Time to reach peak

GGBiker

How many years of training should an amateur expect to continue improving for?

I do around 100-120 miles of cycling per week, mix of endurance/steady miles and intervals or hill climbs at threshold to v02 max levels.

Can I expect to see small but gradual improvements if I continue this? It seems that I experienced huge improvements over the first 6 months of training, feel I have probably improved further but hard to gauge.

mm1

How old are you? What's your sporting background? Is there a history of athletic performance / good health in your family? There really are too many variables to answer your question. Some show their potential on the bike almost immediately, others take years to mature. As a rule of thumb I'd say you should have a clear idea of your athletic potential, how to train effectively etc after 3 seasons. Joining a strong club and finding a coach could accelerate progress - just try to have some fun!

imposter2.0

GGBiker wrote:

How many years of training should an amateur expect to continue improving for?

I do around 100-120 miles of cycling per week, mix of endurance/steady miles and intervals or hill climbs at threshold to v02 max levels.

Can I expect to see small but gradual improvements if I continue this? It seems that I experienced huge improvements over the first 6 months of training, feel I have probably improved further but hard to gauge.

'Training'. Training for what ??

GGBiker

mm1 wrote:

How old are you? What's your sporting background? Is there a history of athletic performance / good health in your family? There really are too many variables to answer your question. Some show their potential on the bike almost immediately, others take years to mature. As a rule of thumb I'd say you should have a clear idea of your athletic potential, how to train effectively etc after 3 seasons. Joining a strong club and finding a coach could accelerate progress - just try to have some fun!

Me - mid thirties, enjoyed sports when I was younger but no endurance sports (always disliked distance running but enjoyed cycling). No significant athletes in the family. Health is very good, have lost a stone since started cycling regularly a year ago, probably only 2-3kg max to lose before I wouldn't want any more off.

FTP is 235 at present (about 3.6w/kg at current weight, about 3.8 if I lost another 2-3kg).

Saw big improvements for the first 3-6 months going from 30-40 mile runs with the club at 15mph to 70-70 miles at 19+ mph this winter/spring. Feel improvements have slowed.

Training for club racing, TTs and maybe a crack at cat 4 open racing by end of season or start of next.

Would like to get FTP to about 275 if possible, think its doable? Feels far away at present!

SBezza

Full endurance fitness can take years to achieve, and it will go up and down based on your training. To see the biggest gains you need to do a fair amount of training and it will still take years. Once you have made a fairly big jump from no fitness, then yes fitness gains are very small but they are still there.

If you have a powermeter forget speeds as an indication to fitness, speed really don't mean a great deal, they are far to dependant on weather, terrain etc.

You don't say how often you train, but training for 5/6 days of the week will be far better than training for 3/4 days of the week, so it isn't just about how much train you do, but how regular, how progressive. I would have said to see better fitness gains you are likely to have to do more than 100-120 miles a week, but obviously the time you can spend on the bike is dictated by other things you do in life.

jgsi

Just go and race - honest it's fun!
I dont think you are alone in thinking 'I have to train blah blah...'
It's amateur sport, you may be destined for an envelope or two with pocket money, but heck just go and do it.
However, more importantly than FTP this and pwr that.. can you handle a bike at speed in a packed group?

ric/rstsport

GGBiker wrote:

mm1 wrote:

How old are you? What's your sporting background? Is there a history of athletic performance / good health in your family? There really are too many variables to answer your question. Some show their potential on the bike almost immediately, others take years to mature. As a rule of thumb I'd say you should have a clear idea of your athletic potential, how to train effectively etc after 3 seasons. Joining a strong club and finding a coach could accelerate progress - just try to have some fun!

Me - mid thirties, enjoyed sports when I was younger but no endurance sports (always disliked distance running but enjoyed cycling). No significant athletes in the family. Health is very good, have lost a stone since started cycling regularly a year ago, probably only 2-3kg max to lose before I wouldn't want any more off.

FTP is 235 at present (about 3.6w/kg at current weight, about 3.8 if I lost another 2-3kg).

Saw big improvements for the first 3-6 months going from 30-40 mile runs with the club at 15mph to 70-70 miles at 19+ mph this winter/spring. Feel improvements have slowed.

Training for club racing, TTs and maybe a crack at cat 4 open racing by end of season or start of next.

Would like to get FTP to about 275 if possible, think its doable? Feels far away at present!

there's no way of knowing whether 275 W (or any number) is possible or not, but if you don't try then you'll definitely never reach it. so you may as well give it a go!

but given that you're relatively new to training (and training can often take years to reach the highest levels of fitness) and given that your prior training looks pretty ordinary, then i'd hazard a guess that with decent, consistent training you could probably significantly improve. we've coached riders who have been training for much longer than you, who felt that they were maxed out and gotten significant power increases from them (e.g. 10 to 20%). give us a shout if you'd like to aim for 275 W.

cheers
ric

Team4Luke

GGBiker wrote:

mm1 wrote:

How old are you? What's your sporting background? Is there a history of athletic performance / good health in your family? There really are too many variables to answer your question. Some show their potential on the bike almost immediately, others take years to mature. As a rule of thumb I'd say you should have a clear idea of your athletic potential, how to train effectively etc after 3 seasons. Joining a strong club and finding a coach could accelerate progress - just try to have some fun!

Me - mid thirties, enjoyed sports when I was younger but no endurance sports (always disliked distance running but enjoyed cycling). No significant athletes in the family. Health is very good, have lost a stone since started cycling regularly a year ago, probably only 2-3kg max to lose before I wouldn't want any more off.

FTP is 235 at present (about 3.6w/kg at current weight, about 3.8 if I lost another 2-3kg).

Saw big improvements for the first 3-6 months going from 30-40 mile runs with the club at 15mph to 70-70 miles at 19+ mph this winter/spring. Feel improvements have slowed.

Training for club racing, TTs and maybe a crack at cat 4 open racing by end of season or start of next.

Would like to get FTP to about 275 if possible, think its doable? Feels far away at present!

there is a huge difference in doing 19mph with a club/group than doing it on your own, if you wish to make gains then train on your own, another 40watts which would be a couple of MPH doubt it.

Team4Luke

SBezza wrote:

If you have a powermeter forget speeds as an indication to fitness, speed really don't mean a great deal, they are far to dependant on weather, terrain etc.

it's equally a bit easier to chuck out some extra watts when its windy and harder when it's dead calm as your riding speed is extremely fast, power doesn't mean anything unless you can regulary improve your A-B time over your last A-B times.

SBezza

Team4Luke wrote:

SBezza wrote:

If you have a powermeter forget speeds as an indication to fitness, speed really don't mean a great deal, they are far to dependant on weather, terrain etc.

it's equally a bit easier to chuck out some extra watts when its windy and harder when it's dead calm as your riding speed is extremely fast, power doesn't mean anything unless you can regulary improve your A-B time over your last A-B times.

Yes and with a powermeter you can easily see this, and you ease off or press on the pedals harder . Improving A-B times mean nothing, (you might have set this with a stonking tailwind, very little wind etc, and if the conditions are never the same again and you don't improve your A-B time how do you know you are progressing) improving power means everything, you might do the A-B slower (due to the above) but if you did the same route at a higher power you would be progressing.

If you don't have a power meter I can see the allure of speed, but IF you do have a powermeter, the power data is king and this should the over-riding measure of improvement.

I agree with you regarding clubs runs, if you really want to improve, either do a club run that really leaves you stretched, if not train solo. With a powermeter it is so easy to see that the quality of training on all but the very challenging rides is poor in comparrison to training solo, far too much freewheeling and soft tapping.

maryka

GGBiker wrote:

Saw big improvements for the first 3-6 months going from 30-40 mile runs with the club at 15mph to 70-70 miles at 19+ mph this winter/spring. Feel improvements have slowed.

If improvements have slowed, it's probably because your riding has stagnated. The human body is pretty lazy, once it gets used to something, it stops improving. So to force adaptations (i.e., get fitter) you need to do something different/harder/better than what you've been doing.

Pretty sure you won't have peaked after 6 months of "serious" riding, unlikely there's not more to come. Coggan once said that the average untrained male can probably reach ~4w/kg FTP with serious training, at 63kg that's ~250w for you. Or 260w at your current weight.

If you're not sure what to do to improve your training, then probably a coach is the way to go. Otherwise you can do some reading and experimenting with stuff like Vo2max intervals (e.g., raising the "ceiling" to be able to raise your FTP more, depending on what your 5 min max power already is) or doing more focussed SST/FTP work. Depends how impatient you are, how much time and inclination you have to work it out for yourself, or whether you just want someone to give you workouts to do instead. Some people benefit most from a coach because of the accountability factor, that in itself is likely to give you a fitness boost -- the idea that you suddenly become more disciplined at training because you're paying for it and have someone to answer to!