@Jorgito, I’d be curious to see a chart of your TSS over these past 2 years. As you said, something doesn’t seem right. I’m 10 years older than you, and I also do HV plans. I’ve only come to TR in November, and my FTP has continued to improve. One thing I don’t do is follow TR’s version of recovery weeks. I shoot for 50-60% of the TSS for the week preceeding. And now that RLGL is out, my approach has been validated.
I did TR for a little over a year last year and noticed I was around my max FTP based on my last few years history of using TR previously. I decided to go with a coach this year for several months based on my A-event since I wanted to try something different. Since you have experience being self-coached it would probably be worth your while and dollars to get a consultation from a coach to see what they think you could do to break your plateau.
Thanks for sharing this. I’m certainly no coach, and I slept in my own bed last night. 
But when I look at your chart for clues, I think I see a lack of consistency for steady FTP growth. You have many great TSS weeks, but then they often inversely taper downward for several weeks afterward.
Of course, neither of us are paid to train and ride bikes, and life gets in the way of our avocations. But that said, I think I’m seeing a lot of times where TSS week over week is stepping down and not stepping up to the next recovery week.
Hopefully some who know better than me will weigh in.
instead of coaching my self I decided just to follow the TR plans (AI coaching). But probably I need to apply some of my self-coaching experience with the TR Plans. You want sometimes to better trust the algorithms than your experience thinking you can make mistakes and the machine no. It is or an AI coaching or a human coach, so I guess it would be TR ai coach until the end of this year and then I will re-evaluate.
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Hi, thease are my FTP inprovements over the period of september 23 to february 2024. This is indeed my first period of structured workouts. I did General build 1>2>3 and build phase, did not do specialty phase and started base again. Missed specialty. I want to improve my endurance more than my FTP. I followed my plan at 95% of the time. Thanks Trainerroad!
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I started at 244 in January of 2023 and I’m currently up to 279.
I’ve done anywhere from 8-12 hrs a week as life allows but I find low volume plans with 3 workouts a week while filling my other days with outdoor and z2 rides to work the best for me.
Side note, I like to save the little image cards from your ai ftp update and skipped over the last one by mistake, is there anyway to see it again?
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Hi there,
New to the forum and was googling about FTP progression and this thread came up. I listen to the podcast regularly, and find it to be one of the best cycling podcasts on Youtube. Always very informative.
My FTP progression has been really solid over the last 2.5 years and 35,000km since coming back to cycling. I’m 40yrs old, raced as a kid, hardly touched a bike for 15-18 years and I’m distinctly oversized for cycling. 203cm and 101kg.
I got a power meter this time last year and on my first FTP test did 334w, if memory serves. I’ve had a really good year of training since then (very, very consistent) and my FTP is up to 416w now, according to intervals.icu.
That’s based on various high intensity shorter efforts (the hills here in SE Sweden aren’t that long), such as 504w for 5.5 minutes and 452w for 8.5 minutes, but also some long, long climbs in Norway over summer in the 368-403w range that were mostly around an hour, or just over.
I’m curious to see how high it goes. I would say that I am genetically predisposed to a very large CV capacity. Even at max effort, I don’t ever get out of breath - it’s lactate build up that stops me. I also really can’t push out that kind of power on the flat, and I’d say my FTP on the flat is about 10% lower.
I’d love to see 450w by the end of next year, and hopefully that sort of power will have taken me to the Gravel Worlds in the “Dads Club” age category 
Given the progression that I’ve had in quite a short time at a fairly old age, I wish I’d pushed myself to have a pop at cycling more seriously as a young adult. Life got in the way, sadly.
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FFS … that’s super impressive and pretty damn depressing for regular-Joe riders like me! 
Very well done on the significant increase from what was already a pretty strong starting position.
Keep pushing - if you don’t set yourself limitations you never know how strong you could eventually become 
Interested to know what is your other Sports / fitness history outside of cycling?
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You’ve got to remember that I’m very heavy (due to my height) so my watts per kilo aren’t that impressive!
I’ve flirted with various sports over the years:
Cycling: 13-16 yrs old (competed once at national level but didn’t do so well)
Taekwondo: 16-18 (competed a few times nationally, did very well due to outrageous reach)
Strongman/weight training: 18-23 (got up to 131kg, a gain of 54kg, competed 6 times in 2007, injured my back)
Not much between 23 and 37: Did a total of about 15 months weight training inbetween, bulking up to 120kg but generally weighing around 108-110kg. 3 months of indoor rowing in 2020-2021.
Since April 2022, I’ve been training with religious consistency and I think that’s been the main cause of my getting much fitter. Since September last year, I’ve been really consistent on my resistance training, though I don’t train lower body often.
I bought a Concept 2 rower a couple of months ago. I am intending to have a pop at the 40-49 age group half marathon world record in April. I am genetically gifted for rowing, as I’m extremely tall, and my strength endurance swings more towards the endurance side of things. I also think that the rower is a really good way to supplement cycling over winter when it’s snowy outside. I just wish it wasn’t so dull! 
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What have you put in for the minimum time period to use for estimating FTP, just out of interest?
It’s on the ‘settings’ page as ‘eFTP Min Duration’
I’m quite new to intervals.icu, so I haven’t changed any of the settings from standard. I am happy to be told if I am doing something wrong.
In the last month or two, I’ve done 5.5 minutes at 504w, 8.5m at 452w and a lumpy, technical 43m gravel course at a normalised 395w.
Earlier in the year (I’ve been to Norway a couple of times with a climbing focus), I’ve done multiple climbs of between 45 and 67 minutes at between 368w and 403w. No rest days, and often as parts of much longer rides. I love climbing, truly, but I’m not at all built for it.
I managed to get the fastest times for a 95kg plus rider on all three of Norway’s highest and toughest climbs, as well as Lysebotn (separately).
If I stopped strength training, I could easily strip 10kg of muscle off my upper body and get my FTP close to 5w/kilo, but I’d look like a lollipop. I like having a balance of strength and fitness.
Me with my 2XL Canyon Grail, for context:
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I did a string of long rides lately, and then I went on a 100 km ride last Friday where my FTP got estimated as 300 watts (12 minutes at 330). I’m not sure if that was accurate or not but checks out with other good times on segments I’ve been doing lately. I’ll try to validate it with a calibration and FTP test… For context I’d been hovering at around 280 watts for a while before this month with more volume.
IIRC the default value is 5 minutes, which seems boldly short to me. There’s a world of difference between my ability to throw down a 5 minute effort and how much I can hold for 45ish minutes.
I set mine to 15 minutes, which is probably a bit more reasonable.
Yeah, taking it from a 5 minute effort isn’t that useful. I’ll make the adjustment and thanks for the heads up.
Did 6hrs 14 minutes today at 334w NP. 2440m elevation and 161km of almost entirely gravel. Somewhat tired now.
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