(ow, this is on LV+, which means doing some 75 or 90 minute workouts in stead of the 60s and some outdoor rides, sometimes replacing the weekend ride, sometimes in addition, on avg ~5 hr a week/ 300TSS)
I havenāt popped in here in a long while! 2020 has been interesting, I started the year at 295w for my FTP during SSB2 HV, which looking back upon might have been a bit overreaching, because I went on vacation in Feb and after I came back I really had to set my FTP to 275 for a bit to handle workouts. I did all my training indoors and just following TR base-build-1/2 specialty
March 3-April 19: custom vo2 progression plan, went from 275-285
April 21-July 12: SSB1 and 2 HV: 285w throughout
July 14-Sept 6: Short Power Build: 290w through build
Sept 8-Oct 4: CX specialty: 295w just did half the plan
Oct 6-Nov 1: zwift āraceā season: 295w
Iāve been feeling good so Iām pushing to 300w for SSB1 HV, Iāve only done 2 workouts (Antelope and Geiger) but feeling good so far.
As I understood, you are a rower? If that is the case, you are likely rather lean and have a muscular, yet heavy upper body?
Kind of sucks to get rid of muscle mass, but if you were to fully commit to cycling, dropping back on muscle mass in your upper body for the sake of lower weight might be worth it.
Depending on where you ride. If you right flat TTs, you do not need to be mega light. For mountain stages, upper body mass will be a hindrance.
Losing upper body mass obviously is a decision to make. It has its pros and cons.
To loose mass, muscle and fat, a caloric deficit will likely be the best way to go. I dropped around 800daily kcal from my powerlifting diet, most of that proteins, and then the added energy need from cycling 10 hours a week did the Rest.
Got me around 18kg down while becoming stronger on the bike (much weaker on the bench on other lifts of course).
87kg:
Edit: but I lost the weight within 1 year: I am
Super slender by nature. Getting wide (in comparison to now) took me a lot more effort than looking like stop hunger poster boy.
The only remorse I have about it, is dropping Top end power. After 2 months of cycling I hit a peak power of 1421 Wattsā¦ nowadays 1100 is a very rare sighting on my Wahooā¦
Overall however, I gained 100+ Watts of my FTP and lost 40 pounds, so definitely a better cyclist now.
Iād try it gradually. Drop 200 or so kcal when you start, and then another 200 kcal daily after a few weeks to find your sweetspot to lose weight but not feel weak, and not have your body go into emergency mode.
Before bed or after you wake up, whenever is more convenient, try getting 30min of light spinning in everyday. When I say light, I mean light. It shouldnāt feel like youāre doing much of anything. Those daily 30min and resulting caloric burn add up quickly.
Edit: I dropped from 88kg to 73kg in about a year once I stopped the gym. Running is what really wiped the upper body muscle mass out. While Iāve been steady at 73kg for quite sometime now, Iām not really watching what I eat. If I clean up my diet, I can probably get to 70kg quickly w/out any suffering.
well I havenāt even gone a week in SSB1 and Iāve already increased my FTP to 305 from 300 and Iām almost feeling like I could go to 310 and be ok.
Reason being I had recently done some zwift racing and averaged 275 for an hour, so when it came time to go back on SSB1 HV and having intervals at 10-20mins this first week around 90% (which, for an FTP of 300w would be 270w), it didnāt seem like that would provide enough new stimulus to grow, considering my ability to do that for an hour already.
So I did Antelope yesterday based on 305w and Pettit today was super easy at 70%, but Iām going to get through maybe another week before I make any decisions on additional increase. Certainly donāt want to overdo it!
@hubcyclist the idea of a 20 min sweet spot interval is not to do something higher then what you can do for on hour.
A 60 minute threshold effort (which is in theory possible) is a big strain on your body, while sweet spot is much more easy to recover from (and therefore repeat). So for sweetspot, itās not what you can do, but what you can do+ recover from
Iām not saying that itās wrong to up your FTP, but you should do it for the right reason and I canāt find that in your post. Just replacing all sweet spot efforts for threshold is good recipe for failure in the long term. For a few workouts itās ofcourse no problem, there are also threshold workouts in the TR plans
I am 78 kgs with 1.88 cm height and want to loose some weight too. My last ramp test was 298w and now i am at the fourth week of ssb high volume 1. I guess my ftp is increasing but not sure of course. So i want to hit over 4 wkg.
So what would you suggest to me to get 74-75 kgs?
I am trying to step 10.000-15k per day and 1.800 caloris per day (without cycling workout i eat what i burnt in and after cycling).
Up to 225 this morning, from 210. Only 25w to go to get back to where I was this summer. But with a bit more weight lost now 71kg my w/kg should be getting better with every watt bump.
Goal is to enter the 300w club or surpass 4w/kg. What ever comes first.
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