ridethecliche

Yup, sounds like you need to up your FTP

Yay! What are you up to now Bd?

waterrockets 

Well, to really hit your FTP, you're going to need some sort of taper beforehand. So, to do these weekly would be a pretty funky training schedule.

Enthalpic

The best you can do for an hour is your FTP, by definition. Your FTP may be suboptimal but it is what it is.

waterrockets 

Ah, so you're saying go for that day's specific FTP?

Like if you've got a cold, and you're running 20W low, that's still your FTP?

SpongeDad

Weekly? I think you're correct. But monthly? Not so sure.

2x20s and SST are all well and good, but I'm convinced that if you're not hitting it for longer time periods with some frequency, say monthly, you won't be mentally or physically ready when the time comes. I wouldn't be surprised if real hammers around here probably race enough to get that long FTP hit every few weeks such that functionally they are "training" with long FTP efforts. Moi, not so much.

gsteinb

Generally my races are easier than my workouts. That said, I used to do a one hour climb on the compuwhizzer once a week. It was definitely counter productive. Too hardvto recover from , mentally more so than anything else. I find 3x20s to be just as effective.

cslone

If that's what you can hold for an hour, I guess technically by definition, yes.

VosBike

Was YMCA just the first poster in a thread to talk about graphs? what is the world coming to?

umd

I still haven't done a full hour all-out effort with my power meter... although it looks like I'll probably do an uphill TT in mid January. Ironically, at my current fitness an all-out effort should only take about 50 minutes or so, so I guess I still won't know. I have no desire to do a 40K TT anytime soon.

patentcad

The longest I've done is a 40 minute TT. 20 and 30 minute TTs too. I would imagine 60 minutes at FTP would be rather unpleasant indeed, considering the 176 average HR that is typical for me during such an effort. Considering the fact that my max is 185-188, 95% of max HR does suck if you're going to do it for over 2 minutes.

DanielS

A little off-topic.

I did a 50km (30 mi) TT earlier this year, basically for the experience. It was our state TT championships. I had no illusions of being competitive, but thought it would be a good laugh. Hmmm.

I had done a couple of 17km (10 mi) TTs before and that was it. I didn't really train for it, just whacked some aerobars on and went.

It was an out-and-back course on a shockingly windy day. I sat on 50-55 km/h on the way out. I thought I was doing great. After the turnaround, my speed dropped instantly to about 25-30 km/h. It was terrible.

I had sat at what I considered to be my 'threshold' on the way out (with the wind behind me), but I didn't have the stamina to back it up for what ended up taking well over an hour. Add to that the fact that the position was absolutely killing me as I never trained in it. I was getting passed quite regularly as well.

I couldn't walk properly for days afterwards. The position strained a groin muscle somehow that took months to go away. The stupidest and most painful race I've ever done.

The sick thing is that I'm going to do it again next year.

AlexTaylor

I thought an hour at FTP was, erm, how you obtained your FTP.
I'm very new to this power lark so I apologise if I'm saying something silly...

eskimo85

Not silly. That is the definition of ftp but the number can be estimated from a variety of other shorter tests. A common way is 95% of your 20 minute wattage. Another (i believe) is average of three 3 miles tests. Not too many people can stand an entire hour of all out to test, including me.

Yep

Ugh. Did you say you did this hour of FTP on a trainer? Holy sh*t. Hats off.

dmotoguy

20 minutes at ftp is really tough for me on the trainer... i can't comprehend 1hr. even 1hr of SST...

ridethecliche

1 hour of SST doesn't sound too bad. My body gets used to it after about 5-10 mins.

Normally I end up doing 3x20 for SST at 90%. It breaks up the monotony a bit. If I'm watching TV, then I tend to be fine for an hour. Plan on doing a lot more of that this winter with 6+ hours a week on the trainer and some addition outdoor riding.

gsteinb

isn't the winter almost over?

MDcatV

I agree on the ftp on the trainer, ya do get used to it though I havent gone beyond 20'.

SST, I find way more palatable in 2x30', 3x20', but mostly just do 2x20' during the week to keep trainer sessions at 1 hr. I mix up cadence each minute or 2 of the SST so that I'm staying mentally engaged, I shift between 3 cogs that have me doing cadence at low 80s, high 80s/low 90s, and around 100 rpm.

gsteinb

I'm sure we've been over this before, but could some define these cryptic FTP and SST things. Thanks.

edit: this is <3 2 Ride

merlinextraligh

True. 60 minutes is more than 20, but breaking the 60 min at FTP up into intervals such as 3x20 or 6x10 is going to give you pretty close to the same effect and a lot easier to do.

Other than developing the mental discipline to do the 1 hour effort (which I think you can get from actually doing 40k TTs) what's the training adaption you get from doing one 1 hour FTP effort versus 3x20?

The counterproductive aspect of it comes from the mental cost of doing 1 hour tt intervals regularly in training would impose.

For myself, I know that I just wouldn't stick to a plan that required me to regularly do 1 hour TT efforts in training.

Thus I would hazard to guess that for most people doing a series of steady state intervals is going to be an overall more effective approach than doing 1 hour FTP efforts.

MDcatV

FTP = functional threshold power, paraphrased by me as defined as the max average power (in Watts) one can sustain for 60 minutes.

Probably a more formal definition at link below if you're interested.
https://www.trainingpeaks.com/hunter/

SST = sweet spot training, 75% - 100% FTP, with 88% - 95% ftp being the "sweeter". article attached. You're probably already doing this on the ct just not formally calling it sst.

https://www.fascatcoaching.com/sweetspottraining.html

umd

gsteinb

thanks. gotcha. if you do that for an hour in training regularly you might die.

VosBike

I used to do ~50 minute FTP efforts (on a long climb, based on HR though, so not overly accurate).

I was a lot slower and fatigued then, and got to hating my bike about 3 weeks before racing started.

Who knows though? Maybe the extreme training stress then made me slower in the short term, but 6 months later(i.e. September that year, great timing) was when I made the big fitness jump that got me close to the level I'm at now

patentcad

I could never do an hour at FTP in anything besides an actual race. Not a friggin chance.