Hi everyone,
I’m a bit tired of cycling being my only sport. After five years on the bike, I miss the feeling of starting something new and trying to go from beginner to genuinely good at it.
I’m 40 years old and currently at around 4.75 W/kg. My long-term goal has always been 5 W/kg, but that last step is hard to crack. Right now I’m focusing on ultra events, and this year I’m doing three events over 1000 km. I usually spend around 10 to 20 hours per week on the bike.
Recently I discovered padel almost by accident, and I’m really enjoying it. I played tennis as a kid, so I picked it up fairly quickly. At the moment I have a strong urge to work my way up in padel too. Roughly, that would mean another 4 to 8 hours sport/load per week.
The problem is that I don’t want to give up my cycling gains or my goal of reaching 5 W/kg before I turn 45.
So I’m wondering how realistic this is. Time-wise, it would be possible if I reduce my working hours from 8 to 6 hours per day, which I was already planning to do anyway. Physically, I feel fit enough to add another six hours of sport per week.
But I’m worried that adding more load will just mean I won’t get good at padel, while also losing performance on the bike.
How would you look at this? Has anyone here successfully added a second sport while still improving on the bike?
If you want to hit 5W/kg FTP, a second sport is very likely going to make that more difficult for you. I also think ultras are counter-productive to getting a high FTP, as there’s zero need for top end. I could be wrong about that, but I think most middle-aged amateurs who can hit the 5.0 club do it with a predictable combination of endurance and intensity. Good luck.
Why not (a) reduce the ultras so you have more time to train SS/Th/VO2 and push FTP up [assuming you’ve done loads of base for ultras] and (b) slowly introduce padel 1-2h a week and ramp up over a period of 2-3mo and see if it impacts your fatigue?
Triathlon is the obvious candidate. Yes, I’ve improved running and swimming whilst also improving FTP. Split was 6-6.5hrs Bike, 3hrs Run, 2hrs Swim. Nowhere near 4.5W/kg though which is near if not at the pinnacle. Your padel would need to be recovery level activity. IMHO.
If you’re trying to hit 5w/Kg - Adding something else won’t help. Arguably, you should be doubling down on cycling training, recovery, body comp… I’d probably also be scaling back on the Ultras and thinking about a “Ceiling Buster” approach - A block of VO2 followed by a couple blocks of Over/Unders and Threshold, while supplementing with endurance volume and cycling-specific strength work. And - maybe review the energy availability approach to make sure your body comp is as lean as is sustainable for you without losing power.
First things first, I think you need to pick which is more important to you. Personally - Hitting an arbitrary power number is just a number, picking up something else you enjoy and diversifying sounds a lot more healthy and fun to me.
I was mentally putting padel in the “fun extra activity” bucket, which is probably nonsense. If I play properly, it is still load. Different load than cycling, sure, but still load.
So I’m thinking I won’t jump straight to 4-8 hours a week. I’ll start with 1-2 hours for maybe 8-12 weeks and see what happens. If it starts hurting my key bike sessions, especially VO2/threshold work, then I either cut back the padel or remove some low-priority bike volume.
For this season, with the ultra events still on the calendar, I’ll probably keep padel to one mostly social/skill session per week. After the ultras, I can decide whether I want a proper cycling block again for the 5 W/kg goal, with padel kept under control.
I’d like to do both, but I probably can’t pretend I’m maximizing both at the same time.