I started at 90w, I am a newbie, 50kg, 160cm, female. Now, I am 91, a week later, haha.
I am curious about if anyone has under 100 ftp, and how they improve or if they could improve.
When I saw this post, well, so many people start with low ftp under 100 like me, and they reach 180w finally which is my dream. So I think maybe one day, I could reach 180w. this is encouraging.
thank you for the experience sharing.
the raw number is not telling the whole story. It depends on many factors and training history from where you start or what your baseline is. I think aiming at 3-3.5 W/kg is achievable for most healthy people whether they start at 100 or 250 doesn’t matter. If you’re consistent with your training, nutrtion and recovery you’ll reach that goal of a 180W sooner than you think. Keep pushing
There was a masters female rider in our club and she absolutely smoke mes up any hill pushing 175 watts.
I really don’t know how low I started, but I’m now what some may call a moderately-experienced cyclist (pretty regular over the last six years minus two major hits of covid) with what I’m told are big, strong legs… and my FTP ramp test is always like (what is considered ‘beginner’ for my weight of 190 lbs I’ve heard) 204 watts. I do solo gravel centuries (pretty flat), I was hitting over 1000 watts in sprints, and yet I can’t escape the low FTP zone. I have to imagine that I started out really, really low on the FTP scale.
I’ve heard on the podcast and read online that just doing the FTP ramp test regularly gets people better at it. I’ve contemplated doing something like a ramp test every week or every other week to see what becomes of it.
beware that simply losing weight is not the key to success.
i am currently in a calorie deficit. eating 500 kcal in average. not doing much strenght training except some planks and pushup and i notice my power has decreased. I do not really exactly by how much as i got the PM at the same time i starting doing cico.
so at the moment i am doing endurance rides to burn fat once i reach my ideal weight. i start building up strenght.
bottom line. loose weight ok but not at the cost of power. and it is difficult to increase power when you have less energy.
I started training almost 25 years ago so I don’t know where my FTP started. I do know that at 65 I’m 25 lbs lighter and much more fit (and faster) than I was when I was 40. That is good enough for me.
I’m at 2.39 w/kg. Who knows what it was 50 years ago. I’m assuming it was untrained. And according to Polar I’m still untrained. At 72 I can still podium in my age group. I’m not sure how much ftp matters outside of a training metric, when you reach an age where the government pays you each month.