Originally Posted by galen_52657
Since purchasing the Powertap about a month ago I can now document with the utmost accuracy my wintertime fitness decline (OH JOY!!!!)
My winter program is:
Saturday: hard group ride up to 4 hrs duration.
Sunday: easier solo or group ride or tandem ride 2-3 hours duration
Monday: off
Tuesday: Gym concentrating on legs, butt and core w/short stationary bike warm-up
Wednesday: 45 minute interval workout on trainer - 2 minutes on, 3 minutes rest w/ last interval
trying to maintain 525 watts for one minute - 8 total intervals
Thursday: same as Tuesday
Friday: off
When I look at my Wednesday workout my average power is dropping slowly but steadily and my average heart rate going up....
NOOOOOOO!
So I think I better back off on the weight workout and up the trainer workout and hopefully, with a few decent weekend rides I can reverse this trend!
PS. To any that think I should cut out the weights completely, at my age I must guard against loss of muscle mass so, no I am not going to cut them out completely 'till spring.
It seems like you're not really doing much in the way of maintaining or improving your
sustainable power output. Two minute intervals will help your anaerobic capacity, assuming you are hitting ~135% of your functional threshold power, but won't do much for your sustainable power output (assuming that is important to your goals).
If you want to maintain overall fitness, you could try adding some longer intervals; i.e. 2 x 20' @ 100-105% FTP, or 5 x 5' @ 113-120% FTP. And ride 4 times a week instead of just three.
BTW, FTP is the maximum power you can sustain for ~ 1hr.
FWIW, many people recommend not even touching anaerobic capacity intervals until a few weeks before your target event. Also, don't count on your group rides to help improve fitness. I discovered that shortly after getting my Powertap.
