Lowering FTP for endurance work

I started riding almost 2 years ago and I have bought a kickr 6 months ago and mainly focused my training on strength to improve my FTP but 2 weeks ago I started doing endurance work and can’t seem to finish the workouts so I lowered my FTP and I was still struggling then I decided to take a rest week and yesterday failed again so now I have lowered it again. My FTP gone up from 180 to 280 in a short time so is it just the case that my endurance muscles didn’t develop at the same pace or do I have a diffrent problem?

I feel like I know the answer but just need to hear it from someone else😂

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How long are your endurance rides and which ones did you try. Some are very easy like Pettit. Can’t imagine someone doesn’t complete those. How long did you recover and what makes you stop? Is the lung burning or the muscle shutting down?

I would guess it’s some combo of lack of endurance, insufficient nutrition or simply getting (mentally and physically) used to riding along at a steady effort for a long time which requires a different focus to doing short intervals with regular rest intervals.

How long are the endurance rides you’ve been doing? And what were the longest rides you were regularly doing before that? Are you eating before or during workouts? What kind of “struggle” is it? Are things just getting uncomfortable and you don’t want to carry on? Heart rate not that high but feels like you’re running on empty? Heart rate getting higher and higher until you blow?

First I failed Galena but I already lowered my FTP on that day just before I started the workout. Thats when I decided to take the week off cause I know I had hard 5 weeks before that. So yesterday I had Stevens +3 I thought ok rested legs I can do this but my muscles are still failing. This morning I changed my FTP to 260 so will know by this afternoon if it is more manageable now. I know its not the easiest of workouts to complete but I have wondered if it is that I also reached a plateau of how far I can push myself while I’m alone and needs to ride more outdoors with others again for a while?

It must be lack of endurance, my muscles is shutting down when I have to go longer then 5 min on a interval now. Basically all my workouts was on TR so it’s anything in between 45min and 1h 30min. I usually start to bomb out at 45min -50min now. Its just getting to uncomfortable and I can’t go on

Both of those workouts are about muscular endurance rather than endurance (3x20 at 94% and 5x5 at 105%) hence people mentioning workouts like Pettit. Maybe try selecting threshold and sweetspot repeats with shorter intervals but the same intensity. Gradually build up the intervals to be longer at those levels of FTP.

If you’ve only come to training with power relatively recently then those workouts are at the more demanding end of things, espeically if you’ve quickly bumped up your FTP. Something like Sanford might give you a good baseline to start from. Similarly Mount Wood for a sweetspot effort.

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Thanks for the advice, I found a spot for those 2 workouts and believe they are way more do able then the once I have taken out.

Stevens +3 isn’t an endurance workout but more of a threshold workout.
You say your FTP jumped quite quickly from 180 - 280, that’s a lot, are you sure it’s measured correctly? What are you using to measure power?

First off, I would take an FTP test so you know where you’re currently at, rather than guessing and then start looking at some sort of training plan depending on your goals. You might be at a stage where it’s too early to start performing threshold workouts but without knowing your training history it’s hard to know for sure.

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How have you been measuring your power?

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I have the kickr snap smart trainer and I calibrate it everytime before I get on the bike. I would agree that it may be to soon for me to do that kind of threshold excercises thats why I said in the beginning I think I know the answer to my quistions I just need to hear it from someone else.

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Yes, they’re pretty full on workouts you’ve got there. I’d get on the SSB1 low or medium volume plan and just follow the instructions. Allow Trainer road to work it’s magic. It won’t ask you to do what you can’t handle. It’s like magic!

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