a bit low.

12/20/07 - Same protocol as above but with more attention to fan speed.

NP=251 FTP=251*0.95=238, CTL had only come up to 33.9 & TSB was -6.5.

Training only began in earnest on 11/26 & since then most weeks have included 2-3 2x20m @ 88-92% FTP yielding a TSS of ~75. Some were closer to the top end of that range and would get me into the 80s or even low 90s TSS for the whole workout. Pretty consistently 10m WU, 20m, 10m easy, 20m, 5-10m CD. Long rides were 2.5-3 hrs typically about 70% FT depending on the group, TSS 120-150 mostly. Today CTL was 43.6 & TSB @ -6.1.

Since it's the first time I've tried doing the test as 2x20 min I think I may have not paced well. 2x20 is certainly harder to pace than a single 20' test so there may be some learning involved. It's still a fair increase over 8 weeks, just not so much over 4. I would expect to run out of headroom at this point, do you?

Also an excellent point.  Previous number could be artificially high. 

tzmitch – in that case I would try to do at least one FT 95-105% FT interval session, plus the1-2x tempo session you’ve been doing. If possible and if you can handle the workload and recovery you might want to try 2x FT sessions + 1 tempo. It will be hard work but that should increase your FTP a good 5-10% in 8 weeks.

oh and moving forward repeat the same FT test so you can compare your #s apples vs apples

Would your opinion based on this be that longer recovery or endurance spins are a waste of time if riding 3-4x a week?

I'll start adding one in each week and see how it goes.  The SST stuff is easy to add in because it doesn't really impact my running and I can get a pretty good load in over the course of the week.   But after doing this for 8 or 10 weeks it'll be interesting to see how I can extend it.  

And yeah, my future FTP tests will be more of the 2x20 variety rather than the coggan formula.  The 2x20 is new to me and I like the idea of it, especially because it also makes for a killer trainer session.  You gotta change it over sometime, right?  Thanks for the insight. 

If you have the time, then longer endurance rides are great.  The advantage to using intensity is not having to try to find the time for a lot of longer rides (especially valuable for those of us in colder climates during these shorter days).  Ideally, one would ride a lot with mostly steady riding and a dose of intensity.  But most of us can't ride 10-20 hours/week.

But if you can add some longer endurance session on top of other riding (and still get your running & swimming done), then by all means do so.

What JK said. Remember that the best way to increase our fitness level is through stressing our bodies and we do that on training via the total workload imposed = volume + intensity (yes I am drilling this formula over and over ) when you can afford to do a lot of biking, in general a great way to produce a greater TSS is via endurance riding (z2) and tempo (z3) as you should be able to recover almost completely from session to session. OTOH when you can’t ride lots like those on the northeast due to the winter the best way to get a greater TSS every week will be via intensity hence we can rack a good workload every week without having to ride hours and hours. Notice we can do this on the bike as it is not as stressful as with running, that is another beast!

Another thing to remember is that FTP is the main variable affecting performance, hence the higher FTP the better you should perform; of course the longer you goal distance, the more endurance you will need to back up that power. Hence doing 1-2x FT sessions a week can be the fastest way to increase it, as long as it allows you to recover from session to session and get your other s/b sessions. Doing tempo sessions are another great way to gain both endurance and power but such sessions usually need to be longer (maybe 1.5 hrs or more). The right mix should be such that allows you to do all 3 sports and recover so you can do it week after week. For most triathletes I would say 1-2x FT + 1 Tempo session should be enough plus any other endurance riding you can fit this time of the year.

Finally, right now most of us are in the general phase (aka base phase) and we can and should focus general aspects of our training. For someone training for a HIM or IM right now is the perfect time to improve swim technique, run volume, bike power, etc cuz we don’t have to worry about specific sessions yet. As we get closer to the race we’ll have to spend hour doing specific training sessions which might not allow us to work on these aspects as freely as meticulously as we can right now

back to FT sessions after crazy week (work got in the way big time) and a weekend away for coaching.

I am counting this wk as my 1st for my FT cycle as last week I couldn't really get things started. I did a 45 min session with WU, CD and 4x5 min @ 250-260 watts with 1 min endurance as recovery. I can still notice my legs are way out of cycling shape but with the 2x FT session every week I am hoping get back to my 2007 shape within a month or so (back to FTP 270ish watts) Once I get to achieve that it will be all about increasing my FT by around 5% for FL 70.3

Next FT session will be over the weekend with another 4-5 x 5 min @ 250-260 watts (1 min endurance as recovery)

jszat - 2008-01-22 12:33 PM bumpage.  isnt anybody training?

naa too cold here to ride on the trainer

actually moving my FT session up to tonight, so bring on the pain

I did a long ramp interval that my coach used to adjust my zones until I do a TT in 3-4 weeks. It appears I lost about 15 watts from my high last summer.

I'm doing 3 rides a week...1 on the trainer with 3x10' intervals near my FTP estimate with different RPM; other two rides are either outside 2-3.5 hours or trainer depending on weather. The alternative for one of the longer rides is a fun workout where I ride 45' run 15' and repeat...in each of the 45' I have a 15' FTP interval.

The way to increase your cycling power is via training and to accomplish this, you need to produce a strain in your body that will produce the necessary training adaptations. The beauty of doing so via a power meter is that we can get instant feedback about the stress we are producing on our body (watts) and take any guessing out of the equation. You can either produce the power or you can’t while using HRM or RPE there can be other factors affecting it and it might make tracking the sessions a bit tougher.

That been said, you can do the same via a HRM or RPE and even though you won’t have the feedback and data for analysis, it definitely can be as effective. You’ll need to do a field test (30 min time trial) to determine your training zones and follow the same approach. Do intervals at or near your functional threshold (around Z4) with minimum rest and longer set at tempo pace (around zone 3). If you don’t have a HRM you’ll need to do this via RPE adjusted as follow:

Z1 - Active Recovery – RPE 2 or less
Z2 - Endurance – RPE 2 to 3
Z3 - Tempo – RPE 3 to 4
Z4 - FT – RPE 4 to 5
Z5 - Aerobic Power – RPE 6 to 7
Z6 - Anaerobic capacity – 7 or more
In which the RPE scale is 1 to 10:

Kathy, I recently learned that via a 20 min and a 5 min power test you can get a pretty accurate estimate of your critical power (FTP). I've tested with the data of many of my athletes and surprisingly it is pretty close compared to a 2x20 min FT test or a 1 hr test. Of course, always the best way to predict performance is through performance itself (quoting A. Coggan) hence when possible a 1 hr TT is the best testing method but when weather, time or fitness doesn’t allow you to do so, the alternatives can be very good.

For computrainer users, is there any way to save data on the 3d software so you can analyze a file or is that just with the coaching software?  Howzabout the multi rider?  I have yet to get into the nuts and bolts of analytics (i.e. cyclingpeaks or something) but want to know how to get the files outta there onto my pen drive.

Though unstructured, did the Athens oly course yesterday which is nice for hill repeats.  Managed solid FTP ints around the 300-320 range on the first big hill and the flat and avg'd 269 all in for the ride.  Think Tuesdays are gonna be my FTP session but gotta find another one during the week somwhere.  Long spin tonight.

Just in week 2 for me now.  Did 60' yesterday with 2 x 15' (2') main set.  Will probably do the same/similar tomorrow.  Then my longer session on the weekend (120' while confined to the trainer) with longer sub-FT intervals followed by some shorter FT efforts--last week was 2 x 30' (5') in the 88-94% range and then 3 x 6' (2') at FT; prior week was 3 x 20' (2') 88-94% and 6 x 3' (1') FT.  I'll see how I feel, but thinking of moving to 3 x 8' (2') and either stay at 2 x 30' or move to 35'.

I'm hitting my targets pretty well right now and will probably re-test in 2 weeks (when I should be up to a weekly 2 x 20' anyway).  At that time, I'll probably guage 5' output as amiine has done and see if I need a bout of VO2max intervals--but I think I'm at least a couple FT cycles from there.

After a ride on 3d, press stop and CT prompts you to select F1 to save the file.  3d performance files are .3dp and saved in the 3d Rider Performance file folder which you can then copy onto your pen drive.   You can open the .3dp file with coaching software to read and analyse the data.

The 5hillsloop course is also good for hill repeats.

What is the formula to calculate via 20 or a 5 min. power test? 

5 min test - how much power the athlete can generate going all out.

20 min test - how much power the athlete can generate going all out.

critical power = (watts x seconds for long test) - (watts x short test) / # of seconds between short and long test

i.e. Jorge's 5 min power - 302 watts, 20 min power - 271 watts

CP = (271 x 1200) - (302 x 300) / 900 = 261 watts. In theory this is what I should be able to hold for 1 hr which = to FTP

** this info was provided by Dr. Phil Skiba from Physfarm Coaching **