Help! very specific goal for FTP

sven_jto

Hi folks firstly a bit about myself. I used to be a great road racer in an Eastern European country at u18 I was 2nd in the national road race and won a bunch of races.
I m 193*6ft3 and when I was a junior I was only 78 kg very lean. I didn't have a PowerMeter and my specialty was uphill sprint finnishes and was definitely above average in normal sprints winning a bunch finnish even at  u23 level@18 years of age.Ive been off the bike for 2-3years now and gained some weight(doing uni in uk).I feel like I've lost 30% of my power. I started doing rowing a year ago and without too much effort turns out Im quite good for scottish rowing. I really don't enjoy rowing that much though  all I want is to increase my FtP on a wattbikeI got a hold of a wattbike recently and was able to use watts for first time in my life.     Here is where I currently stand.193 cm 82,5kg around 9-11% bodyfat I think(top 2 rows almost 3 of abs visable) 21 years age
5sec @1230w /1421w max   
1min @556w                                                       
5min @321w20min@245         
Very poor.
Ok my goal I don't care about power to weight all I want is to get to  325watts for 20min test. The max weight I wouldn't mind becoming is 86kg.
I want to achieve this in a matter of 3monts I don't have much of a base(600km over the winter) no power meter and couldn't afford a personal coach.i have two road bikes and access to a wattbike. I can devote around 10-12 hours to training a week for that specific goal

Please don't persuade me away from my goal I just want to prove it to myself that I still got determination to achieve a goal in a limited time.I'm thankful for any ideas, training plans only if it is on the subject please don't deviate too much away from my idea 325 watts at 20 mins 

kamil1891

sven_jto wrote:

Hi folks firstly a bit about myself. I used to be a great road racer in an Eastern European country at u18 I was 2nd in the national road race and won a bunch of races.
I m 193*6ft3 and when I was a junior I was only 78 kg very lean. I didn't have a PowerMeter and my specialty was uphill sprint finnishes and was definitely above average in normal sprints winning a bunch finnish even at  u23 level@18 years of age.Ive been off the bike for 2-3years now and gained some weight(doing uni in uk).I feel like I've lost 30% of my power. I started doing rowing a year ago and without too much effort turns out Im quite good for scottish rowing. I really don't enjoy rowing that much though  all I want is to increase my FtP on a wattbikeI got a hold of a wattbike recently and was able to use watts for first time in my life.     Here is where I currently stand.193 cm 82,5kg around 9-11% bodyfat I think(top 2 rows almost 3 of abs visable) 21 years age
5sec @1230w /1421w max   
1min @556w                                                       
5min @321w20min@245         
Very poor.
Ok my goal I don't care about power to weight all I want is to get to  325watts for 20min test. The max weight I wouldn't mind becoming is 86kg.
I want to achieve this in a matter of 3monts I don't have much of a base(600km over the winter) no power meter and couldn't afford a personal coach.i have two road bikes and access to a wattbike. I can devote around 10-12 hours to training a week for that specific goal

Please don't persuade me away from my goal I just want to prove it to myself that I still got determination to achieve a goal in a limited time.I'm thankful for any ideas, training plans only if it is on the subject please don't deviate too much away from my idea 325 watts at 20 mins 

If you were as competitive as you say then few weeks/months of JUST riding should get you at least there. It's not even 4w/kg.

JayKosta

Interval training.

Start with 5 minutes HARD, and 5 minute rest - repeat until your performance during the HARD part drops by about 25%.

Next day is rest or easy training.

Repeat the intervals & rest/easy day.

Build up to longer intervals & duration.

If you cannot achieve the same or better level of performance when doing an 'interval day' then increase the amount of time for rest / recovery.

Jay Kosta
Endwell NY USA

sven_jto

Kamil as I said I've never worked with power so I don't know what to expect. This seems to be a lot improvement for just riding I know consistency will be the key but after all for tha past 2.5 years I've had only around 5-6k kms total compared to around 20k per year in my racing days. Another thing is I don't have the time for very long rides I can only devote around 10 hrs per week(around 280-300 km a week) I don't think that is enough for such a boost

Ok its an interesting workout you are proposing Jay. What type of increase in lenght should I be looking for? Don't you think it's too short of an interval for what my goal is?
How many intervals do you recon I should be able to do?
Btw everyone reading my post I'll be posting weekly updates on what I do each day and Im looking for constant advice.
Thank you

richa

sven_jto wrote:

I was a junior I was only 78 kg very lean.

gained some weight(doing uni in uk). currently stand.193 cm 82,5kg around 9-11% bodyfat

I wouldn't mind becoming is 86kg.

Why do you want to increase your weight? You need to increase your 20min/sustainable power. You've only "off the bike for 2-3years now" and some decent consistent training should see your fitness & power output come bacl pretty quickly.

ozzzyosborn206

you say you can do 10-12 hours a week, that is a fairly decent amount, I doubt many people who work full time do much more training than that? How much time do you have per day?

You have a good sprint in comparison to your 5 and 20 min intervals which I guess follows what you said about being good in sprint finishes when you raced. If you can do two 2-3 hour rides a week, this is mainly just to improve your fitness just from being bike fit i think you will exceed your goal power as it is not very much for someone of your weight, then once a week on the watt bike do two 20min efforts with 10 mins rest between, ride at about 5% less your current max for 20mins effort but like i said you will probably increase that power quite quickly so increase the intensity over time. Then another day on the watt bike do pyramid session where you do 3min on 2off 4 on 2 off 5 on 2 off 4 on 2 off 3 on 2off and repeat with 10 mins warm up and down. Re-test in a month and i think you'll be very close if not there

JayKosta

Increase the time of the hard intervals by 1 minute every 2 weeks. Doing 1 or 2 days per week of hard intervals should be adequate - the others days should include 'moderately hard' (not maximum) endurance rides, and rest days.

A final level of doing 2 20-minute intervals is good.

The 'purpose' of doing intervals is to force your body to adjust (super compensate) to the stress of doing the hard intervals. But this can only occur by providing adequate time for rest & recovery between sessions.
If you do too much hard training without recovery, your body cannot rebuild, and your strength and fitness will decrease.

Jay Kosta
Endwell NY USA

sven_jto

First of all thanks for all the advice I find it very helpful that you guys are using of your precious time to help a fellow forum dude.
Oh well so now I'm still trying to mix up a bit rowing in the picture but not going to be doing much after next weeks regatta.
I can do:
2-3hr rides
Mon Tues sometimes sat or wed
1-1:30hr wattbike sesh
Any day Mon to Friday sometimes sat as well

I have very shitty turbo at home (not enough resistance) I can use for 1 hr every day
Based on this, what sort of mix of training would you suggest?
Should I try to include gym in my workouts as well(rowing club offers very nice sesions every tue and Thurs with a good weights coach-we do core/legs/back and a bit sholders)?

bahzob

Get "Time Crunched Cyclist" by Chris Carmichael.

The author is a dope but the training programme is good and exactly what you need.

It includes a full 12 week plan showing what you need to do every day.

Follow this, put in the hours and you should have no problem.

napoleond

bahzob wrote:

Get "Time Crunched Cyclist" by Chris Carmichael.

The author is a dope but the training programme is good and exactly what you need.

It includes a full 12 week plan showing what you need to do every day.

Follow this, put in the hours and you should have no problem.

This.

JayKosta

Regarding the 'gym workouts' - those probably won't help much for your 'CYCLING' FTP goal.
But it's your decision based on whatever else you want to achieve (or maintain).

I'd try the Wattbike for interval training, especially if it displays heart-rate.
Using the indoor Wattbike for intervals allows you to concentrate completely on the EXERCISE without worrying about vehicles, road conditions, etc.

Jay Kosta
Endwell NY USA

TakeTurns

I don't get why your 20min is so low, presuming you haven't done the -%10.
It should shoot up with a bit of hard training as the guys say.
You've raced before, so you should be used to hard stuff.
I'm a bit taller than you and have had a better FTP even when I was poorly trained.
Go for it, you can do it.

sven_jto

Thanks again for the advice I'm getting so far,
Basically when I was racing I think I always had a problem with FTP because for me races were won or lost on weather or not I'll get to the last 2 kilometers with the first group. Basically back in the racing days, training consisted of going out for around 80-100km at around 28-30km/h around 2-3 days a week, some races during weekends and some sprint training sessions. My coach never really push me to do 20mins or even 10min ones intervals or so on, we used to do some crit simulation intervals and some V02max intervals and a very nice fartlek thing we called chasing.
Basically the hardest training I had to complete were always those 5 min ones, sprint training and of course races.
A friend has the Time crunched cyclist and I think I'll snatch it off his hands soon but I think it will take me some time to get to the training plan from the book and start doing it myself.
Because I was always told what to train and when I'm don't really have an idea what to do so it's best for me. I can always do what I was told to do before but I don't think it's the best option for my target.
So far this week I've done
Thursday
Wattbike-1min test, 5min test, 10min@255W, 10min@260W
Friday
All day work/freezing rain-cycled to-back work in rain-15km was too tired for anything else especially after rain
Sat
Rowing-2hrs medium intensity UT2
Cycling 1:30hrs- 4 hill repeats of 8% hill HARD
Sunday
Work All day
Turbo trainer@home 1:30 at 70-80% Heart Rate

sven_jto

Oh well it's been some time and I've just been riding around and done some nice sessions. Just an update I'm now doing 3x20mins intervals each monday and I am now able to do them at around 270 1st one 300second one and 295 last one. My sprint has improved to 1350 watts avg and I've not done almost any training for that.
I'm thinking what more should I do in terms of type of training before I fully test myself(june)?
Forgot to add I am 84,5 kgs now