I have a question as I have been finding different answers from various sources outside of this forum. I have been cycling at a high intensity for over a decade and I am currently 44 years old. I usually cycle around 7500-9000 km yearly, with more than 100k m climbing every year.
Throughout the years, I haven’t really focused on doing a Base phase. During the winter season in Poland, I prefer to ride (hard) on Zwift. However, I changed my routine last year and started doing less intense but longer rides throughout the year, starting early in the summer. When the fall season came, I switched to Zwift again. During this time, I have mainly been doing HR Z2-Z3 longer rides.
Recently, I completed a Ramp Test to check my performance, and to my surprise, my FTP went slightly down (by -2w). I was hoping for the opposite - a slight increase.
I read somewhere that it is normal for an athlete’s FTP value to decrease, or show little to no increase, if they have been focused on less intense work for a longer period of time. This is especially true when doing a Ramp Test without any (or very few) VO2Max intervals.
My question is - should I be worried? While I am incredibly happy with my aerobic engine and feel like I’ve never reached this level before, perhaps it’s time to slowly move forward and start doing more intense work?
I would appreciate any help or advice you can provide.
I am a relative beginner at cycling and training, but i am sure that someone will make the point that FTP is a single imperfect tool to measure fitness.
At the age of 48 i spent 9 months training for a long hard endurance event in July 2023. During that time my FTP didn’t change at all, when measured via a Ranp Test (which i hate doing). I think there a couple of reasons for this:
It may be normal for me to flat line my FTP at my age
I am naturally a sprinter. Endurance doesnt come naturally to me (my 5 second power is >13 W/kg)
My aerobic fitness improved in a different way. I could get more power for a given HR esepcially zone 1 and zone 2. Comparing HR-power curves can be quite instructive
2w is a pretty small change and ramp tests aren’t the be-all end-all. I would imagine your FTP would change by at least that much day-to-day just based on fatigue and life stressors. But, I imagine you were hoping for a decent increase.
“I am incredibly happy with my aerobic engine and feel like I’ve never reached this level before”. I mean isn’t that what it’s all about? For me, FTP isn’t a goal by itself, but really a training tool. If you are making progress toward real world goals like feeling fitter, performing better on longer rides or races, etc. then it is working.
My FTP can drop as low as 83% of my best 30-40 minute power for the year. This is the down time I give myself each year to simple ride, with no pressure to perform. It also allows time to get to other matters I wouldn’t be able to do during the 6-8 months of dedicated training.
After spending 16-20 weeks of structured base training, then 9 weeks of build, I can get it back to the same value, for a similar TTE. Being time constrained, the only way to get progression in my workouts is to start low and build up to the max allowable weekly duration; work backwards from 12-14 hours in a peak week, and I start on 6-7 hours in week 01.
from my amateur and non scientist view thats a pretty normal development of this one indicator called FTP. As already said it is just one performance indicator measured by FTP tests, but your body and the metabolic systems things could have changed, what needs to be checked in different ways.
What I mean is, you have a VO2 and a glycolitic capacity (VLaMax), if you train less intense your aerobic systems can improve while you are becoming more efficent for the long rides. I also could expect you have a little less power on the short efforts (4-8min), but your longer Sessions can be done by more average power.
At the end lot of maybe or could, most important you find the mix of that what`s fun for you. Otherwise Lab testing can bring a more clearer picture of your development.
Or if you want to prepare on a specific event, check what is the profile to be succesful, sprints? TimeTrial? Ultra Racing?
2 watts is probably within the standard deviation of many power metres and all sorts of minor factors could be responsible for such a small change in measurement.
If you want your FTP to be high for key events or a key period in the year, you have to be prepared to let it slip at other periods of the year. Otherwise you are just in a ‘grey zone’ the year round. That,p is fine of course if that is what you want.
Thanks for all the answers. I don’t worry I go back now. Will focus or more intense work soon and will re-take Ramp Test in few weeks. Will see how it compares to yesterday’s result.
I was mainly concern of that drop because I was never long-time trial rider (was extremely hard for me to keep FTP for more than 30-40mins - now I also know it’s normal as FTP is not max power for 1h but rather ~40 mins). Anyway, I was always puncher, my MAP was high, I could do extremely high output up to 5-7 mins. That’s why I had mixed feelings yesterday - Ramp Test is kind of this work, as last few mins are extreme.
