Ive been using TR for some time now. I usually make a plan, do it, and then load another. I don’t race or have events but use TR to train for improvement in power/speed/fitness. For my first year I kept doing "Improve FTP” plans usually on Demanding. Then I got into Zwift integration and wanted to get into Zwift racing. About to finish 3 month Zwift Racing Plan on Demanding. Not to get into the AI FTP debate that has been going nuts, but my FTP has been going down despite nailing the workouts.
So I am looking into my power records and see my 5s power is down 16 watts, 1m power stable, 5-10min power is up, 60 min down. Seems a bit all over the place. I would have hoped my 5 sec power would be up in a Zwift Racing plan, right? It focuses on sprinting power?
My rider type is “Climber” and always has been, but my goals are to get stronger FTP and also get faster and into Zwift racing. It doesnt seem like this plan is doing me EITHER of those two.
What advice would you give me overall and in choosing my next plan?
Have you been racing at all in Zwift? If not I could see your 5 second power being “down” if you haven’t given an all out effort to the line in Zwift.
Other thing is if you haven’t had any downtime off the bike you may be reaching a plateau. Don’t know what your training year looks like but sometimes need to deload to get stronger.
From the Powers records chart at the bottom, it looks like you made solid progress from 2024 to 2025 and you are reinforcing it already in 2026. I wouldn’t worry about over analysing slight fluctuations in your power profile at this time in the season. Good work
FWIW Ive got bigger fluctuation in my power profile, which is probably because I’ve not had to do anything yet like a max sprint.
On my last TR plan I did one day a week Zwift racing. On this plan I stopped racing to focus on the TR plan with the goal of moving on to some races after I finish this plan. I haven’t de loaded in the sense of a total break. usually I do the last week of low volume endurance that TR gives you, maybe take a few days totally off, then get back into a plan where the first week of base is low volume. Do you think I just need to take a few weeks totally off?
Just specifically on the 5 sec power thing, I wouldn’t worry too much about that from a “why haven’t I seen it go up from my training plan” perspective. If you really want to know your 5s, I’d do a nice warm up and then just do a couple 10s sprints. Maybe take a few minutes off to recover, and then do it again. See if you can’t PR from that. I know I usually can get close or set a new one. Don’t use erg. Just go ALL OUT.
If you haven’t had a legit week off the bike in 9 months it probably wouldn’t hurt to take a week or two. Especially if you aren’t racing and tied to a specific goal race since this is kind of typical base season. It may help.
I know you’ve posted your calendar before but it may not hurt to make sure you are running check volume on a monthly basis. Could be room for improvement there after the time off.
Could also be something with doing shorter plans instead of a longer, full 6 month base, build, specialty progression.
Clearly you are stronger in 2026 vs 2025, your power records are already higher from 3.5min through 45min despite looking at records generated from the last 1.5 months of rides, against the records generated from 12 months of riding in 2025.
You say “my 5s power is down 16 watts, 1m power stable, 5-10min power is up, 60 min down. Seems a bit all over the place.”
”its all over the place” because it is only looking at a small subset of data. Have you put out max efforts at all time intervals yet? unlikely.
Is it likely however that over the 12 months of 2025 that you put out a max efforts at more of the time intervals creating a smoother power profile.
If you are stronger 3.5min through 45min, you are also highly likely to be stronger at 2 minutes and at 1 hr etc.
One way to re-look at this is to create custom time periods. Make one that covers the last 6 months and compare this to the 6 months before that. This will be better than comparing a 7 week power curve to a 12 month curve.
The other way is to jump on zwift, pick a flat route and do a TT for 1 hr, I bet that you could hold around 240w average and pull the 2026 line up at the hour point to above your best 2025 effort. Or do a route that warms you up before a hill climb, then hammer up it to pull up the curve at one of the short time intervals.
Thanks for your advice. I haven’t done any TT on Zwift or TT type training. Would that be just a flat 1 hr sustained power trying to go as fast/far as you can for 1 hour?
Its just a test to see what the best power is that you can do over a chosen time period. This will fill in the power curve so you can truly see where you are at, relative to 2025.
You can see from your power records that your best 2025 power for 60 minutes was 226.
If it was me and I wanted to know what my current 60 minute power was, id ride at say 230/240w for 45minutes, then if I was still feeling good, up the effort for the final 15min to see if I have improved over 2025 or not.
For any of this type training focused on testing power against time, I would personally either go outside or do it in Zwift. If you have Zwift, that’s your best bet for simplicity because you don’t have to worry about traffic and stops/lights, and if you’re doing longer efforts, you have the scenery to distract you. Put on your favorite music, turn it up loud, and smash it! On the other hand, if you have good places to do your sprints outdoors, a lot of people report feeling stronger outside.
If you don’t have a good outdoor location and don’t use Zwift, you could always just smash out some short sprints during an endurance ride on TR. Just turn off erg and go hard.
Took me quite a while to find this spot. But I clicked Check Volume and all it does is take me half way through a Plan Builder which I cannot even tell if it is planning my next plan or editing my current one. But it certainly doesnt show or “check” any sort of current or past volumes
