Hello, I have been training for road cycling for 3 months now. Also, I am new to the sport. I was a sedentary male for 5 years before I started training (used to play football). I am quite obsessed with cycling right now and can’t shake feeling that my improvements are not much as if I were genuinely talented. I am 22 and started with 173 FTP on my ramp test 3 months ago. Now I sit on 207 watts according to the FTP detection which I find spot on. I wanted to ask what should I expect from these couple of months. My FTP prediction is 224 by next month. I feel like gaining 34 watts in 3 months for a newbie is less than average. Any comments or suggestions?
30+w in 3 months is completely fine for someone new to the sport.
Sure there exist genetic outliers that start in the 300s but those are fractions of a % and not worth thinking about.
The improvements you have already had are very good.
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You’re going great. Consider going to 3 hard interval workouts per week after your next block.
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Heck, why not go straight to the Hickson protocol?
I wouldn’t increase intensity sessions before maximizing volume and plateauing. There is a good amount of evidence showing more than 2 sessions has quickly diminishing returns.
Looks great to be you 
Steady progress and gains are what you’re looking for and are what you’re getting. It should feel like you could do more but hold back - humans are super compensators we only need a little bit of hard work to stimulate adaptations.
As training looks good, maybe check up on your nutrition and sleep instead?
Are your plans to race at all?
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First season structured training i got about the same watts maybe few more.
I’m just jealous - i have nothing else to add
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Enjoy the gains! There comes a point where you don’t see these large gains anymore so enjoy this time!
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Yeah thats normal. I started around 200. It took an entire year to get up to 260. That was as a 14-year-old who had the benefit of my body still maturing on my side. The only people who see more gains than that are extremely gifted. Or they are like me and are recovering from something. Once your body has hit a level of fitness before, it is much easier to hit it again. Just work on slowly chipping away. Slow and steady, don’t obsess over obsses overy FTP. Remember, FTP is just a number lol. Ive won race’s aginst kids with much higher FTP’s than me. Ive lost to kids with much lower FTP’s.
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Because that wouldn’t be sustainable.
I didn’t think it would be controversial to suggest that a 22yo athlete might at some point consider more than 2 hours* of hard work per week.
*minus warmups, cooldowns etc etc
…Plodding around for hours on end because a 70yo they’ve never met swears by it? 
You’re right that more hard work can come in time, although let’s not rush it. 
I do hope no one took that suggestion completely seriously, it was very tongue in cheek.
However I don’t see much of a reason to do more intensity while they are still improving, why change what is working?
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