I think where a lot of us are getting stuck is that it directly contradicts personal experience. Unless I’m missing something (very possible), I did exactly what you’re suggesting for three years and hit a plateau. Then this year I prioritized volume heavily and had very significant gains. Volume got me from hovering right around 3.0w/kg up to 3.25w/kg and I think I can get a bit higher than that. My availability took a big hit in early August, or I think I could’ve gotten it up a little bit more, and plan to do so next year.
What kind of time frame exactly are you talking about for your focus on raising FTP and not doing rides longer than 90 minutes? Is that for an indefinite period until FTP is above 3.0w/kg or is it for a set period like 12 or 16 weeks to focus on Sweet Spot type stuff over the winter, then focus more on volume when it’s possible to ride outside?
Because if it’s the first, that just doesn’t fit my experience at all or that of many folks on the forum here. If it’s the second, that’s pretty uncontroversial and I think we’re mostly having a communication problem.
When you did ‘exactly what I suggest’ for 3 years and then hit a plateau, please share with us your w/kg ftp at the beginning and end of that 3 years. Looking for a serious answer
Until you hit a plateau, which from OPs post, doesn’t seem to have occurred. They shared they don’t have an endurance background.
Adapt to your current volume and get all that you can out of it (by maximizing the intensity that your body can meaningfully absorb), then add volume when there aren’t anymore gains to be had. (This is an example of the principle of progressive overload). In other words, crawl to walk, walk to run. Don’t go from A to Z. Make incremental progress (ie make rational decisions on the margin).
There was not enough info given so far in his posts to make any determination of plateau or not. I read this in the first post:
and
I don’t believe there is enough info to make any conclusions.
On your plateau point, I trained crazy hard for 15 months and hit majority of my all-time PRs in the Spring of 2017. During the spring my FTP was between 2.75 to 3.0W/kg and those changes were a result of cutting weight, not gaining raw power. Lets drop the precision and call it 2.8 to 3.0W/kg. By November my FTP fell from 275 to 260, and weight went up 5lbs, and my W/kg was back to 2.8. Fast forward to this year, and on both a raw FTP in W and normalized in W/kg I’m back to 2017 (without the ability to hold ~60-min at FTP and longer stuff).
Here is my current math:
165lbs after graduating from high school when I was considered skinny at 6’ 1"
185lbs a handful of years (1990) after graduating from college and had put on muscle
203lbs when I hit 275 FTP at 3W/kg in 2017, and I have even more muscle now than in 1990
this year my FTP has been between 270-280, right now at ~2.8W/kg and if I held power and dropped to my post-college weight that would give me an normalized 3.2W/kg
Normalized FTP is designed to compare performance of different athletes on climbing events. Its a proxy for “fitness” but really it helps determine relative climbing performance. Somewhat like CTL is a proxy for “fitness” but actually its a measure of training load.
On flat courses and time trials, raw FTP in Watts can be a better predictor of performance although on the flats its more aerodynamic drag per Watt (Cd/W).
I can’t imagine being that small again, I was skinny AF yet had a 42" or 43" chest my senior year in high school. Now I have more lats and pecs and biceps/triceps and unless that was lost, my chest isn’t dropping below 45" which puts me in a 2XL jersey. My neighbor that just passed away at 83 was your size. In the Tour of California I stood next to Sagan and was anti-doping chaperone for TJ VanGarderen. My wife said TJVG looked emaciated and starving and like a skeletor, while you (me) and Sagan looked normal. I think his upper arms were the size of my forearms. You can be offended and call both of us rude and mean. I’m guessing Sagan was about 180lbs. Just a guess. All about 6’ 1".
Last month at Nova Eroica California, standing on top of Cypress Mountain in the CA Central Coast:
Despite my heroic attempts at calorie counting and running calorie deficits while doing 12 hours per week of base miles. I stay stuck at around 200lbs. (57yo)
In my 20s, I’d start riding in the spring and loose 10 pounds in 2-3 months without even trying to lose weight.
I hit my lowest adult weight ever (165lbs) when I was in college in France. I actually majored in riding my bike 200 miles per week and minored in college. The weight loss was really facilitated by not owning a refrigerator and having to eat French dorm food (nothing like the all you can eat dorms in the US).
I’ve hit 190 “in the modern era” (50s) and people started asking if I had cancer and was on chemo Lost a lot of muscle and was skinny fat and a little too gaunt. This time I’m gonna be ripped from swinging kettlebells.
weight lifters think cycling is killing my gains, my friend Walt is 2 years younger and works as a linesman for the local power company. He keeps asking if 7-8 hours/week is killing my testerone and I say no Walt, no issues in that department.
cyclists think weight lifting is killing my gains
I’m just gonna keep doing what I’m doing, which includes dropping some 4W/kg climbers on the flats into a headwind.
Haven’t outlifted Walk yet, but he has been lifting for 40 years and has a day job involving climbing utility poles carrying heavy shit.
Final FWIW, my nephews are in their 20s now. All of them graduated from HS between 5’ 10" and 6’ 1" and all of them either got baseball scholarships (USC, Santa Barbara, Boise State) and one got drafted straight into MLB (the oldest, round 15 Toronto Blue Jays). One of my brother-in-laws got drafted out of high school in the 80s and even got called up for a week and pitched 2/3 of an inning at Fenway Park (1988 or 1989).
All of my nephews were 170-185lbs, and total specimens with no body fat. They were all pitchers.
The one that played for USC just graduated with an MBA from Saint Marys, he pitched for Saint Marys too. I’m the crazy uncle that rode his bike to HS senior night / his last home game. Here I am at 3W/kg / 275W FTP (60+minutes) / 203lbs just two weeks before my double century:
This year, they range from 24-30 years old, when I see them and give them a hug, their upper backs feel like granite. Literally it feels like I’m hugging a slab of granite. They all weigh more than 180lbs and look ripped.
Getting back to the point of the thread… I tried to do GFNY this year (85miles / 6000ft) being 51/m, 210W FTP, 240 lbs (108 kg), 1.95W/kg. Heavier than you, less power available. Blew myself up, made it about 45 miles and had to get a ride home. So I know exactly where you’re coming from on this.
Basically, yes… you overestimated your ability. But it’s a simple fix.
Gearing does matter and wouldn’t be a miracle cure, but would definitely help! Sounds like you’re running SRAM 12-speed? Those don’t seem to shift well with Rotor or other cassettes that have easier big gears, so probably the 10-36 cassette you have is the best choice at the rear. Changing your chainrings from 48/35 to the 43/30 wide is the best choice available from SRAM and would make a VERY real difference… you’ll have to weigh the cost/benefit on that one. But don’t sweat the spinning-out-at-high-speed part: that’ll be a few minutes, whereas climbs will have you in your easiest gear for HOURS.
Nutrition is vital. Try the Saturday app, and read through the Saturday app thread. Failing that, at least work your way up to about 80-90g of carbs per hour, maybe 100g, and MAKE SURE you ingest it. You simply cannot do this kind of event on 50-60g/hr.
Hydration deserves its own point. Dehydration can make every other thing worse: you’ll bonk sooner, fade more easily, cramp more quickly, and so on. Make sure you’re drinking 800-900ml of water per hour from the start of the race.
Last and probably most important, pacing. For an event that long, at the edge of (or beyond) your endurance envelope, make sure the whole thing is Z2 except for the climbs, and the climbs shouldn’t be at anything above sweet-spot power… ideally less! Fatigue and endurance drops exponentially faster as you ratchet up the power. Don’t underestimate this.
Be kind to yourself. Remember that a lot of training and “doing events for fun” is trial and error. Mistakes and “bad” results are fine along the way, and you’ve clearly learned a lot and improved a lot so far. My “failed” GFNY taught me (between the prep for it, and the learning after it) all the things I’m mentioning here.
You can improve power or reduce weight. Train for more power (if you can add another 10-15W to your FTP the climbs will be easier to do at lower effort), and approach weight loss with a very light touch so you don’t lose muscle and fitness. Make sure you’re getting enough protein. And remember that either more power, or less weight, or both, may be hard and you may make very little progress. That’s a possibility. Accept it and enjoy the process and the journey anyway.
I know all of this has already been said, but it bears repeating.
Oh hi there, 97 kilo, ~260 FTP rider here. Yeah, climbing sucks. I like the Garmin pace pro strategies the most. If I hold the watts they want on many climbs I’ll be going backwards
Seriously though, a huge win I had this year was finishing the Lumber Jack 100 under cut off for the first time. I did two things that I never have for the race.
1.) All liquid nutrition via Infinit at ~80 grams of carbs per hour pretty religiously for 11.5 hours. I mean I had a couple pringles in the pits just mindlessly between laps, but 99% of my nutrition was from a custom Infinit mix. Very minimal cramping or bonking.
2.) Put a power meter on my MTB and did my best to keep it under 300 watts all day.
Main difference in training the winter of last year compared to others was low volume, but added a lot of cross training. Running, snowshoeing, Z1-2 fatbike adventures, whatever got me outside. Came out of the winter at 260 watts when I’m usually 230.
I’ve got some big goals for 2024 so I either have to lose some weight or gain some power. Going to try a little of both. Would love to be 90kilos and closer to 300 watts by spring. I guess we’ll see. I do like beer a lot
I get the frustration of this happening as ive been there in the past.
I wonder do you go out on you’re local smash ride or drop rides?
As i find it hard coming from the turbo/plan where your garmin/ ipad tell you whats coming i can mentally prep for the surges etc but the first few drop rides of the year i find mentally tough following wheels and moves.
Reading some of youre posts you are in it for the long haul. This should just give you more motivation to train more or harder and get into them next year
As soon as I read PA I thought, not quite mountains but more than hills.
At your BW & power profile any >1mi >7% gravel climb is going to be tough but I think you’ve got the correct approach…build endurance, drop BW. I spent more than a decade competing as a strength athlete & once famously struggled to make weight as a 120 competitor. Kilos, I mean, not lbs. So I can assure you the difference between doing those climbs at 204lbs and 184lbs is going to be so, so fun for you to experience.
For me, the big thing I did was Zone 2 before Zone 2 was cool. I worked up to where I was doing a hundo every week & never letting my HR stray above 135 (out of 190) beats per minute. Then weekdays I would ride my bike to work & hit hills on the way home. Hills, hills, hills. That slowly, slowly destroyed all those fast twitch fibers and re-built them as slow twitch.
I wonder do you go out on you’re local smash ride or drop rides?
As i find it hard coming from the turbo/plan where your garmin/ ipad tell you whats coming i can mentally prep for the surges etc but the first few drop rides of the year i find mentally tough following wheels and moves.
Yeah, this is where I struggle - both from actually attending drop rides and keeping pace when it gets to the rolling hills/climbs. With family commitments, I really only have mornings and weekends and most of the rides are weeknights. When I am able to attend, I join the B group (A is usually 21-22mph, B+ 20mph and B is 18-19) because once the hills start coming, I will usually need to hit high 300watts+or so to keep pace. Which I can do for short periods…but if the hills keep coming or its an extended climb, I get dropped.
Being in that I only seriously started cycling in 2021, there is a mental aspect too - I tend to think I give up too easily instead of pushing through the pain.
Hanging on is probably less mental than you think. I mean, if the competition young guys with 300+ FTPs, think about them going up those hills at threshold or below while you are having to go above threshold on every roller.
Lost a lot of muscle and was skinny fat and a little too gaunt. This time I’m gonna be ripped from swinging kettlebells.
