Background:I am 30 years old, 60kg and start cycling from july, I got a smart trainer at novermber to train seriously.
First of all, I made a ramp test lite, got my FTP was 158w, I thought it was a little bit
overestimated. I used 150w to start indoor training.
I have been cycling like this plan for 5 weeks, but I dont feel any big differences from from beginning to end.
I have no idea if this plan is not good, or I need more weeks to focus on it.
VO2Max workouts generally won’t be as good for threshold increase as riding long intervals at just under threshold.
Start with 2x20min or 3x15min at ~95% with 5-10 min between.
The amount of LIT is quite high so I would expect, certainly for a beginning rider, that it drives FTP upwards.
On the other hand, if you really are a beginner, that amount might be too high and cause too much fatigue. How do you feel with this load? What if you take a FTP test after a couple of days rest & recovery?
It’s difficult to say with the little info you’re giving. You are still young and not overweight but you’re not telling us anything regarding former activity. Were you totally out of shape or have you been doing other sports before, giving you already a good aerobic condition?
One thing that you should ‘feel’ for sure, is that it get’s easier to hold that low intensity, especially on the longer low intensity ride. FTP is far from the only metric to show progression. What is happening to your avg HR for example during those low intensity rides? After 5 weeks of this, the avg HR should have gone down quite a bit for the same target power. And that would be proof of increasing stamina.
thanks for your reply, I will have a try!
Thank you for your reply so much!
I feel good with this load, can recover the next day. I plan to take a FTP test at the end of this month.
I’m 167cm, 62kg in July, max HR is 188. I rode casually at first, but in September I started aerobic riding with a heart rate of 140-150. Generally speaking I do four to five rides a week.I don’t do any other exercise either
This is the problem. I feel that maintaining low intensity has not become easier. From the picture, it seems that the same power only slightly reduces the heart rate, and sometimes even increases. I am not sure whether this is a problem with my condition that day or the change of the indoor temperature.
Ah, those are all indoor rides.
Make sure not to overheat! You need at least one really good fan, preferably 2 or 3. A good indication of enough air movement during Low intensity riding, is that almost no sweat is dripping from your face/corps. If you heavily sweat while riding low intensity, there is not enough air movement to cool you down. The sweat evaporation is the body’s way to cool down.
And drink enough water to stay hydrated.
Lack of cooling and hydration are typical causes of increased HR and lower performance. it’s very important to correct those situations when riding indoor.
I have very similar body composition, 167cm - 64kg, but I’m almost 30 years older. My HR max was similar at your age but is now quite lower (+/- 172). The HR for your low intensity rides looks good. Following MAF (180 - age), your easy riding should be right in that range.
With the total training time, you could try to do 2 harder sessions a week. But then follow the advice from @David_R. Ride longer intervals in SweetSpot or right under threshold. Make them progressive in total time.
Take your time to develop aerobic power and stamina before turning to VO2max or anaerobic work. Avoid those high intensities for now during training. You can do it during an occasional race every now and then, if that motivates you, but keep the dose low.
Those are pretty long rides. What does your HR look like over the whole 2+ hours? Does it stay steady or does it climb throughout? Whether your heart rate drifts upwards a lot is a good indicator of whether you are truly riding below the lower threshold or not.
I agree that even if you don’t feel fatigued, you probably are fatigued with this workload, so some rest before an FTP test should help give you a more accurate reading of your progress.
Otherwise I’d consider moving to 2 workouts a week with higher intensity included. At an FTP like yours, which is still in the beginner range, you will probably make more progress more quickly with some more intensity built in. David’s suggestion is good.
In Zwift there are built in workouts that are fine, honestly at first you can almost pick anything and it will give you improvement. Once you get that FTP up past 250w you will start to see diminishing returns and will need more structure.
Thank you very much for the advice. I have a fan to cool down, but I still have some sweat on my face that needs to be wiped off with a towel. It seems I need to make some adjustments in terms of cooling.
I will adjust the training plan and ride some intervals in SweetSpot or under threshold.
Thank you for your reply.
My HR usually stay steady during the riding, but sometimes it drops.
I’m going to take a few days off before doing the FTP test at the end of the month, david’s advice is great, I’ll give it a try.
As others have said, that’s a lot of volume. I’ve been riding for several years and with the help of an app i have been building up the last 3 months from around 6 to 10hours per week (the app actually wanted to do a bit more but I think 10h inside is enough)
Last summer my car broke down and was in the garage for several weeks, so I had to cycle a lot (12-14h). I mainly did z2 but in spite of having done several years of structured training that increase in volume even only z2 was a lot
Who made your training program?
Thank you for your reply. I made the training program by myself.
I read on social media and forums that a rookie like me could do four days a week of aerobic cycling and one day of high-intensity cycling.
Try to lower the overall time you spend on zone 2; as a beginner, I think you can give up all sessions on the weekend. I only spent 7 hours when I started my schedule, and I recovered well and increased 10w per week. Good rest is very, very important.
In short,
别急
感谢大佬建议哇，我会试一下。
Why don’t you get a coach or at least an app to get an idea how a structured plan works. I did trainerroad for 2 years and now JOIN Cycling which I prefer as the workouts are simpler and can be done outside too, is more polarised so less fatigue and will slowly ramp you up to use youravailable hours, and very important much cheaper
Thanks for the advice, I will have a look at both.
Four to five days a week is very good. The frequency of your training sessions is the first priority when starting. 5 shorter sessions a week gives better results then 3 longer ones. Once you are thriving alone with that frequency, you can make the sessions longer.
This off course is all very dependent on the time you have available but I always use the ‘FIT’ acronym to explain this. Frequency, Intensity, Time (duration). Unfortunately the order is not correct. It must be FTI (Frequency, Time/duration, Intensity).
Theoretically, the best thing to do is first increase the frequency of your sessions to what can fit in your schedule. If you can handle it, do 45-60min per session to start.
Then increase duration of all but one session. Keep one session short to promote recovery. Then further increase duration of ONE session, which will be your Long session. You end up with one short, one long and several ‘normal duration’ sessions, where ‘normal’ is something in the neighbourhood of 90min. With 5 sessions a week, this would result in 6-10 hours a week.
Do all the above with recovery as the primary judgement to make decisions on increasing load.
If you really are a beginner, this can take easily a year, often even 2 seasons during which you will gradually get fitter and build a solid base condition. During all that time, don’t train intensity. Just do some intensity when going out for a group ride with friends or during a race (indoor or outdoor).
At this point you’re really ready for HIT training sessions.
Your words inspired me a lot and I learned a lot.
I think I was a little too hasty. Cycling is a long-term sport and cannot be rushed.
That’s a bit on the high side.
Workouts in general assume some level of underlying fitness and if you just started training that takes time to build. Try to focus on HR for Z2 and power will come up naturally as your body makes the adaptations the training produces.
Don’t be greedy and follow the process.
Thanks a lot for your advice! intervals.icu shows my HR of Z2 is 138 - 152. maybe I should keep my HR in the low range of it, or just around 140.
Perhaps change your HR zone settings to another preset, eg. Coggan (5) and you will see a more realistic representation of your zone 2.
Many athletes that I’ve engaged with have a zone 2 that is set too high. Breathing is out of control and they believe they are still in zone 2.
