I know this question gets thrown around an annoying amount, but anyways…
I started cycling seriously almost a year ago. My initial FTP was around 3w/kg (207W at 70kg), and after a year, I’m sitting around 4w/kg (278W).
I currently do structured training around 16hrs a week, and have been doing so for 3 months. Before that I was doing circa 10hrs relatively unstructered.
How much improvement can i reasonably expect to make this coming year? I don’t race, as I don’t particularly enjoy it, but I still do periodized training, and I’m currently in my base phase doing a lot of Z2 volume.
I’m 20 years old. Male. 194cm, around 71kg (would like to gain some weight, but thats another topic).
How much can I reasonably expect to improve my FTP next year/season?
Following as I’m nearly in the same boat although a bit older (36). I had good gains since I seriously started cycling about 10 months ago (3.0 to 3.7 w/kg), but have probably only averaged around 5-7 hours per week. I’ve been doing structured training since around May.
I’m not sure what to have for reasonable expectations next year. I know increasing my volume to at least 10-12 hrs/wk will have a big boost…
I would think that 30%-40% of your first year gains might be reasonable for a new cyclist. I.e. if you went from 3.0 to 4.0 your first year, going to 4.3 to 4.4 the next year, then continuing to taper off even more so in following years.
That simply cannot be predicted. Too little history. That height to weight ratio is super low tho, coupled with low absolute power output. I’d focus on cheeseburger eating and weight lifting. I say this as a joke but also for real. But not sure how youre going to meaningfully gain muscle mass while riding 16 hours per week. Eating enough quality foods would be disgusting. I’d train less and focus on becoming physically stronger
Some rough back of napkin numbers would say he’s probably burning around 9600 calories/wk cycling, and that body weight is probably another 14000 calories/wk to maintain (or less). That’s around 3400 calories/day to maintain the current weight. To gain about .5kg/wk, would need a surplus of about 500 calories per day, or around 4000 calories/day total.
Cm for height don’t translate in my head to inches like most other metric conversions, and I didn’t notice how tall he is for the weight (nearly same weight as me, but I’m 176cm).
Agree with the overall suggestion to gain weight. I’d start by targeting to gain .5kg/wk for 10 weeks and re-evaluate. Probably get back up to 4 w/kg at that weight, and then shoot for another 2-4kg increase in body weight, re-evaluate/build FTP, etc.
Eating 500-600 calories per hour, every hour on the bike, will make the rest of the eating/weight gaining outside time on the bike easier.
Blend and enjoy between your regular meals. Genuinely delicious and - for me at least - doesn’t blunt the appetite. If you want a thicker (and more carby) version, add 20g of oats before the milk.
My biggest mistake at your age was thinking I needed to cut to see the muscle I was building in the gym.
Forget that. Eat eat eat. Don’t fall down the hole of alcohol consumption as soon as you hit 21.
You’ll find your fitness compared to peers in mid 20’s will be insane. Then get to your 30’s and you’ll feel like you’re way younger than the competition in your age
To directly answer your question, there’s literally no way for anyone to predict that. Simply the combinations of variables that could affect your FTP this time next year are too many to count.
How much you train
How much you eat
How much you sleep
Your life stress
Genetics
previous training history (of any kind, not just cycling)
the quality of your training program
etc
etc
All I can give is my FTP history. When I started ‘training’ cycling I had ridden for maybe 6months to a year. My FTP was something like 215W, by the next year I think it was about 280W, the next year it was 315W. But that was with my life, history, training and genetics. So it’s impossible to use it to predict your outcomes.
As mentioned above there’s a lot of “it depends” but the biggest thing I would recommend is to find a group of like-minded individuals to train with (or maybe a club at college if you are attending) and just go for it. My biggest improvement came during the ages of 23-26 training with elite runners that were beyond my genetic abilities. I didn’t focus on diet, just trained hard (probably too hard) but I found my limits. Those were good times!
