Setting a target for improvement / increased FTP

I’m looking to move from my current FTP of 190-ish to 230 by March of next year.

I’m currently in group rides getting my butt kicked by much more experienced riders. I would ride with slower people but the reality is that there aren’t a lot of us. (side rant / discussion about cycling not being super inclusive put aside for the moment)

So the way I have been progressing this year is by riding waaaay beyond my ability (+20%) and my ability slowly but surely catching up.

So when I start my offseason training (planning 2 rounds of FTP Builder with a rest week in between) in October / November do I set my FTP at current (190) or at the target (230)? I feel like if I set at current, I won’t hit the target.

Do not set it at a target…the point of structured training is to increase your FTP…your FTP comes after the fact, not before it.

By setting your FTP to a target, you will be carrying out intervals etc at % of your FTP which is much higher than it should be for the work you are supposed to be doing. E.g. threshold work will be at vo2 max power outputs…I almost guarantee you will fail workouts and become frustrated

I would highly recommend not focusing on achieving ‘X’ FTP and rather focus on the training process and building sustainable training habits. The gains will come.

Before you start your off season training…do a proper FTP test (not an 8 min, 20m or Ramp Test) like Kolie Moore Baseline Test (google it) and set your zones correctly and go from there.

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but that’s literally what I’ve been doing for the past 5 months.

Doing What?

Working above your FTP? How?

What has you plan looked like?

Specific intervals to build FTP builder or group rides? There is a difference.

Perhaps your FTP is just set incorrectly to start with…

no plan, just riding as hard and as fast as I possibly can, running max heart rate trying to keep up with people who can do 20mph without even sweating.

Then eventually I run out of gas and I have nothing left in my legs and pedal home with my tail between my legs.

That’s been my entire year. It’s not always been fun but it has produced results.

Color me confused. @Olly_Thomas just suggested you do a specific FTP test so that your planned FTP Builder can be as effective as possible. You have planned the FTP Builder because your current FTP improvement plan which involves riding with the group as long as you can is not getting desired results. The FTP test is not a FTP building plan, right?

This approach will only get you so far I’m afraid.

How long have you been riding and what is your weekly volume like?

I ask as depending on the above, you can see gains from taking the approach you have done so to date, but at some point you will plateau and need to incorporate some structured training with periodisation to see the same progress.

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All of the metrics expect your FTP to be at the current value, not a “hopeful” target. Using an incorrect number just makes everything else worse.

started riding July 2021, big heavy hybrid bike, made steady endurance gains, 15mi, 30mi, 40mi, 50mi, metric century, 1000 miles for the year. avg pace well under 13mph.

bought a road bike for 2022, zwifted all winter, built up to 100 miles a week, did a century for the first time on labor day weekend in 7+ hours. avg pace 13-ish.

Zwifted over the winter - increased to 150 miles a week, 2023 came out with the goal of doing a 160 mile “race” in August, did 3 or 4 centuries and one 140mile ride (11 hours), DNF the event due to mechanical, took a prolonged break and then started back on 100 miles / week through September.

very lazy winter heading into 2024 - zwifted but without a serious goal, did a century a month but only at 50% FTP - it was pretty painful.

Dad calls me in Feb - says he wants to do a weeklong ride in TN/MS in October, I say cool. Lots of elevation which I have no way to train for in Indy.

So I start doing group rides to train up my power level and all the group rides advertise “no drop” but are kinda sorta lying. I’ve been doing a 30ish mile ride on Mondays since March and a 50-ish mile ride on Saturdays since May. I am FULLY cooked by the time I get home from those rides.

I’ve tried to add a Thursday ride or even spin sessions on off days and I just don’t have the energy for it. I’ve also changed jobs this year and the new job is quite a challenge.

So there you go - that’s my biking career in a nutshell.

Also and I don’t mean this to be combative all of the advice I’ve received so far just doesn’t work for me and maybe that means cycling doesn’t work for me but I constantly feel like I’m “fighting” this hobby and tbh the only reason I started it was because my dad likes cycling and he gave me a couple bikes. I love the fitness side of it because unlike running or walking, I can ride on a bike pretty much “forever” but progressing to the point where I can enjoy this hobby with other people - that’s not working at all right now.

That’s over 20% improvement in just 6 months. Make sure to share your training diary if it works out, because lots of people will be interested…
Your approach of always riding hard will get you some spectacular results when just starting out but it will also lead to excessive fatigue, plateauing and almost surely a regress in results. This kind of training is not sustainable and your body can’t build because there’s no time for recovery. A complete beginner will respond to just about anything he does and may have spectacular gains in the first few months but once that initial period is over, you need careful planning to continue to grow. You must keep your body balanced or you will get injured/overtrained. Don’t set targets like that. Train, recover and measure improvement. If there is improvement, repeat. If there’s no improvement, try something a bit different.
There’s more then one way to raise performance and up till here it looks like you have only tried to pull up the ceiling. Try now to push up the floor by doing some lighter work. It will help you recover faster from hard efforts and it will create more ‘capacity’ which in turn can then be used again to work from the top. Find that right balance which works for you as an individual.
There’s a big chance that you will start to really enjoy cycling once you found that correct balance, simply because you will not always be ‘cooked’.

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Two things I learned when getting started eight years ago: 1. A group ride advertising 18-20mph means the average speed with stops is 20mph and we will be doing 22mph a lot of the time, and 2. “No drop” means there are regroups and I should expect to be dropped and hopefully make a new group with others at my level of fitness (but that doesn’t always happen).

@JASON_C_WILLIAMS first off you’ve made a lot of great progress! I grew up in flat land north of Indy, and then moved to California. It’s flat here, in between the coastal mountains and the Sierras. I bought a road bike and in 7 months did the zero to hero and finished a 120+ mile event over 5 mountain passes and 15,000’ of climbing - by mostly training on COMPLETELY FLAT local roads. I’m a bigger, heavy rider, and climb slowly (“always catching the group behind me” LOL). My 7 months of training was hard group rides on Wed and Sat. The Wed night ride I would get dropped after 10 minutes, and week after week get dropped a little later, and eventually managed to hang on for 40 minutes to the first regroup. What helped make that happen - going out by myself on Monday and riding as long as I could at threshold / FTP. At first it was 10 minutes, then I could do a couple of 10 minutes, then I would do a longer 20 minute effort, then add more time in another interval. Eventually on those solo Monday rides I would get to 40 minutes which was the goal for Wed night and hanging on to the first regroup (the 2nd regroup was after another 40 minute hammer fest). I tried riding “easy” on other days, but looking back, I was riding too hard on Tuesday and Friday, and that made it harder to make progress on Monday and Wednesday. Oddly, I made more progress doing “soft of structured” intervals than when I did “proper structured training.” Probably because I find it easier to go hard outside than inside on the trainer.

What I learned years later, after hiring a coach, is that I could get “fast” (for me) by consistently riding 4-5 days a week, a lot of endurance and 3 days/week of intervals (not too many intervals). Endurance adaptations is really about hours (how long your muscles are contracting) and not miles, and stacking up those hours week after week, year after year. Consistently. What works best for you may not work well for me.

Hope you find your way, and focus on enjoying time outside or on the trainer.

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@JASON_C_WILLIAMS

How many days a week do you train and for how long each day?

Can you post a screenshot of your fitness graph?

Can you post a screenshot of your last week calendar to have an idea of how your week looks?

Are you using a bike computer and if so which one?

I think you’re doing alright coming from being in an untrained state just 3 years ago.

It takes time to build fitness. And it takes time to condition the body to taking on the training adaptations from the increasing stress loads from structured training.

I’ve only been back on the bike consistently for about 12 months now, after about 5 years of barely touching the bike. In this last 12 months my FTP has increased from 193W to 279W. My FTP prior to my 5 year hiatus was ~340W. I knew I wouldn’t be back to 340W in one year but I just keep training consistently and increasing my training load, and resting, and the FTP slowly creeps back up. It’s not something you can set a target for. I might not get back to 340, I might get to 360. Who knows…

It takes times, consistency and patience.

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