I have a race the Fuji Hill Climb in about 4 weeks time, and I’m trying to at least get close to 4W/kg before the big day.
However, I’ve always been on the heavier side, 180cm 83kg 24% body fat. That would require an FTP of 320W which is definitely not happening in time. I’ve decided to try and cut some of the excess fat and I’ve gone from 83 => 77kg while trying to maintain roughly 1000kcal deficit per day.
Unfortunately, FTP on the ramp test has become stagnant at 265W and won’t budge even after a 6 week block of climbing specialty. The adaptive training is recommending another block of SSB for these next for weeks, which is probably not right if I want to boost my race performance.
So what should I do?
I think a more realistic goal for 4 weeks is +10w and -1kg.
-1000kCal per day is very aggressive. You may end up losing fitness.
How long did it take you to go from 83 down to 77kg? Are you consuming carbs?
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I started the cutting on April 23rd, so dropping roughly 1 to 1.5kg a week at the moment.
I’m consuming some carbs. Not a whole lot because that would put me over the calorie limit very quickly.
Maybe I’m going too hard on the diet and I’m already lucky I haven’t lost any ftp so far.
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Would definitely slow it down. Better for you in the long run.
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Couple of things. No matter how hard you try, you’re not going to get close to 4w/kg in 4 weeks.
I can only see this going two ways. You keep going down in weight like you’re doing now and lose another couple of kilos, but you won’t go up in strength/ftp, you’re even running the risk of losing power. You stop losing weight and go to a calorie balance and for sure will gain some watts, but not lose any weight.
About your training schedule. A specialty phase isn’t designed to give a big boost in fitness, it’s made to specify your fitness towards your goal. You should be happy to have remained at your FTP with a 1000cal deficit. What I would suggest is a block of sustained power build with sessions aimed at increasing your time at threshold.
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This looks like a really cool event, I just had a look at the segment on veloviewer and it’s going to be a tough 90 minutes for sure!
I agree with what the others have said already - your FTP stagnated as you don’t really fuel for development. It is possible to loose weight and increase FTP but not at a pace you’ve done it. It did get you to 77kg so that’s pretty impressive already - time to lock in that cut and stop the deficit.
You’ve got 4 weeks so now it’s time to either try to push your FTP up a bit or increase the time to exhaustion. Just out of curiosity I ran a hypothetical scenario for your height/weight on that segment. You will go faster on that climb averaging 240W at 77kg than 230W at 74kg.
240W would be a very ambitious IF of 0.9 but you might get there, good luck!
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Thanks so much guys. Looks like I should lock in my weight reduction now and see what I can do with boosting fitness until the day of the race via a short stint of sustained power build.
You get a bronze head tube spacer if you manage to make it to the top in under 90 minutes, which translates to roughly 3W/kg for 90minutes. Hopefully, I can make it with time to spare!
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