You basically do base - build - maintain. You probably want to hit that maintenance phase by the spring or early summer at the latest. People without race goals often seem to make the mistake of miss timing the season. They jump into a plan in the middle of July thinking it will make them faster but it’s not going to do that until the season is over and they might even burn out by the end of the summer.
Last season I started building in January and by April went into maintenance mode which was (one interval session per week and a hard group ride on the weekend). I was making sure to go into the group ride fresh every Saturday.
Tim Cusick has talked about undulating periodization in webinars which is his stay fit idea.
I think he means putting some fondos, races or whatever events on your calendar and then focusing on being your best for them and not worry about the As or Bs at the group ride every weekend.
Did I miss something here? You have had consistency problems because kids/work/life (totally understandable!!), but managed to do 10-12 hours for about 4 months, at which point you noticed improvement. Otherwise, you’ve plateaued? Or was your plateau during that period, or ?
10-12 hours for four months is impressive (from one working parent to another), but I’m not sure only 4 months is enough time to know what kind of progress you’re capable of at that volume.
(For the record, I feel your pain. I’m at 10-15 hours per week the last 5 months and I’m sitting at a measly, overinflated 192 watts. So I’m projecting my optimism that maybe we both just need more time at higher volumes!)
No worries, not sure if I went into detail in my original post. I started my own program using CTS’ workouts, pretty standard progression stuff but instead of 3 interval days I only did 2, everything else was endurance rides or a group ride here or there.
I came into the program with a 259 FTP at 100kg, so 2.59w/kg. I tested again after the first block at 259 and 98 kg. I tested a final time in December after finishing up the short-power block at 260 watts and 95kg.
All that said, I could hold 260 watts for over an hour by the end of this training routine. But my TTE would drop like stone, I think I could hold 275 for no more than 10 minutes.
After some discussions with other athletes here, I’m beginning to wonder if my threshold would’ve improved if I did more anaerobic work. That’s something I’ve never actually trained because my anaerobic power is naturally high. I think 75% of my workouts have been threshold or below and the remaining 25% are VO2, but I’ve done very little anaerobic work.
Those two comments make me wonder if you could better invest a significant proportion of your current hours into other things to move the needle (recovery, nutrition, sleep, strength). It’s as important as your endurance training.
This is especially relevant as you say other coaches looked at your training at a deeper level than we have been able to here.
I would recommend checking out Matt Dixon. He’s big on making sure athletes are having a plan that fits into their life, from which they can progress.
He’s written two books that are focused on triathlon but all the take-always are relevant to cycling.
Beware: Total noob here.
TLDR: Unsure if more volume is always better. Resting enough may move the needle?
I think I can sort of relate with you. I cycle around 8-9 hours per week. My FTP is not high (210W), since I started eating better Ive gained weight and now I am at 2.9W/kg (around where I started 1.5 years ago).
Forever it seemed like I barely made progress: Feeling my legs all the time, being tired in general except on two consecutive rest days. I barely made it through the workouts, but had good compliance. I tried less intensity with same volume - I couldn’t bare long Z2 outside with all the hills where I live, compliance was bad (too much intensity).
Six weeks ago I started doing 3-4 rest days per week, two instead of one long (3+hours) rides, shorter easy Z2 rides for the other days. I am usually pretty rested for the long and intensive rides. Still at 8-9 hours.
And man, do I feel strong. Power output is nearly +20W for the same lengths. I can hold intervals forever (repeatable). Riding is hard, but I’m not totally destroyed afterwards. It just feels very different. I am looking forward to the planned ramp test next week.
Nice puzzle. The first two comments below caught my eye. Based on the first I assumed you are quite tall, based on the 2nd I started questioning that again. Your reference to powerlifting made me wonder as well. So the advanced search function from this forum could be used to pull up a 3rd quote from you from a different topic.
The short answer: 250-260W FTP for a 180cm male is smack in the middle of the Bell Curve (or slightly exceeding) for the volume you are training. What is not average is the volume of your muscles (and crank length).