Fat on the flats is just bulking for power.
Yeah, non-draft exclusively for me.
I’m certainly happy to hear your experiences! If I remember right, your bike is a pretty aggressive setup too. Zwift racing is probably skewing my perspective. It does seem like everyone can hold 4.5w in Zwift, but there’s obviously a strong self-selection bias (letting alone weight doping etc.)
At 70-72kg, I feel like if I could get to a real 300 ftp, I would be preeeeeetty damn happy for the medium term. Obviously that 4.5-4.75 pipe dream is always dangling out there, but 300 would make me pretty content. Even 280.
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It’s all relative, but I think it was extremely well setup for the times I was throwing down, except I was having some neck/shoulder issues. I have since swapped bikes and I think I have a better setup for long course; tbh not sure if my setup is faster now, but I think it looks way faster now for sure lol. Try using a road bike on zwift, you will see an extra .2-.3 w/kg pop out. There is no way i can hit the watts I hit out of aero in aero, but if I rode like that I would 100% be way slower.
Remember, total FTP is one thing, but sustainable FTP in aero is another, and Watts/CdA is really what matters unless you are climbing. I think if you want to be a top AGer, you have to be capable of holding an FTP of +280 watts in aero (in a good position) and have a low CdA. However, what you can sustain is different than what you can race at, and if you cant run after the bike you are straight fuc*ed. Ride for show run for dough
Repeatability is the sign of true conditioning. I admire that more than power, and it is more functional.
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I think the sentiment is great but the math doesn’t really support this. I had this conversation with a coach years ago and he said the most “functional” thing you can do is raise your FTP. I was happy with my FTP and wanted to just improve my ability to hold it longer and longer. He said, " well then, we should raise your FTP!" Hah!
A guy with a 400 watt FTP that can ride at 90% for 2 hours is stronger than the guy with the 350 FTP that can ride at 99% for 2 hours. Just an example but the logic is there.
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Certainly makes sense. And I would like higher FTP, thank you 
Same time, defining strength depends on your goal: during 2 week bike hike daily repeatability becomes really important and being faster than mates doesn’t provide much advantage for group as whole.
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So looking at my power numbers, I’m pretty good in short sprint stuff (5s, 15s), but anything beyond 5m is pretty dismal. Should I be focusing on longer SS/Threshold intervals? I pretty much only race cyclocross at the moment, and that training favors stuff I’m already better at. Wondering if trying to raise my endurance power numbers would be a bigger benefit for cross. With plan builder, I’m doing Short Power Build and Cyclocross specialty, but wondering if General Build, or even Sustained Power Build would be better.
Also, funny side note. I had to change the settings for power spikes because according to the model, it wasn’t counting my sprint numbers as legit, and was excluding them.
This maybe helpful:
Better aerobic system gives you more power you can utilize at the end of the race. On the other hand- quite impressive short power numbers 
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From the article:
For all-rounders and aerobically strong cyclists whose goal races are criteriums or cyclocross, I program three weeks of true HIIT and RSA-focused training before their first race, and no more. This seems to be the balance point between increasing anaerobic and sprint power without sacrificing the aerobic ability needed to support repeated sprints. For the more natural sprint and anaerobic cyclists, I suggest even less criterium specific training.
I guess that answers my question. I think I may change the Short Power Build to Sustained Power Build and see how it treats me. And probably swap some of the Cyclocross plan workouts for SS intervals during the week (assuming probably incorrectly that we will race at all this year).
And being truthful to myself, it makes sense my endurance power numbers are bad because I loathe SS/Threshold work.
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All jokes aside, I think the article linked is good advice in your case.
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Haha, I actually LOL’d at this. At 6’3", 185 pounds, all I know is I wasn’t a born climber.
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Yea, I’m going to focus on longer SS/Threshold stuff for the next phase, see how it works out.
Maybe I am writing that only from my personal experience but in my opinion Sustained Power Build is not a great plan (it was not in my case). It is very taxing and gains were marginal. I tried only threshold and SS workouts and the gains were more substantial. I put little post about threshold riding here.
I have improved my aerobic side, endurance and FTP a lot. Try longer threshold 2x a week or SS 3x week +Z2 rides. But as I said - this is only my experience, but I believe that doing 3x20 at threshold or even SS gives you more than 5x8 min supra-threshold an it leaves you feeling a lot better. What is also nice - aerobic conditiong will help you massively with those efforts around 5 minutes and even VO2 max so for you it is win-win
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Thanks for the info. From your other post, it made me think about a few things. I don’t think I’ve ever done a SS/Threshold interval longer than 15 minutes (probably explains some things). I really dislike SS/Threshold. Maybe my FTP is too high, I don’t know. But SS/Threshold is difficult for me. I could probably experiment with some things and make my own build plan of sorts.
You may not need really long SS/threshold intervals to get a strong stimulus. My question is how much time do you spend doing for zone2/ aerobic endurance?
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Not a ton. I’m at around 6-7 hours/wk total, with probably 2-3 of that doing Z2 work. If there’s anything I dislike more than Threshold, it’s indoor Z2. Weather is finally warming up where I live so I’ve been able to ride outside, so my Z2 hours should go up. I just get really bored doing indoor endurance rides.
Same here, and all I can say is that doing more z2 resulted in a big bump to both short power (up to 5 min) and long power. Similar short power but my 5-sec is more like 1100 and I’m nearing 60. Going to double down on weight training this fall, the neuromuscular part is fairly solid.
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My 2 cents.
I had the exact same issue. I’m very much a fast twitch athlete. Great sprint to 1min power. Terrible at longer efforts.
I just spent 7 weeks doing basically just Z1/Z2. 3hrs a day, 6 days a week, during our lockdown. All outside. Zero chance I could do that indoors. I’d have died of boredom.
Funnily enough, everything improved, so much so I thought my power meter was broken. I literally went from years of stagnation to rapid improvement.
For fast twitch athletes long slow distance is, in my opinion, the single best system for building your aerobic fitness. As I now understand, time crunched sweet spot training really suits athletes with mid to higher slow twitch fiber content. This sort of training beats up fast twitch athletes and on 8 to 10hrs a week, it very rapidly leads to a plateau.
What us fast twitchers need is DRAMATICALLY increased hours, nearly all of it at low intensity. The more the better. I rode around for weeks religiously sticking to the intensity discipline. It took maybe a full 5 weeks till I noticed a change. It was actually quite sudden. I was suddenly holding much higher wattage at low HR. I’d become more efficient.
A very significant portion of this LSD training was totally fasted or 2hrs of Z2 riding, then some carbs and a final hour at closer to tempo power.
Summing up. If you’re well trained and have been for multiple years, you either need to increase intensity or duration. If you’re fast twitch, more intensity will just lead to a short peak then the inevitable collapse. If you really do want to improve, do whatever it takes to find more available time, then build a proper aerobic base.
I wish someone had really drummed this into me at the beginning of my cycling journey.
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I was similar, but lots of outdoor solo riding with COVID shutdowns locally had me doing hard efforts of ~1hr solo instead of swapping turns in a paceline
i feel like ive come out of it stronger overall. Group rides are back on for us in AU and im struggling with higher end power after not doing any for a while, but that will come back, and i think it will come back better than it was
long z2 rides would be a great option too. I dont have the discipline to sit at that kind of pace, it frustrates me, something i need to work on
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