I know I’m just beating the “more volume” drum again, but that’s likely what it would take to see significant increases at this point. Your training looks smart and it’s great to continue tweaking the approach to keep finding a few more watts, but at some point volume is probably needed for significant additional gains. It sounds like more volume doesn’t work for your current lifestyle and obligations (or maybe desires), but there are likely gains to be had if you ever decide to pursue them.
For many years, I put in ~350 hours and my FTP would peak around 285 during the season, maybe hit 290 a couple years. In 2019, kids were away at college and I was travelling less for work. The extra time on my hands translated to more training. I’ve been at around 550 hours per year since then and my FTP peaks around 305 and has been up around 315 (probably more like 320 in 2020 when I trained over 600 hours, but I hated doing ramp tests). It wasn’t until I was in my 50’s with some extra time that I was able to significantly break out of the ~285 range. I just retired last year and I am looking to add more volume this year to see what happens. At my age, it’s a win to just keep up with prior year numbers, but maybe I still have some watts to find.
I totally get that not everyone has the time or desire to put in a bunch of hours. Is an extra 200 hours of training per year worth an extra 20 watts? For me, I love riding/training and racing my bike, so the hours are fun and the extra watts are a bonus. And my ~550 hours per year isn’t really high volume compared to what many strong riders are doing. I’m lucky to crack the top 5 for weekly mileage on our club’s weekly mileage stats, some of them are doing over 800 hours a year (often the gals putting in huge hours, a few of them are pretty elite amateurs).
Biggest week I’ve done was 753 TSS, 13 hours 31 mins, that was with 2 TR workouts which I got power PRs within, commuting 5 days in a row by bike and one big ~6 hour group ride on the Sunday.
In the past I’ve found myself doing Z2 work that is too low in order to recover during 6-8 hour weeks but still get my hours in, so was doing a lot of workouts like Avallanos and Watchung with avg HR around 100. When I was talking to a coach (who declined working with me said he wasn’t going to have enough time this season due to other obligations) he pointed that out, that I was spending 2.5-3 hours a week doing active recovery rather than Z2 (that was intentional) but he suggested increasing the intensity of those rides, so now I’ve been doing stuff like Epaulet and McDonald instead, which has put my avg HR 116-124 looking at a few, so maybe a bit more productive and with wattages for these workouts ~20 watts higher on avg than last fall’s Z2 workouts.
I think eventually I would like to get to something like x1 VO2 or Anaerobic (depending on training phase) 1h15 to 1h30, x1 SS or Threshold 1h to 1h30 ( alot of the SS90 workouts are 1 hour), 2x 1h30 low Z2, x1 3h to 3h30 progressive Z2 (progressing my Z2 PL, this week is Marsh).
That would be ~9h30 best case, ~8 hours worst case, which would be a progression of volume for me.
Once I get back to commuting by bike, thats roughly 6.5 hours alone, with that I would ditch the x2 low Z2 but still do the 2 intensity workouts and the long Z2 on the weekend if not racing. That would be around 11.75 hours per week but the commuting efforts will be messy and not sustained in specific pwoer zones so kind of junk miles in comparison to TR workouts.
I’m not sure if I can progress in volume any more than that without getting back into burn out this year.
My experience, you don’t burn out from volume, but rather intensity. I have doubled my TSS and have worked myself up to regular 1000+ TSS weeks. I never get burned out. I just get fatigued. As soon as I start workouts over FTP, that’s where I have to be careful and really manage my workouts.
What adaptations that affect FTP are elicited by “specificity” that are not stimulated by endurance only riding?
I saw my 5 minute power increase from 4.1w/kg to 4.5w/kg Between January 2023 and July 2023, yet I only did 5 VO2Max workouts in that period. No matter what training blocks I’ve done my fractional utilisation is always 80% give or take 1%
I did nothing, literally nothing until my 34s. Then I discovered cycling and have been training since. I’m 42 now and I’m about 4.0w/kg 4.3 being a peak.
I think the “secret” is consistency. I’ve been always riding since started. Coach, no coach, TR, self-coach. But always riding minimon 8hr/wk.
Started structured training in 2022 when I got the idea I wanted to race Leadville. Signed up for Zwift, followed by TR soon after. I wasn’t a rookie on a bike, but with no “real” endurance training background of any sort started @ 3w / kg.
TR LV took me to ~3.6 in a year. Started working with a coach (KB) early 2023. Volume was 500-600 hours last year, peaked at an 18hr week. Made it to right around 4w/kg by early summer, raced Leadville, took some time off, then did the entire fall with Endurance, Tempo, and Sweet spot building back up to 12-14 hour weeks. Put on 10W between August and the end of the year with the only “intensity” being some SST and mostly endurance / tempo volume.
Small bump in the road with Covid right after New Years, but currently probably sitting at 4.2 w/kg ish coming out of base (just finished a dedicated VO2 block but in a rest week and haven’t tested again) and getting ready to start steadily increasing volume again.
46 years old mid-pack amateur right now, full time desk job, but no kids and do get to work from home 3-4 days a week. My experience is both consistency and volume matter. I have needed longer and longer to recover from real intensity, but can pile on the volume pretty good.
“I’m not as good as I once was, but I’m as good once as I ever was…”
y’all ride a lot. I looked back at my history and I’ve averaged about 250 to at most low 300 hours per year over last decade. At my 4.5 w/kg peak in my 20s I was training ~15 hours a week as a triathlete, but the riding part of that was still less than 10 hours.
I turn 40 this year, so I expect a lot will continue to change with age as I can tolerate less intensity and need to add volume as a result, but given there’s some big numbers out there I’m throwing out an n=1 counterpoint.
LV ~5ish hours a week allows me to hit 4 w/kg at 6K feet of elevation, so I suppose a bit over if I used a sea level equivalent, but requires high adherence to plan. If I start adding in extra sessions to increase volume, I’ve gotten slower in the last 2-3 years rather than faster. I think that’s just tripping the age threshold of how much intensity I can recover from.
I think I could break through my ceiling proper volume and less intensity, but ain’t gonna happen for at least another decade given age of kids and other commitments.
The biggest change for me as a cyclist was when I stopped doing tri’s, but kept my volume pretty consistent.
I had raced on the road for ~20 years before taking up triathlon and was a decent, mid-pack Cat. 3. At the time, I thought 150 miles was a “big” week.
Once I started moving up to half and full distance tri’s, I learned a lot about scheduling volume out of sheer necessity.
When I stopped tri’s in 2018, I kept my volume but put it all on the bike and my fitness took off. It was noticeable and all my riding buddies were asking what changed.
Volume remains the single, best way to increase your fitness, especially if you are a newbie.
I did nothing special activity wise until I was around 26 and then I started cycling to work and that gradually morphed to include leisure. When I was around 32 I bought my first roadbike and joined a club shortly after then another club around 35. It would have been interesting to see what my FTP was in my late 30s, although I never had a PM. Although other than volume I’d been doing nothing specific so it maybe wasn’t that high. That volume did give me a good base I think for when I did start structured training at circa 40 and got a PM a year later. I forget the numbers/ dates but I think I topped out at circa 5w/kg. Then bang! Everyone (including me) wrongly thought it was overtraining but it was actually bowel cancer which I stupidly pressed on against for a year. On hindsight (that wonderful thing ) the signs were there, just not frequent enough to trigger alarm bells (sore or swollen stomachs and tiredness). A simple Bloodtest for iron a year later put the docs on the track to finding the cancer, if I had done that at the start it probably could have been a simple procedure and not a major op. When I was back on the bike again and 3kg lighter (the tumour/ removed colon) without muscle loss, I was around 4w/kg and once chemo was finished I had the motivation to push it briefly up to 5w/kg (lockdown helped with adding regular volume). Now at 48, I’ve kinda lost my motivation for pushing too hard or through harsh conditions (the nerve damage from the chemo makes the latter too unpleasant) and have ended up at circa 4w/kg. It probably would have fallen sooner but I still do a reasonable volume of cycling, IME that (volume) is what it takes to get to 4w/kg.
That’s your threshold and will be specific to you. There will be people older than you who will handle more intensity just fine. We are all on different trajectories.
My problem is I’m in meetings where I’m expected to talk for 90% of the day so I couldn’t swing it. I can get in an occasional ride if there’s an employee all hands webcast or something but that’s like once a quarter.
My equivalent of this is that I have a standing desk and walking pad / treadmill setup so I typically walk 15-20k steps a day while working. I should have mentioned that in my ‘I’ve lost 15 pounds over the last few months’ comments above as it’s probably been a big component. I don’t know if it has any tangential benefit on aerobic base, but I think it might.
On the weight side I’m 6’even and was 175 before, 160 now. So wasn’t particularly big before, but I was ~7% bodyfat in my triathlon days vs closer to 20% when I was at 175.
Yeah, talking and video meetings definitely don’t work unless it’s with my coach, but nobody else really would want to talk to me while I’m on the bike. But they way I look at it (for me anyways) is I have to make time to answer emails, clean out my inbox, etc.
I’ll frequently start work 6-7 AM, work through the morning then block 2 hours on my calendar 11-1 and get a recovery / endurance ride in while I clean out the inbox, and leave myself time for a quick shower and lunch and back for the afternoon.
If I have to ride tempo or higher, using the computer starts to become too much of a pain for me, so I’ll check in quickly, but generally then I’m starting to watch a movie, listen to a podcast, music, etc. - while just monitoring my phone and keeping the time blocked because I started work early.
Again, I’ve got the “No Kids” cheat code going for me…
Yeah obviously the walking treadmill doesn’t have the specificity of the bike but I take video meetings while walking all day and just have to explain to people very occasionally why I’m slowly bobbing along in the frame. It was a little awkward at first, but people get over it. On the bike work zoom would be a whole other level ha.
)
) the signs were there, just not frequent enough to trigger alarm bells (sore or swollen stomachs and tiredness). A simple Bloodtest for iron a year later put the docs on the track to finding the cancer, if I had done that at the start it probably could have been a simple procedure and not a major op. When I was back on the bike again and 3kg lighter (the tumour/ removed colon) without muscle loss, I was around 4w/kg and once chemo was finished I had the motivation to push it briefly up to 5w/kg (lockdown helped with adding regular volume). Now at 48, I’ve kinda lost my motivation for pushing too hard or through harsh conditions (the nerve damage from the chemo makes the latter too unpleasant) and have ended up at circa 4w/kg. It probably would have fallen sooner but I still do a reasonable volume of cycling, IME that (volume) is what it takes to get to 4w/kg.