Yeah, that is a staple of my training!!!
Here’s my strava if you want any ideas 
Great insight @d_diston. Thanks for sharing! I’d love to do a program like that. Mat Hayman did a very similar training set up preparing for Paris Roubaix. Easy endurance session in the morning and then a more targeted interval workout at night.
Thanks @Charlie_Botterill … it seems like the addition of Endurance at the end of the session is the way to go! The General Build HV program has quite a few Endurance extensions on the end of the interval sessions and now I know why! I might look at extending those Endurance tack on’s even further to see if I can get to 12-14hrs a week which is just inside the realm of capabilities for me whilst also juggling family life and work life. 20hrs a week is only possible over summer holidays!
Thanks for sharing guys !
How many years of structured training did it take you to get there ?
3-4 year messing around, then last 5 have been proper structured 10h p/w. Increased volume steadily over the past 2 years, recently making step to 20h (though a lot of this is easy).
Well, I’m a bit odd 
, I’ve only actually been riding a bike for 3 years, 2 of which have been structured training (since I got a power meter). In that time I’ve stayed the same weight but have added 80W to my FTP.
I previously played football at a high level representing Reading FC’s youth team as well as competing in the 800m so already had a fairly decent level of fitness. Unfortunately, a knee injury means cycling and swimming is all I can really do.
I think I had 10 years of long distance and club riding. Which built a good base but when I finally saw a coach I was told up to 16,000 miles was too much. After halving the mileage it was about 3.5 years of structured which took me too the brink then and then weight loss post my operation and fighting chemo that took me over it. (4.5 years structured training in total). After 6months though through big losses in power and slight weight gain I’m back below it.
Summary:
2019 - 417hours of which 85% unstructured training
2020 - 569hours all structured
Progression:
JULY 2019 - 4.0w/kg (280w), estimated with a cp20 of 299w, 3 months after starting to ride seriously (but unstructured).
SEP 2019 - 4.2w/kg (295w), estimated with a cp20 of 315w, end of seasonNOV 2019 - 3.4w/kg (245w), test done by coach - begin of disappointing structured training
DEC 2019 - 3.8w/kg (275w), test done on zwift - begin of serious structured training
MAR 2020 - 4.3w/kg (300w), test done by coach, CP60 of 309w, CP20 of 330w
MAY 2020 - 4.5w/kg (315w), CP20 of 340w
JUN 2020 - 4.6w/kg (320w), CP20 of 346w
SEP 2020 - 4.9w/kg (336w), CP20 of 354w (reached 68kg consistently)
Last race i got a sweet 373w (5.5w/kg) @ 20min which puts me at 350w FTP (5.14w/kg)
Sadly, to put things in perspective, this was a oneshot uphill race of around 20-30min and this effort didn’t even put me in the top10.
What i did:
- Volume is key, weekly average around 15hours. monday complete rest, tuesday/wednesday intervals, thursday endurance with sweetspot efforts. friday rest, saturday/sunday long rides (4-6h) with efforts on climbs. Plenty of >1000tss weeks
- I work with a zone system that puts zone 2 pretty high up at 70-80% of FTP. I found that this thing helped me a lot in putting power down on flats. I now average around 250/270 NP for long rides of 4+ hours
- Live in a mountainous area so that you can get those steady efforts at threshold. Do some of them on a flat.
- I didn’t, but next year i will, get an early all-in (20+ hours) training camp thingy if you want to get your weight down. I did that too late in the season but since I had no racing it ended up working well. It’s easy to keep the weight down once you’re there.
- Be obsessed by cycling
Now wondering where to go next
Thank you for sharing !
Did you do that structure all year long ? How did you base look like if different ?
So until May I mostly did sweetspot and threshold intervals. 4 days a week on the trainer plus long rides outside.
Living in a mountainous area it is very easy to structure work with sweetspot/threshold on long hills, rest on the downhill, zone 2 on the flats in-between hills. This is really the bread and butter of my training.
From May I started doing some VO2 weeks alternated with more classic pyramidal weeks. I think I might have a lot to gain from VO2 work because I responded quite quickly and I’ve never focused too much on that side of training. Also lack of racing this year, being my first serious year, meant losing a lot of potential gains.
The volume was mostly the same. I didn’t do the classic recovery week structure. I seem to be able to handle well large volume of work (very important to eat lots of carbs).
I’ve had only 3/4 times during this year of 2 consecutive non-training days.
Your progression is really impressive, in just 1 year. Did you also incorporate strength training at some point ?
In January and February I’ve done gym work every other day. Barbell compound exercises with low reps.
Every tuesday I do torque intervals (tempo or threshold, 50-60rpm, uphill) that kind of count as strength training.
Goal Achieved.
Group Workout with Nate and Noah last night. Weighed 1 pound less than I did for July’s ramp test, but fluctuated as high as 153lbs in August/September.
Set a 10min all time PR of 375w 5 days ago so I was looking forward to see what this ramp test would show. Usually I always set my 10min PRs during the ramp test but not today.
Training the last 2 months has lost a lot of structure due to switching to a run and swim focus. Week34 was a 1000 bike TSS training camp week. No structure just lots of riding. Week 35 was nothing. And in Weeks 36 - 40 I have done 3 structured workouts and ridden outside 7 times. So 10 rides total.
I wanted to get this ramp test in as I think my performance will start to decline as I’m focusing less and less on the bike training atm.
I’ve seen you on a couple of threads now.
And I am crowning you the unofficial joker of the TrainerRoad forum
Extremely good post!
The restriction on food to look like a cyclist was something I did when taking up cycling almost 2 years ago, that probably cost me more than it helped me.
I did powerlifting before and weighed in at over 90kg. I have always been a slender guy (at 6‘2.5“), but lost a lot of power early on, that just wasn’t necessary. I got myself to 69kg, and didn’t feel like progressing anymore.
Switching to eating more, and especially more carbs was, what gave me another boost and got me over the hump.
Also one thing to point out is that people shouldn’t be to obsessed with FTP and testing it, but rather look at the greater picture. Depending on what type of riding you do, but focusing on VO2 Max improvement has done more for my overall riding, than just going after the FTP. Focusing on improving your FTP can lead people to become very good at FTP tests, but not very good at much else (sprints, short efforts, very long efforts, endurance, variability).
Shifting my focus on becoming a better cyclist, rather than a cyclist with a huge FTP did not only help me enjoy riding much more than before, but also improved my performance. My 20‘ max * 0.95 has now also gotten MUCH closer to my actual 1hr max, which I think is what it should really be about, when focusing on FTP improvement.
Nevertheless, @jb0980 your power numbers are massive, really impressive. At 23, there is loads of headroom for you. Have you looked into TTing and, since you appear to be British, hillclimbing? Might suit you well…
yeah I think ftp is the most overrated metric in cycling. not that it isn’t important, but people seem to obsess about it. I guess that may be because it’s relatively easy to compare and quantify, as opposed to fatigue resistance ect. So many guys have huge ftps but they can’t hold anywhere near them after 3 hours of racing. races are won in the last hour (usually with an effort over FTP) so that’s pretty important…
Thanks very much, I certainly try my best. But not sure they’re that special.
raced a season in France in 2019, and although I wasn’t quite as strong as I am now, I was scrapping for results. Managed a few podiums but got 0 wins. Talent pool is pretty big out there.
I’m more of a sprinter/classics rider so not sure about getting into TTs seriously. Bit of a money pit, and think even if I had all the gear I’d be well behind guys like Bigham, Archibald and Chris Fennell.
Short hill climbs are something I’d be interested in. But currently focusing on building for the 21 road season. Whenever that may be… 
Reading this now… How far did you get :)?
Interesting question. Took 2019 off due to misdiagnosed medical reasons, and we all know how 2020 played out… Since there was no racing I just focused on gaining watts instead of losing kilos. At race weight I would have hit the magic 5 mark. Maybe next year!
Finally „officially“ broke the barrier.
With that being under my belt, I am happy to shift away from the „pursuit“ of a certain barrier and much rather be able to focus on improving my cycling in general.
Also, as aforementioned, shifting a little away from weight obsession is a positive also, that I‘d advice most cyclist. Being super lean isn’t the be all and end all in cycling, especially not all the time.
But I do understand everyone standing at X.8 or X.9 W/kg being tempted to drop even more weight, just to make the jump. Just isn’t a good tactic long term (as I expect most people close to 5W/kg to not carry an excessive amount of body fat).