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Improve Your Cycling FTP and Get Dropped. Wait, what?
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- čas přidán 1. 03. 2020
- Full post here: evoq.bike/blog/improve-cycling...
Email: Brendan@EVOQ.BIKE
Yes, increasing your FTP could make you slower in a race or group if that’s all you work on.
I looked up what the most searched terms are when it comes to FTP. As you can guess, the list looks a lot like this:
How To Improve My Cycling FTP
Increase Cycling FTP
What is a Good FTP Cycling
TrainerRoad FTP Increase
Realistic FTP Gains
2 x 20 FTP Intervals
Increase FTP by 50 Watts
You get the point.
Looking to increase your cycling FTP? Great idea!
Just be aware that this doesn't necessarily mean you'll be a faster BIKE RACER or ready for the GROUP RIDE when you try to drop your friends in a few months.
Read on as to why you want to grow your FTP, but there are some prerequisites to this, and there are other areas that need focus as well!
But why? Let’s think about this in realistic terms.
First off, most people are gauging FTP as a 20 minute effort. How do I know this? The number of athletes that get a power file analysis done and have a serious drop off in w/kg after 20 minutes is, well, a lot. Very few ride hard out to 45 minutes.
So for this article, we’ll assume most athletes are using the 20 minute result multiplied by 0.95 to get their FTP.
There’s nothing wrong with that: 95% of your 20 minute best is still looked at as the major gauge for FTP amongst most of us amateurs.
Why aren’t we talking about VO2Max numbers more often though, when that is really a bigger determining factor in cycling?
1) Most don’t know their VO2Max value, so we can’t compare and discuss
2) It’s much harder to track and therefore improve, so less people are selling a product to athletes aimed at this. We’re being told to IMPROVE FTP…see your “FTP” go up - be happy. Right?
Increasing your FTP IS IMPORTANT.
Threshold workouts were one of my top 3 workouts that you need to be doing this year if you’re aerobically fit.
However, I’m not obsessed with it. Why?
When To Make FTP Improvements
A lot of amateur cyclists are not aerobically fit; what does that even mean!?
These athletes struggle to ride at zone 2, 55-75% FTP for longer than 90 minutes. They get very tired, their heart rate skyrockets, and then watts drop.
This athlete should not even be worrying about FTP gains yet. SERIOUSLY! The intensity that they will get from their group rides is enough for RIGHT NOW.
One must remember, endurance spots are literal marathons; the events, and the training cycles. The short cuts leave you scratching your head down the road, unable to make more gains, plateaued, or worse: BURNED OUT.
I was talking to Trevor Connor, a well respected cycling coach and co-host to VeloNew’s Fast Talk Podcast, about all of this and he mentioned that he requires athletes to sign up for 2 years at a minimum. Why? Most athletes need to break down these bad training habits and become aerobically efficient before we can add on high intensity intervals to crush races, goals, and group rides.
I couldn’t agree more. I’ve worked with a lot of new athletes where I tried to steer them away from no more than 1 group ride per week, and used weekend rides to focus on ENDURANCE.
Even when you’re going REALLLLY hard, the AEROBIC system is still mainly at work!
These athletes come back months down the road saying, “HOLY CRAP I can’t believe I’ve been riding at X watts for 3 hours!! This is amazing. No wonder I couldn’t keep up with my friends before.”
Get aerobically fit first. Then, let’s graduate to some threshold work. But still, why am I not obsessed? Go read the blog for the rest of the information...
evoq.bike/blog/improve-cycling...
Great topic, I got my FTP up to 322 from a program. I felt good, I entered the TBC a 3 day stage race and got smoked . When these guys punched it on some hills I couldn't respond like I needed too. A strong FTP is great to have. But the real question is what else can you do.
hey Errick, not sure how we missed this comment; sounds like you might need to work on your anaerobic capacity. FTP is not everything! It's great that yours went up, but look at the whole picture for sure. Good luck!
I think I exactly have this. My ftp is not the highest (315W for 20 min at 67kg) but in the races I did I can go deep several times and drop people who are usually faster than me after a third or fourth effort. :D
Raphael Tiziani sounds like you’ve got some repeatability better than others; nice work Raphael!!! 🚀🚀🚀💥💥💥💥⚡️⚡️⚡️
@@EVOQBIKE yes but sometimes I suffer on long sustained efforts. I live in the alps and we have some serious climbs (around 45-1h15min even at >4,5W/kg) and there I often get dropped in the last 10 min or so.
Raphael Tiziani sounds like you know what to work on at least! Hit some extensive aerobic, then intensive and vo2max. You’ll get there!
@@EVOQBIKE yes. Thank you!!
Cool video, because I've also wondered how one would go about measuring repeatability.
its pretty tough to do and was glad to hear that from the guru's themselves!
I know it is kinda randomly asking but do anyone know a good website to watch new series online?
awesome info Brendan!
thanks for watching Matt!
In crits (i reckon) repeatability is everything. I dont have that though. 😆 4/5 sprints and im cooked. not even talkin about 1000+ watts sprints. Sustained effort is naturally my thing. Im just not a sprinter.
make sure you don't wait around for the sprint then!!
I always fall apart by the 5th week of a training block.
point break five weeks is a long go at it! Try taking a rest week after the third week, that should help a lot
The repeatedly effort measurement that I think Xert's MPA probably is what you are looking for?
Benjamin Lin I’ll scope it out, thanks Benjamin!
@@EVOQBIKE Yeah. Xert can identify maximal efforts from repeated intervals that would otherwise not show up as best efforts on the PDcurve. It's a very powerful tool and much better than what is on offer from WKO.
@@themagicspanner PD curve does not show best efforts though, that is MMP curve
@@EVOQBIKE ah sorry, I meant the MMP curve.
@@EVOQBIKE Of course, the PD curve should be able to represent your maximal efforts (but doesn't always), which is why WKO always peddle this 'descriptive, not predictive' nonsense. It should at least be able to actuarily model your best efforts.
Is it your contention that a rider with 270W FTP surviving surges of 325-405W during a group ride who increases their FTP to 300W would / could then get dropped on the same group ride at the same surges? Assume fatigue / weight / hydration / fuelling held constant.
270 vs 300, definitely! if the above threshold surges (more like 430-450) are more fatiguing to the 300w rider, they can be out the back sooner than someone with slightly less FTP.
@@EVOQBIKE in your example and my question, it's the same rider.
Also: in both the video and your article supporting the video, the example given was surges of 325-405W, which is why I asked the question as I did.
I am curious - at a physiological level - how someone can improve their FTP 10% but become less capable of the exact same surges they could handle previously with 10% lower FTP.
hey! sorry for the confusion. I should have said "out the back sooner even if they had higher FTP but untrained VO2max or anaerobic capacity". you can definitely have a higher FTP but be worse at handling any surges above it if you don't train vo2max. many people don't even know their vo2max values, but it's as important, if not more, than FTP. does that help clarify this?
Talking about online training programs. What is your honest opinion of 'The Sufferfest' which does not focus on 20min alone?
Roland Philipp honestly not super familiar with that, but heard it’s very intense. Maybe too intense?
The sufferfest is more to what EVOQ. BIKE suggested in this video. It doesn't focus on solely on the ftp and the workouts are pretty well distributed in a way that will simulate road races (or other type of races you choose) with surges, sprinting and so. The training plans cater for different disciplines.
It is definitely more all around focused rather than the TR, which primary starts with ftp raising focus for only many weeks later, to offer then the specialist weeks. I don't know it yet, but, the sufferfest isn't as complete as the TR on the long term, but, it is definitely more fun and all-round app.
NorthWind thanks for adding this detailed feedback and opinion to help out! Thanks NorthWind!
How do I connect to you to coach me?
Hey Dwayne! Email me and we’ll get you taken care of. Brendan@EVOQ.bike