Zwift 12-week plan vs simple interval sessions

radhartgeorge

Hello all,

First post here so be gentle if I've committed any heinous forum errors unknowingly.

My primary training objective is to cycle up Rocaorba (near Girona, Spain) (https://www.strava.com/segments/616746) as fast as possible in May 2018. It's a fairly gradual 7% climb over 10km and it will take somewhere between 30-40 mins. To achieve this I am aware that I need to be 1. as light as possible and 2. focusing on increasing my FTP as high as possible.

It should also be clarified that I am not bothered about improving my ability to respond to attacks etc or being able to sustain high power outputs for longer than 30-40 mins and that I've built a pretty good base over the summer following a few years out (young children).

It seemed sensible to start with the '12 week FTP Builder' training plan on Zwift but I am now 3 weeks into the plan and am concerned that I am not spending sufficient time hurting myself in the lactate threshold zone or higher. Many of the sessions involve churning out intervals at 70% of FTP which I find very easy. Rather than plod on, I thought I'd see if anyone else has thoughts on this plan and if there is anyone else that thinks it might be more beneficial to simply do 3 x high intensity interval sessions each week (eg. Monday: 2 x 20 mins, Wed: 6 x 8 mins, Friday: 3 x 15 mins) and conduct a 20-40 minute FTP test every 3 weeks or so - moving closer to 40 mins nearer to May 2018 to replicate the climb itself. This should target the exact zones that I will be required to use during the climb.

Thoughts welcome.

fenix

I think you need to have faith in your plan. I've done similar plans on Trainerroad. Not every session is hard. If you did that then you would burn out.

Certain sessions were repeated so I could see that I was putting out the same power for a lower HR - this was showing that the plan was working.

If you google you will see people are getting good results on their plan :

https://support.zwift.com/hc/en-us/comm ... r-workouts

Websta24

If you find churning out 70% of your ftp too easy, have you re-done an FTP test to ensure accurate targets?

But a 12 weeks FTP builder is a long term plan that will build things gradually. You cant do every session at 90-100% FTP otherwise you would simply burn out.

If you find it too easy, wack the difficulty up to 105/110% or re-test

kingstongraham

That plan does say to skip weeks 1 and 2 if you are in shape, so I guess it should be starting to get interesting. Day 4 of week 3 looks like it should feel quite hard.

fenix

If I'm reading it correctly (not 100% sure on this) then I don't think there are any intervals above 100% of your FTP ? That's a bit different to Trainerroad. They had some brutal intervals.

radhartgeorge

@Websta - yes I did an FTP test before I started the plan.

@Fenix - Week 3 and 4 has very sporadic, very short (10 secs to 1 min) periods marginally over 100% of the FTP. Week 5 increases the length of these intervals to 3 mins at 100% of FTP increasing to 6 x 5mins by week 9. I don't think I can see anything over 100% other than sub-10 second bursts. This surprised me and is basically the reason I am posting my question.

Websta24

radhartgeorge wrote:

@Websta - yes I did an FTP test before I started the plan.

@Fenix - Week 3 and 4 has very sporadic, very short (10 secs to 1 min) periods marginally over 100% of the FTP. Week 5 increases the length of these intervals to 3 mins at 100% of FTP increasing to 6 x 5mins by week 9. I don't think I can see anything over 100% other than sub-10 second bursts. This surprised me and is basically the reason I am posting my question.

I would re-test your FTP after 4 weeks and see if there is an increase.

Richj

I have just finished this plan, for this time of year I thought the plan was great. I often train in the mornings and the easier aerobic sessions where great for that. The plan builds and weeks 8,9,10 and 11 start getting much tougher. I was able to stick to it and completed every session, plus got some outdoor riding in as I didn't feel tired and was able to do two sessions a day at some points to give me more days off.

Instead of being obsessed with retesting FTP once I found sessions starting to get easy I used the slider to make it tougher and ended up completing all my sessions above 105%.

Results...... well I haven't retested as I am having a rest before jumping in to another plan so will retest before I do that. But I did a race and my FTP reset with around a 5% increase and at lower level for the same heart rate in zone 2 I am pushing out an extra 20watts.

On the road...........I have been told by clubmates I am flying compared to their own training plans so that feels good.

fenix

Rich - well done on the improvement.

Was there many intervals set over your FTP level ?

Richj

Fenix wrote:

Rich - well done on the improvement.

Was there many intervals set over your FTP level ?

No, none..... so was pleased with the FTP increase as I haven't trained that area. I think its a good base training plan. Toughest session I found was 3x15mins which for me were between 305w and 280w, last set of that was grippy, might have had something to do with me riding in the morning so it was my second session.

Like with all plans consistency is key.

After doing this plan I am spending a few weekend riding easy, Zwift group rides and doing tempo as in the New Year I'll have 6 weeks till my first race and will ramp up the training in Jan. Its a long season and I don't want to be hitting intervals too hard now as I know I will burn out.