FTP seems stuck

mortimer99

I have been riding road bikes for about a year now and before that spent about 20 years riding mtn bikes. When I road mtn bikes it was more weekend stuff, never daily.

I started riding my road bike almost daily and saw a drop in my FTP this winter from 250 to about 240(I live in northern california so the winter wasn't that bad) and have been trying to build it since, but haven't had much luck. From when I got the power meter in July until mid Dec I was riding with a friend and the rides were pretty much unstructured. He had to go back to work, so since mid December I have been trying to basically do SST work and have recently (in the last 3 weeks) thrown in 2 rides with 2x20s in them at my FTP. My riding time has been cut down a bit, but the intensity has improved, yet the FTP still seems somewhat stuck (see attached chart). Right now I am trying to up my CTL and continue to add the 2x20s and SST work hoping that it has just been a lack of time in the saddle that has made a difference.

The reason I am doing all this is because in May I am going to Italy to ride for a week and follow the parts of the Giro. The rides are between 40-80 miles a day, so I want to be in shape for that trip, and I don't want to be beat at the end of each day. 2 weeks prior to that I am also doing my first century.

Any suggestions are appreciated.

daveryanwyoming

Well the most obvious thing is that your training load has been flat to dropping since last August. Without getting into the specific mix it's a good idea to back out and take a look at the big picture.

The body adapts to reasonable training loads. Adaptation to a steady and reasonable load(one not too far above your current capabilities) takes about 6 weeks. Once you've adapted to a certain load you won't see further improvement unless you increase the load. Different training philosophies argue over whether you should increase duration, intensity or some of both but you've got to bump the load up if you want to continue your improvement.

CTL is a particularly good metric for keeping an eye on overall load since it takes into account both duration and intensity. If you'd held intensity relatively steady but bumped up duration your chart would have risen. Same thing if you'd held duration relatively constant but bumped up intensity over time. Looks like you held a steady to decreasing overall load for the last 8 months or so. It's no wonder you feel stagnated.

Structured training is the first step towards a steadily increasing training load. You might or might not get that with random group rides but taking control of your training with a weekly plan is a great first step. SST and L4 work are very good ways to introduce that structure. But try to work a steadily increasing overall load along with increased power as your fitness allows. That might mean some longer efforts than the standard 2x20s often suggested on these forums. Holding say a 85-90% effort for 25, 30 or 45 minutes per interval can build more CTL than just 2x20 and calling it quits. And since most of us can't do pure L4 work day after day you might consider some longer slightly easier SST efforts later in the week to continue building your training load. Something like 60-90 minutes of continuous 80-85% work is really good late week SST work.

Based on the info provided that's about all that comes to mind. There are all kinds of specific approaches to training but one way or another you've got to keep chasing the carrot if you want to see continued improvement. Otherwise you move from training to simply maintaining and you shouldn't expect to see your power numbers rise while maintaining.

-Dave

mortimer99

Great info! Thanks a ton Dave. Guess I was on track in trying to increase CTL.

Alex Simmons

+1 on Dave's post.

At a basic level, CTL = fitness.

You have not been providing sufficient additional stimulation to generate additional fitness gains.

BTW - there's nothing on that chart that shows your FTP.

__________________
http://alex-cycle.blogspot.com/
http://www.cyclecoach.com/

Animator

Since the original question seems to have been mostly answered, I'll append it with a related one.

I let my CTL drop slowly over the winter (because, unlike Dave Ryan, I can't stand riding in the basement!), and I am now raising it quickly with heaping doses of SST. From 45 to 75 in 3 weeks and, yes, I'm still healthy and motivated. My question is:

Might my FTP, which obviously fell over the winter, rise quickly as I lower my CTL ramp rate in the coming weeks? So far, I haven't noticed much of an increase. Just curious. Thanks.

__________________
www.ghisalloanimation.com

daveryanwyoming

It might, but remember you can't cram fitness. The physical adaptations that result in higher power have time courses associated with them. You can ramp overall load quickly but that won't necessarily speed up the adaptations you're targeting.

As mentioned above you'll typically adapt to a training load a bit above your current capabilities in 6 weeks or so. You can't just bump the intensity higher to get there quicker, attempt to overload on intensity and you won't adapt you'll just burn yourself out. You can't just bump the volume way up either, this stuff takes time and recovery is an important part of the adaptation process, kill yourself with a big jump in training load and your recovery(and progress) will suffer.

It's all about steady progressive increases. If you're staying healthy and getting good recovery you're probably adapting about as fast as possible. Flattening the CTL ramp rate should leave you feeling a bit fresher and allow some good high end work (and lead to better recovery which always helps). So yeah I expect you'll see power start to climb as you back off on the CTL build rate a bit, especially if that allows a bit more focused SST/L4 work and still allows good recovery. Just don't expect to rapidly make up for lost time, it don't work that way. Riding nowhere all winter aint my idea of fun either, but it's that slow steady progress that yields big results and IMO it's worth the boredom.

-Dave

Animator

Thanks, that seems to make sense. If it takes a little longer, that's OK. We'll see what happens.

__________________
www.ghisalloanimation.com