With four more races left on my calendar, I’ve been thinking about what to do for the off season.
I’m on the CX training plan and while I’m not at the point where I’m tired of training or hate the bike, I am looking forward to a break from all the Anaerobic and VO2 training zones.
Now here’s the part that I don’t get. Right now I’m at 3.1 watts Kg, one of my goals for next season is to get to 3.4 watt kg. My FTP is 239 and years back I used to be at 270 before I took a long break so I think I can do it.
Now in the past when I have a taken a week off from training for family holiday, TR dropped my FTP by 16 watts. It took like four months to get those watts back via AIFTP.
So if I take two/three weeks off the bike wouldn’t the FTP drop take most of next year’s season to get back?
My other plans is to do a low volume plan focused on CX endurance three days a week with some MTB riding and running to fill in the other two days, bring the fun to training ratio more towards fun.
Then late March/April get back to TR Mid Volume training via the CX plan.
N of 1 here but 2-3 week off season in my experience will not drop the FTP that drastically. If anything after I dust the rust off/rip off the bandaid after a few couple rides I’m feeling fresh and ready to go. Top end might hurt a little more but you can achieve anything. I typically go into a base block after a proper off season but I’ve done a sweet spot block after one as well and saw some huge gains and didn’t feel I lost any fitness. I feel like I get value and motivation in changing up the stimulus–I too am super sick of VO2 intervals after doing XC plan all summer even tho I am crushing it. I can’t wait to “push up from the bottom” in a few weeks and do some longer and lower efforts even though I know I will suck at them because I’ve only been doing high-intensity short bursts. I used to take a ramp test to calibrate the training zones after off season and never saw backsliding. Now I use TR and could update w/ AI FTP or just not update and roll with it as the progression levels and survey responses do a great job of guiding the way without checking or updating FTP. Good luck!
So by my understanding, the initial FTP gains/losses are mostly blood volume. And heat training is massive shortcut to volume expansion.
I’ll be honest, this sounds a little odd. A week off usually does not result in a noticeable drop in FTP. I’d be suspicious that something else happened, like you picked up a viral illness during holiday. It really shouldn’t take four months to rebuild. It honestly sounds like you might have been overtrained.
It really shouldn’t. 2-3 weeks off is barely an off season? You have “four more races” this season? So you’ve had quite a lot of races I’m guessing.
You might benefit from looking past TR planning and working with a coach to figure out how to come out of your off-season faster. In my n=1 as someone who takes months off the bike—I’ve been able to really hone in on the training stimulus that yields the best response. With improved understanding I can build back faster with less volume.
The drop was during April of this year. I didn’t think it was right but wasn’t I. The mood to take a FTP test so I let TR do it’s thing. I didn’t increase the workout intensity by 5% to give the AI data to adapt too. Just recently it tried dropping me again but after knowing how long it takes to get back to previous FTP levels I took the 20 minute test the second time around.
I’ve worked with a coach in the past and did get faster but also burnt out.
This time I don’t want to take cycling as serious as I have in the past and something about TR I just like, maybe the part of not having answer to a coach .
So if I take two/three weeks off the bike wouldn’t the FTP drop take most of next year’s season to get back?
It’s not that simple. The momentum of your fitness swings in either direction is tied to numerous moving targets in your life and training, so I wouldn’t try to tie a formula to time off and FTP.
You’ll undoubtedly lose some fitness after taking three weeks completely off of training, but you’ll likely come back motivated and primed to train hard again. The offseason is an important part of the year, so make sure that you’re utilizing yours in a way that works for you.
Sould rides are important for mental health and motivation, so I’d go all in on those when you get back into riding. As soon as you’re getting a little itch to push your efforts a little, consider starting your training plan.
Yes this is a different way of looking at it. As of now because of my past experience with TR I’m thinking if you take a week off it will automatically cost you like 7 watts of FTP.
Pair that with the fact that my increases have been about 1 or 2 watts per month via ALFTP, I didn’t understand how you’re suppose to get stronger.
Would you recommend an FTP detection prior to restarting training or just going with what I had and letting the Ai figure it out via the workout surveys?
You really shouldn’t need to test with TR. I’d give things a go. If your first workout coming back is a bit too easy or too hard, we’ll make adjustments to get things back on track moving forward.
Save your energy for those hard workouts, not fitness tests!
My feeling is that I don’t need an off season. I’m an amateur who rides 10-14 hours per week. It’s not like I’m doing 30 hour weeks and am burnt out. It doesn’t seem hard to just ride year round personally, but everyone should gauge their level of mental/physical fatigue with cycling. If you need a break, take it and you’ll come back fine. But don’t take a break just because everyone says that you need an off season.
I’ve arrived at the opposite conclusion in my own life. The real secret sauce for me has been to alternate between cycling- and lifting-focus. So “off-season” for one is “on-season” for the other. When I’m “off” of one I can be very off. Maybe there’s some lucky genetics to this, but I’m pretty surprised at how little cycling fitness I lose when I’m just lifting, and how little strength I lose when I’m just cycling. My working theory is that I get a better overall compromise between the two by being able to really push envelope of whatever focus I am currently in. Muscles and tendons aggravated by one sport get plenty of opportunity to recover when the focus flips to the other sport. My weekly training volume is a fraction of u/wik04’s (I do have quite a lot of race volume tho).
Overtraining is insidious—hard to recognize when it’s happening. People are scared of losing fitness, but it really does come back fast. I’ve built my big lifts back up from scratch to new PRs half a dozen times at this point, and done the same with my cycling fitness several times. I took 2023 off the bike to lift. In 2024 I got back to my old peak FTP in ~3 months with so much less volume that what it took to get there initially. Yeah that’s 3 months lost, but totally worth the strength gains. Was fresh and motivated and pushed my FTP up 20%. Took several months off after my last race of the season. It’s 2025 and I’m back to where I was last Oct stats-wise, but with less volume (64% of the cumulative training load).
EDIT: Should note that this has all been a surprise to me, but I just look at the data and roll with what seems to be working. I spent a lot of time learning about optimal strength training and optimal cycling training. Including learning to recognize the subjective experience of quality stimulus. Like I can recognize “ah, this lift really nailed my quads” or “this really stressed my heart” in ways that tend to translate into hypertrophy or higher VO2max, respectively. That gives me a lot more freedom to cut the fat and squeeze more gains from less time. I recently did a short ultra for fun and was looking at the post-race data, impressed at the impact it had. So now I want to roll in a few more long efforts in the training plan. It’s all trial and error. If you’re able to bit by bit improve your understanding of what works for you (vs just pick a plan off the TR shelf), you’ll feel more confident about taking time off.
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