Breaking through a power to weight plateau

tommy_tommy

I have trained consistently for 18 months using 2x 20, sweet spot, and hill climb repeats to try and increase my power to weight ratio. I have test climb of 3 miles that I race up against the clock every few weeks. Over the 18 months, I have seen a gradually improvement in my time, however; in the last few months my times have leveled off.

I don't have much scope to reduce my body weight so I need to incease the power side of the equation.

1. Will another winter of sweet spot riding give me a further improvement? Have I reached my full potential after 18 months?
2, I train between 5 - 7hours a week, Is this about average for 3rd/4th cat road racers? Would I necessarily benefit from more hours?

I hope to get a power meter at the end of the year so maybe even smarter training may give me further gains next year.

Alex_Simmons/RST

tommy_tommy wrote:

1. Will another winter of sweet spot riding give me a further improvement?

Better than doing LSD or nothing

tommy_tommy wrote:

Have I reached my full potential after 18 months?

I very much doubt it. That takes maybe 5 or more years of seriously dedicated effort.

tommy_tommy wrote:

2, I train between 5 - 7hours a week, Is this about average for 3rd/4th cat road racers? Would I necessarily benefit from more hours?

Not sure there is an average. But you would definitely benefit from more hours, provided they are quality and you build up to it sensibly.

tommy_tommy wrote:

I hope to get a power meter at the end of the year so maybe even smarter training may give me further gains next year.

It'll give you a really good understand of how hard you really are training.

jibberjim

You're doing a lot of FTP training, but your test is 3 miles, but you're tracking your improvement over 3 miles? Which is going to be quite a bit less than 10 minutes I'd imagine.

So your training isn't too targetted at your goal, although I imagine you have other goals Are your other numbers plateauing, or just this 3 mile blast?

Alex_Simmons/RST

jibberjim wrote:

You're doing a lot of FTP training, but your test is 3 miles, but you're tracking your improvement over 3 miles? Which is going to be quite a bit less than 10 minutes I'd imagine.

So your training isn't too targetted at your goal, although I imagine you have other goals Are your other numbers plateauing, or just this 3 mile blast?

The duration of a 3 mile test depends on what the gradient is - he did say it was a climb.

jibberjim

Alex_Simmons/RST wrote:

The duration of a 3 mile test depends on what the gradient is - he did say it was a climb.

But as he's in the UK, there's not many 3 mile climbs with any sort of appreciable gradient.

3 miles at 5% would almost take you from sea level to the highest point in south east england, and whilst other parts of the country do have much higher peaks, there's not a huge amount more. A few though certainly.

Anonymous

If you aren't improving, maybe you have your threshold for your 2x20 set too low?

It's soooo much easier to chart progress with a power meter!

Alex_Simmons/RST

jibberjim wrote:

Alex_Simmons/RST wrote:

The duration of a 3 mile test depends on what the gradient is - he did say it was a climb.

But as he's in the UK,

I didn't see anything in the OP that tells me where they are based.

tommy_tommy

The climb is in the United Kingdom. South Wales.

2.908 miles:
Elevation = 1200.78 feet
Height 1560 feet above sea level

I tried to post profile but could not get it to work. I will try again later.

tommy_tommy

Here is some riders going up the same hill rather quickly

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DomPro

How can you tell they are going up quickly?

roger_merriman

the hill is what tends to get known at least online as the tumble, ie the abergavenny road up the side of the Blorenge. passing though a part of the the hill known as the tumble.

The road is locally known also as the fiddlers elbow.

any how close to 3 miles at 8% average. and reasonblly even at it.

chrisw12

Tommy, don't fall into the trap of using time on long climbs as a measure of improving fitness.

Despite what some people will have you believe, wind and climbing position can make a difference to climbing time. In particular the wind on the hills in South Wales can get very strong and the hills have their own micro-climate.

As an example, my local climb is the Rhigos and my best time up there is 30 seconds faster than a time I managed on Friday. However Friday's ride was 7w more and a lot more windy (in hindsight.)

Now if I'd just analysed the times of both rides I'd be scratching my head and also asking why haven't I improved.

IMO, time up a climb is an ok gauge if you're lucky enough to see big improvements but to see improvements for a seasoned cyclist, then power is the way to go.