no way! Definitely not too old, but also, don’t obsess just over FTP. With FRC and TTE playing major contributions these days, it’s not just FTP. If you feel like you’ve plateaued at all, check out this blog we wrote, it may help you out. How to Overcome a Cycling Plateau | EVOQ.BIKE
No… I turn 46 in August and I have just done a ramp test and got ftp of 310 and at 76 KG that gives me at 4w/KG.
Have been using tr for a few years now and it certainly isn’t easy… but with commitment you can do it…
Was hoovering about 3.6w/KG for about the last 6 months but what got me to the 4 was food… eating healthy real food… this made me shed a couple of kilos and bumped my w/kg up.
Good luck
Slightly reluctant to reply to this for fear that it sounds like I’m boasting, but I’m 54 and I’ve got an FTP of 4.5W/kg (ftp 379W and 83kg; height 190cm). Although it’s not all down to TR, for me it would be impossible without a lot of TR over the winter.
You’ve got years of improvement ahead of you, i think.
I broke 300w FTP for the first time in 2018 at age 53. I’m well on my way there this year too.
2fst4u: at your level of performance, not sure why you want to ramp up, but… at age 54, I’ve averaged 534 TSS per week for the past 3 months, averaging .71 intensity.
Not sure how, but I did spend a few years commuting daily, racking up huge low intensity miles, plus long weekend rides. My TSS was 700-800 per week with intensity ~.55. That pushed up the ceiling.
My race performance suffered, because it was hard to train for short power when you’re riding that much.
Try adding in more and/or longer Z2 rides.
700-800 TSS is impressive even if the IF was .55. I see the correlation between your lower TSS and the higher IF.
I guess the reason why I’m looking to push up the FTP is to simply be faster on both road and mountain. In my group rides I teeter off the back at times and get dropped on occasion… I’m sometimes the “slow guy”. I know my fitness is just a bit below the group and feel if I could get to 265 FT at 153 pounds I could hang in every climb and not get dropped.
What happens when you try to ramp us the TSS? Do you get sick? Start failing workouts?
I’m just shy of 3W/kg now aged 47. I think my realistic goal for this year is 3.5 by August. In order to achieve this I’m going to try to lose a few kg (FTP is 243, maybe slightly more as I might have under-tested due to fatigue earlier this week).
I don’t see me getting above 3.5W/kg. I’m 83kg at present and not shifting any weight. My rowing history over the past 4 years has put on more upper body mass. That won’t vanish overnight. A bit of middle age spread as well - probably can lose some of that once I step up the volume. I’ve decided to step back from the rowing training so I can focus better on the cycling so hopefully my FTP gains will accelerate a bit.
If I try and maintain 350-450 or more TSS I have no energy/legs to effectively keep up on the TR workouts. Maybe I could attempt to build into it more slowly and try for 400 TTS this summer.
Do you increase your eating in tandem with the TSS increase?
More or less same here: 59yo / 3.1 W/kg … and this after a severe surgery followed by a very severe sepsis, 3 weeks at hospital, and since 4 weeks released. Started 2 weeks ago on my Tacks Neo Smart…
Following the Sustained Power Build (mid volume) which is great 
you definitely don’t need 4 weeks off, but even with that, it shouldn’t have had a massive effect on your training…can easily build back and beyond where you were
I think that you can do it 100% percent) The main thing is to believe in yourself and not give up)
I’ve posted several times, but there’s a slowtwitch post in which Dr. Coggan does some calculations, and estimated the average person could see like 3.9w/kg, so I always hoped I could be average (I’ve recently exceeded to be slightly over lol)
This is the post
" Let’s do some figgerin’…
The average healthy but sedentary, college-aged male has a VO2max of approximately 45 mL/min/kg. However, I have seen it argued based on studies of, e.g., aboriginal tribes (and there are population data from Europe as well as military inductees here in the US to suppor the conclusion) that the “default” VO2max of the average human male is closer to 50 mL/min/kg, and the only way to get below this is to assume a couch-potato lifestyle, gain excess weight, etc. (and/or grow old, of course). So, I’ll go with that latter number.
With short-term training, VO2max increases by 15-25% on average, with another perhaps 5-10% possible (on average, anyway) with more prolonged and/or intense training. That gives a total increase of 20-35%, so I’ll go with 30% just for argument’s sake.
So, if VO2max is, on average, 50 mL/min/kg and increases by, on average, 30%, that means that the average Joe ought to be able to raise their VO2max to about 65 mL/min/kg with training. Indeed, there are many, many, many, MANY amateur endurance athletes with VO2max values of around that number (not to mention the fact that athletes in team sports with an endurance component - e.g., soccer - often have a VO2max of around 60 mL/min/kg, something that is also true in other sports that you don’t normally consider to be of an endurance nature, e.g., downhill skiing or motocross - i.e., motorcycle - racing).
The question then becomes, how high might functional threshold power fall as a percentage of VO2max (again, on average), and what does this translate to in terms of a power output? The answer to the former is about 80% (LT, on average, being about 75% of VO2max in trained cyclists), which means that in terms of O2 consumption, a functional threshold power corresponding to a VO2 of 65 mL/min/kg * 0.80 = 52 mL/min/kg could be considered average. If you then assume an average cycling economy of 0.075 W/min/kg per mL/min/kg, this equates to…
3.9 W/kg"
Not sure that I agree that everyone should do 2 hours at sweetspot.
something that most can’t, and definitely for more advanced riders, but if they can work up to it, it will definitely make them faster
Yes, me as well. I think people need to realize that it’s not a question of getting 4 over 40, but just getting 4 at all, as half the people wont be able to at any point. Adding in the age just makes it that much less likely.
Yeah, I think I’ve seen responses that indicate that anyone can get to 4w/kg with enough time training, but Coggan seems to think that’s the average ceiling for people after having done the proper training
I accept your challenge!!! 
