HI everyone, I’m Alex, I am in my 3rd year of serious riding (no racing in the past or on the horizon). I’ve raised my FTP from 196 to 268w over the course of 2 years with no training but just riding solo and in groups. January 1 2019 I started on my TR journey to 300w FTP that I’m hoping to achieve by the end of the plan May 22 2019. I’ve already made some mistakes, dove right into medium volume and overdid it on the weekly TSS so am stepping back to low volume for SSB2 and general build, with an extra 2 hours of recovery riding at 50-60% FTP. I have also made some healthier choices this year, totally gave up my nicottine consumption (was mostly vaping), but am still enjoying a few drinks a week, and regular THC consumption as I’ve done for the past 10 years. Here are some of my 2018 stats, I am fairly happy with everything except my 20 min power which I think was partly limited by my constant vaping.
If you had to give me one tip for nutrition, training, etc. what would it be? What discoveries have you made in your journies that may help me? I don’t really know why I’m doing this because I’m not a racer (I think most here are) but I just want to see how far i can push myself and ride with the next level of fast locals.
Seriously though don’t overthink it and FTP (follow the plan). Or FTFP as a favorite coach of mine says! Coach Chad has taken most of the need to overthink a plan out of the equation. I see new people just all over the place with fit, nutrition, rest techniques, equipment etc…always changing or chasing something never being consistent and allowing enough time to see how the change affects performance.
+1 for consistency. Follow the plan and do the workouts required. For me, its better to complete them all at a slightly lower intensity that it is to nail one day and then skip the next because you’re tired (a.k.a. consistency!).
I recently realized that riding outside with friends won’t take me where I want to go, from cat-4 to winning in cat-3 CX races. So I started doing workouts prior to riding outside. That’s my advice related to “consistency”.
Fuel your intense workouts and get calories in immediately post workout. 200-300 calories within 20-30min helps kickstart the recovery process by switching your metabolism from catabolic (breaking down) to anabolic (building up).
As said above- consistency. For people starting off especially then nearly any training plan will work. Don’t worry too much about the details but consistent training is key. The best training plan is one you stick to!
Work out how many hours you realistically have to train then choose a training plan that fits, rather than choosing a training plan you think you should do, then getting frustrated because you haven’t got enough free time.
Your link doesn’t work, seems to be blocked. For me anyway.
All else (sleep, age, nutrition, work stress, etc) being equal, the right mix of training to stimulate improvement basically depends a lot on volume. The lower the volume you’re doing, the more intensity you need to incorporate to get sufficient training stimulus to improve or maintain fitness. 4-6 hours/week isn’t that much, and if you spend 4-5 of them in Z2 I honestly think you’re more likely to decline than improve. Also worth pointing out everybody uses different zones, what the article calls Z1 is Z2 on the TR scale.
If you’ve done a couple of years of consistently training at 4-6 hours/week then it’s no surprise that you’ve plateaued. And you’ve done so at a reasonably high level. Given limited volume I suspect further fitness gains might be few and far between, especially if your nutrition and sleep is already in a good place. I would focus more on how you can specialise to get the most out of that fitness. E.g. extending your TTE to be a good time triallist, or working on short power for crits.
