What to do when you don't get an increase?

After 6 weeks of SSBIIMV and some of my best consistency, I was feeling really good. Had an event this last Saturday, set new 2,3, and 4 hr PR’s, Boosting my confidence in an impending increase from my 266w FTP.

Yesterday was my Ramp Test, I was feeling decently fresh and well recovered from Saturday’s effort. Result? 264w.

I had the best consistency I’ve had.
I got 8 hours of sleep each day.
My diet could have been better, but I maintained weight so at the very least I wasn’t way over or under eating.
I did usually replace the Sunday workout with a long outside ride.
I did have a bike fit done ~4 weeks ago.

I’m trying to identify why I might have not seen an increase and would love some input.

Was it that I was still carrying too much fatigue from Saturday’s effort?
Was it that my Sunday long rides were too much?
Was it my diet?
Was it my training plan?
Was it effects from the adjustments of the bike fit?
Was it something else?

I’m not upset that I had a decrease, but I did put a lot of effort in the last 6 weeks and I would like to try and pinpoint what might have happened and try to fix it.

Here is a link to my Calendar: - TrainerRoad

Hi
I have looked at your training.
Doing the 4hr+ ride on the Saturday, during your recovery week setting records tells you you had improved. Doing Records great.
BUT
You are meant to do the recovery week then test.
I Suggest no matter if you felt recovered, that 4 hour ride will have dented your muscles and depleted you a bit to recover within one day of recovery ride on the Sunday.
I Think your FTP will have increased with the new Records you have said.
TR normally suggest Retest… it does not take much out of you. But you are going to need to rest a bit… a couple of days. (No 4 hour rides the day before)
You could just add 10 watts to your FTP number and see how you feel during future training, if its still to easy add another 5W, not scientific but beats retest if you do not want to interrupt your training schedual.

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Unless you are a beginner or detrained, you can’t really expect your FTP to increase when doing almost exclusively sub-threshold efforts (i.e. base). This is especially true if you use a ramp test to estimate FTP. Yes, there are a few above-threshold efforts in SSB2 but those are pretty easy and just meant to give you a taste of what is coming. On the positive side, it sounds like you are primed and ready for a build phase. I bet you will see a nice increase then!

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That was another thought I had was that I hit the limit of where base would take my FTP. This is the first year of any kind of structure(started December of 2019), been riding for 6-7 years. Hope your right, I try not to get to wrapped up in it but it’s a bit disheartening to get a result you weren’t expecting.

one thing to consider is that you’re only looking at one metric…you may have the same watts but your capacity, or ability to repeat it, has increased.

you may be better in another area, but if you’re only looking at FTP, you could be thinking “my plan isn’t working”.

make sure you take a full inventory of things!

Brendan

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